In this collection of essays, of which four are published here for the first time, Peter Burke explores the theory and practice of what is called "new cultural history." He focuses on the varieties of cultural history which have emerged since the writings of Jacob Burckhardt and Johan Huizinga. No new orthodoxy has emerged to replace the classic model, Burke suggests, despite the importance of innovative approaches inspired by social and cultural anthropology. After discussing the origins and identity of cultural history, Burke explores the social history of dreams and the relation between history and social memory. He presents five case studies addressing topics in the history of early modern Italy. Each is located on the frontiers of cultural history--between learned and popular culture, between the public and the private spheres, and between the serious and the comic. Burke then turns to the encounter between Europe and the New World and to the phenomenon of cultural translation in the etymological, literal, and metaphorical senses of the term. He concludes with two theoretical investigations: one on the history of mentalities and one which asks why cultural history seems doomed to fragmentation.

What is Cultural History? has established itself as an essential guide to what cultural historians do and how they do it. Now fully updated in its second edition, leading historian Peter Burke offers afresh his accessible guide to the past, present and future of cultural history, as it has been practised not only in the English-speaking world, but also in Continental Europe, Asia, South America and elsewhere. Burke begins by providing a discussion of the ‘classic’ phase of cultural history, associated with Jacob Burckhardt and Johan Huizinga, and of the Marxist reaction, from Frederick Antal to Edward Thompson. He then charts the rise of cultural history in more recent times, concentrating on the work of the last generation, often described as the ‘New Cultural History'. He places cultural history in its own cultural context, noting links between new approaches to historical thought and writing and the rise of feminism, postcolonial studies and an everyday discourse in which the idea of culture plays an increasingly important part. The new edition also surveys the very latest developments in the field and considers the directions cultural history may be taking in the twenty-first century. The second edition of What is Cultural History? will continue to be an essential textbook for all students of history as well as those taking courses in cultural, anthropological and literary studies.

What is Cultural History? has established itself as an essential guide to what cultural historians do and how they do it. Now fully updated in its second edition, leading historian Peter Burke offers afresh his accessible guide to the past, present and future of cultural history, as it has been practised not only in the English-speaking world, but also in Continental Europe, Asia, South America and elsewhere. Burke begins by providing a discussion of the 'classic' phase of cultural history, associated with Jacob Burckhardt and Johan Huizinga, and of the Marxist reaction, from Frederick Antal to Edward Thompson. He then charts the rise of cultural history in more recent times, concentrating on the work of the last generation, often described as the 'New Cultural History'. He places cultural history in its own cultural context, noting links between new approaches to historical thought and writing and the rise of feminism, postcolonial studies and an everyday discourse in which the idea of culture plays an increasingly important part. The new edition also surveys the very latest developments in the field and considers the directions cultural history may be taking in the twenty-first century. The second edition of What is Cultural History? will continue to be an essential textbook for all students of history as well as those taking courses in cultural, anthropological and literary studies.

Over the past 30 years, cultural history has moved from the periphery to the centre of historical studies, profoundly influencing the way we look at and analyze all aspects of the past. In this volume, a distinguished group of international historians has come together to consider the rise of cultural history in general, and to highlight the particular role played in this rise by Peter Burke, the first professor of Cultural History at the University of Cambridge and one of the most prolific and influential authors in the field. Reflecting the many and varied interests of Peter Burke, the essays in this volume cover a broad range of topics, geographies and chronologies. Grouped into four sections, 'Historical Anthropology', 'Politics and Communication', 'Images' and 'Cultural Encounters', the collection explores the boundaries and possibilities of cultural history; each essay presenting an opportunity to engage with the wider issues of the methods and problems of cultural history, and with Peter Burke's contributions to each chosen theme. Taken as a whole the collection shows how cultural history has enriched the ways in which we understand the traditional fields of political, economic, literary and military history, and permeates much of what we now understand as social history. It also demonstrates how cultural history is now at the heart of the coming together of traditional disciplines, providing a meeting ground for a variety of interests and methodologies. Offering a wide international perspective, this volume complements another Ashgate publication, Popular Culture in Early Modern England, which focuses on Peter Burke's influence on the study of popular culture in English history.

Across the humanities and the social sciences, disciplinary boundaries have come into question as scholars have acknowledged their common preoccupations with cultural phenomena ranging from rituals and ceremonies to texts and discourse. Literary critics, for example, have turned to history for a deepening of their notion of cultural products; some of them now read historical documents in the same way that they previously read "great" texts. Anthropologists have turned to the history of their own discipline in order to better understand the ways in which disciplinary authority was constructed. As historians have begun to participate in this ferment, they have moved away from their earlier focus on social theoretical models of historical development toward concepts taken from cultural anthropology and literary criticism. Much of the most exciting work in history recently has been affiliated with this wide-ranging effort to write history that is essentially a history of culture. The essays presented here provide an introduction to this movement within the discipline of history. The essays in Part One trace the influence of important models for the new cultural history, models ranging from the pathbreaking work of the French cultural critic Michel Foucault and the American anthropologist Clifford Geertz to the imaginative efforts of such contemporary historians as Natalie Davis and E. P. Thompson, as well as the more controversial theories of Hayden White and Dominick LaCapra. The essays in Part Two are exemplary of the most challenging and fruitful new work of historians in this genre, with topics as diverse as parades in 19th-century America, 16th-century Spanish texts, English medical writing, and the visual practices implied in Italian Renaissance frescoes. Beneath this diversity, however, it is possible to see the commonalities of the new cultural history as it takes shape. Students, teachers, and general readers interested in the future of history will find these essays stimulating and provocative.

How the simple commodity of coffee came to rewrite the experience of metropolitan life When the first coffee-house opened in London in 1652, customers were bewildered by this strange new drink from Turkey. But those who tried coffee were soon won over. More coffee-houses were opened across London and, in the following decades, in America and Europe. For a hundred years the coffee-house occupied the centre of urban life. Merchants held auctions of goods, writers and poets conducted discussions, scientists demonstrated experiments and gave lectures, philanthropists deliberated reforms. Coffee-houses thus played a key role in the explosion of political, financial, scientific and literary change in the 18th century. In the 19th century the coffee-house declined, but the 1950s witnessed a dramatic revival in the popularity of coffee with the appearance of espresso machines and the `coffee bar', and the 1990s saw the arrival of retail chains like Starbucks.

Winner of the 2020 PROSE Award for Multivolume Reference/Humanities The world of work saw marked developments over the course of antiquity. These were driven by social and economic changes, especially growth in market trade and related phenomena like urbanization and specialization. Although the self-sufficient agrarian household continued to prevail, economic realities everywhere intervened. Corresponding changes include the emergence of archaeologically distinct workplaces and even, in certain times and places, preindustrial factories. A diversity of workplace cultures often defied dominant gender and other social norms. Across an increasingly connected Mediterranean world, work contributed to and was in turn structured by mobility. Other striking developments included the emergence of state-sponsored leisure activities that offered respite from toil for all social classes. Through an exploration of these and other themes, this volume offers a reappraisal of ancient work and its relationship to Greek and Roman culture. A Cultural History of Work in Antiquity presents an overview of the period with essays on economies, representations of work, workplaces, work cultures, technology, mobility, society, politics and leisure.