Histories of the Self

Personal Narratives and Historical Practice

By: Penny Summerfield

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Hardcover | 11 July 2018 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Hardcover
204 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
23.39 x 15.6 x 1.27

Hardcover

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Histories of the Self interrogates historians' work with personal narratives. It introduces students and researchers to scholarly approaches to diaries, letters, oral history and memoirs as sources that give access to intimate aspects of the past.

Historians are interested as never before in how people thought and felt about their lives. This turn to the personal has focused attention on the capacity of subjective records to illuminate both individual experiences and the wider world within which narrators lived. However, sources such as letters, diaries, memoirs and oral history have been the subject of intense debate over the last forty years, concerning both their value and the uses to which they can be put. This book traces the engagement of historians of the personal with notions of historical reliability, and with the issue of representativeness, and it explores the ways in which they have overcome the scepticism of earlier practitioners. It celebrates their adventures with the meanings of the past buried in personal narratives and applauds their transformation of historical practice.

Supported by case studies from across the globe and spanning the fifteenth to twenty-first centuries, Histories of the Self is essential reading for students and researchers interested in the ways personal testimony has been and can be used by historians.

Industry Reviews

'In recent years the personal narrative has moved to the heart of historical research. Driven by the cultural and emotional "turns", historians seek to understand the relationship between the intimate and the public, developing a wide range of methodological approaches to their analysis of personal testimony. As a leading scholar in the field, Summerfield proves an invaluable guide to the ways that individuals have tried to make sense of their experiences, and how historians can approach these "histories of the self" as a means of, themselves, making sense of the past.'

Lucy Noakes, University of Essex, UK

'The book provides an accessible introduction to the varied ways in which historians have drawn on letters, memoirs, diaries and oral history to write histories of ordinary people in often extraordinary times. A particular strength is its focus on issues of gender, sexuality, class and race.'

Lisa Kirschenbaum, West Chester University, USA

'In an age of personal testimony, this book is essential reading for historians and students. Summerfield expertly analyses and clarifies the ways in which historians have used personal narratives and dealt with issues of authenticity, reliability and representativeness. More nuanced understandings of the value of individual stories, and the relationship between personal experience and public discourse, increasingly permeate society. In this timely book Summerfield makes it clear that they are essential for our understanding of the past, in all its complexity and diversity.'

Dr Carole Holohan, Assistant Lecturer in Modern Irish History, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

'The turn to the self has been a major feature of recent historical work. Penny Summerfield's new book, presented with clarity, measured judgement and a wealth of examples, provides an indispensable and authoritative guide to the variety of ways in which historians have made use of personal testimony to explore the history of selfhood.'

James Hinton, Emeritus Professor, University of Warwick, UK

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