Analysing Historical Narratives

For all of the recent debates over the methods and theoretical underpinnings of the historical profession, scholars and laypeople alike still frequently think of history in terms of storytelling. Accordingly, historians and theorists have devoted much attention to how historical narratives work, illuminating the ways they can bind together events, shape an argument and lend support to ideology. From ancient Greece to modern-day bestsellers, the studies gathered here offer a wide-ranging analysis of the textual strategies used by historians. They show how in spite of the pursuit of truth and objectivity, the ways in which historians tell their stories are inevitably conditioned by their discursive contexts.

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Narrativity and Historical Writing: Introductory Remarks
Stefan Berger and Chris Lorenz
Part I: Professional History Writing
Chapter 1. Thucydides' Narrative of the Vanquished: Gazing Death and Tensions of Historical Time
Alexandra Lianeri
Chapter 2. History beyond Narration: The Shifting Terrain of Bloodlands
Wulf Kansteiner
Chapter 3. Secularization Narratives in 1950s Europe: Sources, Characteristics, and Effects
Herman Paul
Chapter 4. Narratives of Global History: Expounding Global Interconnections - A Comparison of Donald R. Wright's History of Niumi and Giorgio Riello's History of Cotton
Gabriele Lingelbach
Part II: School Textbooks in History
Chapter 5. A Two-Faced Narrative: Ancient Persia in German Textbooks since 1900
Björn Onken
Chapter 6. Historicizing Present-Day European Societies by Telling Medieval (Hi)story in Schoolbooks
Daniel Wimmer
Chapter 7. Narrative Structure of High School World History Textbooks in Postwar Japan
Naoki Odanaka
Chapter 8. Historical Maps as Narratives: Anchoring the Nation in History Textbooks
Mario Carretero and Everardo Perez-Manjarrez
Part III: Histories in Various Media
Chapter 9. Social Media and Multimodal Historical Representation: Depicting Auschwitz on Instagram
Robbert-Jan Adriaansen
Chapter 10. The Civil Rights Movement (Re)Narrated
Kenan van de Mieroop
Chapter 11. Media Narratives of 1970s Left-Wing Terrorism
Jörg Requate
Chapter 12. Time Travel as Running around in Circles: The Popular Historical Novel and the Sense of Historicity in Today's Society
Daniel Fulda
Part IV: National Histories
Chapter 13. National Narratives in Chinese Global History Writing
Xupeng Zhang
Chapter 14. Narratives of Brazilian History: From Liberal to Politically Incorrect
Valdei Araujo
Chapter 15. Changing LUK: Nation and Narration in the First and the Third editions of Life in the United Kingdom
Arthur Chapman
Analysing Historical Narratives: Concluding Remarks
Stefan Berger and Chris Lorenz
Index