The Crisis from Within: Historians, Theory, and the Humanities

Download or read book The Crisis from Within: Historians, Theory, and the Humanities written by Nigel Raab and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-05-19 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Crisis from Within, Nigel Raab explores weaknesses that emerge when using interdisciplinary theories in historical analysis. With chapters that focus on knowledge, language, memory, imagining and inventing, and civil society, the analysis reveals how theoretical applications can be the source of interpretive confusion. By drawing from a global range of historical works, Nigel Raab demonstrates how this problem concerns all historical sub-fields. From science in the seventeenth century to communism in the twentieth century, theories often overdetermine analysis in a way the historian never intended. After the enthusiastic reception of theory for over a generation, The Crisis from Within argues that the time has come to pause and think seriously about how we wish to proceed with theory.