John Burrow

Este libro sin precedentes describe el impacto intelectual que ha tenido el estudio y el análisis del pasado en el mundo occidental durante los últimos dos mil quinientos años.La historia intelectual de Europa se construye habitualmente a partir de las historias de la filosofia, de la ciencia, de la religion, del arte o de la literatura pero, como nos dice el profesor Burrow: La historia de las ideas sobre el pasado, tal como la expresan los textos historicos contemporaneos, y el valor que les atribuimos en el presente, es tambien parte de esa historia intelectual. Este libro, que recurre no solo a esos textos historicos, sino a todo tipo de epicas, cronicas, romances y encuestas, nos brinda la historia de la historia desde Herodoto a nuestros dias.El autor de este libro analiza y discute las distintas interpretaciones de una historia de Occidente que, en sus versiones republicana, cristiana, constitucionalista, sociologica, romantica, liberal, marxista o nacionalista, es no solo imprescindible para comprender nuestro pasado, sino fundamental para entender el presente.

This unprecedented book, by one of Britain's leading intellectual historians, describes the intellectual impact that the study and consideration of the past has had in the western world over the past 2500 years, treating the practice of history not as an isolated pursuit but as an aspect of human society and an essential part of the cultural history of Europe and America. It magnificently brings to life the work of historians from the Greeks to the present, including Livy, Tacitus, Bede, Froissart, Clarendon, Gibbon, Macaulay, Michelet, Prescott and Parkman, explaining their distinctive qualities and allowing the modern reader to appreciate and enjoy them.But it also examines subjects as diverse as the new perspectives brought about by the rise of Rome, the interests of medieval chroniclers, the introduction into historical narratives of what the eighteenth century called 'sentiment', the effects of Romanticism and the emergence towards the end of the nineteenth century of an historical profession. It sets out to be not the history of an academic discipline, but a history of choice: the choice of pasts, and the ways they have been demarcated, investigated, presented and even sometimes learned from as they have changed according to political, religious, cultural and (often most importantly) patriotic circumstances.

Composed during the fourteenth century in the English Midlands, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight describes the events that follow when a mysterious green-coloured knight rides into King Arthur's Camelot in deep mid-winter. The mighty knight presents a challenge to the court: he will allow himself to be struck by one blow, on the condition that he will be allowed to return the strike on the following New Year's Eve. Sir Gawain takes up the challenge, decapitating the stranger - only to see the Green Knight seize up his own severed head and ride away, leaving Gawain to seek him out and honour their pact. Blending Celtic myth and Christian faith, Gawain is among the greatest Middle English poems: a tale of magic, chivalry and seduction.

This unprecedented book, by one of Britains leading intellectual historians, describes the intellectual impact that the study and consideration of the past has had in the western world over the past 2500 years, treating the practise of history not as an isolated pursuit but as an aspect of human society and an essential part of the cultural history of Europe and America. It magnificently brings to life the work of historians from the Greeks to the present, including Livy, Tacitus, Bede, Froissart, Clarendon, Gibbon, Macaulay, Michelet, Prescott and Parkman, explaining their distinctive qualities and allowing the modern reader to appreciate and enjoy them. But is also examines subjects as diverse as the new perspectives brought about by the rise of Rome, the interests of medieval chroniclers, the introduction into historical narratives of what the eighteenth century called sentiment, the effects of Romanticism and the emergence towards the end of the nineteenth century of an historical profession. It sets out to be not the history of an academic discipline, but a history of choice: the choice of pasts, and the ways they have been demarcated, investigated, presented and even sometimes learned from as they have changed according to political, religious, cultural and (often most importantly) patriotic circumstances. The book also aims to change our perceptions of the main turning points in the history of history. It dispels persistent myths, such as that the ancient historians wrote only contemporary history and had a purely cyclical view of time, that the eighteenth century lacked understanding of the past and that the critical study of sources began only with Ranke in the nineteenth century. The ideas that historians have had about both their own times and their civilization emerge freshly and often unexpectedly. Burrow argues that looking at the history of history is one of the most interesting ways we can try to understand the past. Nothing on the scale of or with the ambition of his book has yet been attempted in English.

Composed during the fourteenth century in the English Midlands, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight describes the events that follow when a mysterious green-coloured knight rides into King Arthurs Camelot in deep mid-winter. The mighty knight presents a challenge to the court: he will allow himself to be struck by one blow, on the condition that he will be allowed to return the strike on the following New Years Eve. Sir Gawain takes up the challenge, decapitating the stranger - only to see the Green Knight seize up his own severed head and ride away, leaving Gawain to seek him out and honour their pact. Blending Celtic myth and Christian faith, Gawain is among the greatest Middle English poems: a tale of magic, chivalry and seduction.

El libro forma parte de una ambiciosa colección sobre la cultura europea auspiciada por Yale University Press y que será publicada por Crítica en su totalidad. Este volumen acota el período de 1848 a 1914 (desde las revoluciones burguesas y el origen de la modernidad hasta el estallido de la Gran Guerra y de las vanguardias europeas), que estudia a partir de una serie de temas básicos desde los que explicar las tendencias y tensiones de casi un siglo de cultura europea: la relación entre cultura y ciencia, el nacionalismo y la modernidad, las construcciones y los desafíos planteados a la idea de sujeto. Una admirable síntesis de la modernidad, en la que historia, política, sociedad, arte, literatura y filosofía van de la mano en una perspectiva de conjunto.

La historia intelectual de Europa se construye habitualmente a partir de las historias de la filosofía, de la ciencia, de la religión, del arte o de la literatura, pero, como nos dice el profesor Burrow, la historia de las ideas sobre el pasado, tal como la expresan los textos historicos contemporaneos, y el valor que les atribuimos en el presente, es tambien parte de esa historia intelectual.Este libro, que recurre nosolo a esos textos historicos, sino a todo tipo de epicas, cronicas, romances y encuestas, nos brinda la historia de la historia desde Herodoto a nuestros dias. Desde las ideas de virtud republicana de la primera Roma hasta la reivindicacion moderna de las minorias oprimidas, pasando por las constituciones antiguas, las nociones de progreso de la sociedad civil o la creacion del estado nacion, el autor de este libro analiza y discute las distintas interpretaciones de una historia de Occidente que, en sus versiones republicana, cristiana, constitucionalista, sociologica, romantica, liberal, marxista o nacionalista, es no solo imprescindible para comprender nuestro pasado, sino fundamental para entender el presente.