This is a book for anyone interested in history, what it is and where it comes from. Engaging and challenging, it confronts us with the many 'histories' that exist and have existed around the world.

'Marc Ferro is remarkable in writing history enjoyed both by scholars and by people curious about the world in which they live and its past.' - Natalie Zemon Davis

Autorentext

Marc Ferro (1924-) President of the Association of Research at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and co-director of the prestigious French review Annales.

Klappentext

Use and Abuse of History has become a key text of current historiography; this is a book that poses fundamental and disturbing questions about the use and abuse of history. Engaging and challenging, this book confronts the reader with the many 'histories' that exist and have existed around the world, from the Zulu kingdoms to Communist China. This title has now been extensively revised by Marc Ferro, a well respected historian, and presents the different narratives that constitute the histories of countries as diverse as India, Iran, Trinidad and the United States makes for fascinating reading in their own right. What makes this book so valuable, though, is what these narratives tell us about the societies which create them - how much is history distorted in order to condition the minds of those who are taught it? Use and Abuse of History appeals to anyone with a general interested in history.

Zusammenfassung
Engaging and challenging, this extensively revised key text of current historiography confronts the 'histories' that exist and have existed around the world, from the Zulu kingdoms to Communist China.

Inhalt
1 'White history', a vestige: Johannesburg 2 'Decolonized history': Black Africa 3 Some remarks on a variant: Trinidad and the exorcist reaction 4 India: history without identity 5 The history of Islam or the history of the Arabs 6 The Persian and Turkish variants 7 From Christ the King to the nation-state: history in European eyes 8 Aspects and variations of Soviet history 9 History: the safeguard of national identity in Armenia 10 History in profile: Poland 11 A note on the history of China 12 History in Japan: a code or an ideology? 13 Deconstructing 'white history': the USA 14 'Forbidden history': Chicanos and Aborigines 15 Analysis of a crisis: 19391945 revisited