Pasts And Futures: Or What Is History For?
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
What is the true purpose of history — and who does it serve? In Pasts and Futures: Or What is History For?, Jean Chesneaux launches a provocative and intellectually rigorous challenge against the established traditions of historical scholarship, arguing that the discipline of history has long been weaponised by ruling classes and institutions to legitimise power and suppress dissent. Written in the spirit of radical critical theory, this work presents history not as a neutral chronicle of events, but as a contested battleground where the past is perpetually rewritten to shape the present and control the future. With a foreword by the distinguished historian Geoffrey Barraclough, Chesneaux's argument draws on Marxist and post-colonial frameworks to interrogate the ideological underpinnings of how societies construct and consume their own histories. His prose is urgent and combative, dismantling academic complacency with surgical precision while championing a history that is engaged, democratic, and responsive to the needs of ordinary people. A work that remains startlingly relevant in any era where the past is politicised, Pasts and Futures leaves the reader questioning not just history, but who holds the pen that writes it.
Author: Jean Chesneaux
Format: Hardback
Published: 1978, Thames and Hudson
Genre: History
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
What is the true purpose of history — and who does it serve? In Pasts and Futures: Or What is History For?, Jean Chesneaux launches a provocative and intellectually rigorous challenge against the established traditions of historical scholarship, arguing that the discipline of history has long been weaponised by ruling classes and institutions to legitimise power and suppress dissent. Written in the spirit of radical critical theory, this work presents history not as a neutral chronicle of events, but as a contested battleground where the past is perpetually rewritten to shape the present and control the future. With a foreword by the distinguished historian Geoffrey Barraclough, Chesneaux's argument draws on Marxist and post-colonial frameworks to interrogate the ideological underpinnings of how societies construct and consume their own histories. His prose is urgent and combative, dismantling academic complacency with surgical precision while championing a history that is engaged, democratic, and responsive to the needs of ordinary people. A work that remains startlingly relevant in any era where the past is politicised, Pasts and Futures leaves the reader questioning not just history, but who holds the pen that writes it.