Carr's purpose is to outline a distinctively phenomenological approach to history. History is usually associated with social existence and its past, and thus his inquiry focuses on our experience of the social world and of its temporality. How does history bridge the gap which separates it from its object, the past? Against this background a phenomenological approach, based on the concept of experience, can be proposed as a means of solving this problem, or at least addressing it in a way that takes us beyond the notion of a gap between present and past.

"For description and defense of the narrative configurations of everyday life, and of the practical and social character of those narratives, there is no better treatment than Time, Narrative, and History.... a clear, judicious, and truthful account, provocative from beginning to end." -- Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology "... a superior work of philosophy that tells a unique and insightful story about narrative." -- Quarterly Journal of Speech

The Experience of History is a lively and passionate introduction to the field that encourages students to seek and appreciate history inside the classroom and beyond. This work: Defines history as a discipline and the role of historians within it Addresses the analytical and critical thinking skills needed to engage with the past Discusses a variety of important topics in the study of history, such as historical evidence, primary documents, divisions of history, forms of historical writing, historiographical traditions, and recent categories of historical research Written by a renowned scholar of European history, this work helps students to become discerning examiners of history and historical evidence in a variety of modern settings like art, architecture, film, television, politics, current events, and more. Learn more about the author and his passion for history in this interview with popular blog Five Books: http://fivebooks.com/interview/ken-bartlett-renaissance-books/.

This volume brings together a collection of recent essays on the philosophy and theory of history. This is a field of lively interdisciplinary discussion and research, to which historians, philosophers and theorists of culture and literature have contributed. The author is a philosopher by training, and his inspiration comes primarily from the continental-phenomenological tradition. Thus the influence of Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Ricoeur can be discerned here. This background opens up a unique perspective on the issues under discussion. Phenomenology differs from other philosophical approaches, like metaphysics and epistemology. Phenomenology asks, of anything that exists or may exist: how is it given, how does it enter our experience, what is our experience of it like? Very broadly we can say: phenomenology is about experience. At first glance, this approach may seem ill-suited to history. In our language, “history” usually means either 1) what happened, i.e. past events, or 2) our knowledge of what happened. We can’t experience past events, and whatever knowledge we have of them must come from other sources—memory, testimony, physical traces. But the author maintains that we actually do experience historical events, and these essays explain how this is so. Sitting at the intersection of philosophy and history, and divided into three parts—Historicity, Narrative, and Time, Teleology and History, and Embodiment and Experience—this is the ideal volume for those interested in experience from a philosophical and historical perspective.

Central to the historicizing work of recent decades has been the concept of contingency, the realm of chance, change, and the unnecessary. Following Nietzsche and Foucault, genealogists have deployed contingency to show that all institutions and ideas could have been otherwise as a critique of the status quo. Yet scholars have spent very little time considering the genealogy of contingency itself—or what its history means for its role in politics. In Contingency and the Limits of History, Liane Carlson historicizes contingency by tying it to its theological and etymological roots in “touch,” contending that much of its critical, disruptive power is specific to our current historical moment. She returns to an older definition of contingency found in Christian theology that understands it as the lot of mortal creatures, who suffer, feel, bleed, and change, in contrast to a necessary, unchanging, impassible God. Far from dying out, Carlson reveals, this theological past persists in continental philosophy, where thinkers such as Novalis, Schelling, Merleau-Ponty, and Serres have imagined contingency as a type of radical destabilization brought about by the body’s collision with a changing world. Through studies of sickness, loneliness, violation, and love, she shows that different experiences of contingency can lead to dramatically dissimilar ethical and political projects. A strikingly original reconsideration of one of continental philosophy and critical theory’s most cherished concepts, this book reveals the limits of historicist accounts.

Written in 1985, this book cuts through the Cold War stereotypes of the Soviet Union to arrive at fresh interpretations of that country's traumatic history and later political realities. The author probes Soviet history, society, and politics to explain how the U.S.S.R. remained stable from revolution through the mid-1980s.

An essential collection of 569 primary documents, which explores the events, major and minor, that have shaped our nation and illuminates every aspect of its history Featuring hundreds of voices spanning three centuries, the documents included in The American Experience express the development of a nation as told through the eyes of those who lived during its most seminal and pivotal moments. These are the firsthand words of the famous, infamous, and forgotten, and they come in many forms, including speeches, articles, essays, public records, landmark legal documents, poems, news reports, and more. Organized chronologically from 1763 to the present, The American Experience follows the great tapestry of our history as it weaves its way through the creation of the republic in its nascent years; civil war and reconstruction; the progressive era; boom, bust, and the New Deal; world wars; the Cold War; social upheaval of every kind; and much more. A sample of the 569 documents includes: the Iroquois Federation Constitution; Barack Obama's Philadelphia speech on race; Transcripts from the Salem Witch Trial; Roe v. Wade; The Declaration of Independence; The Federalist Papers; The Monroe Doctrine; Baseball's Original Rules; "I Have a Dream"; Henry David Thoreau on Civil Disobedience; Sojourner Truth on Women's Suffrage; Ulysses S. Grant on the Assault at Cold Harbor; The G.I. Bill; Journals of Lewis & Clark; George W. Bush's 9/11 Address; George Washington's Farewell Address; The Louisiana Purchase; The Kinsey Report; and hundreds more. An essential collection for students, The American Experience is also of major appeal to historians, news junkies, and the civicor politically-minded across the political spectrum.