The Role of History in Practice

History in Practice 2nd edition, Professor Ludmilla Jordanova: Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2016, ISBN: 135002482×, 9781350024830, 240 pages

Reviewer:

This material is a review of the second edition of the book ‘History in Practice by Professor Ludmilla Jordanova. The reading of the book is impressing and interests more as in her new edition she analysis the discipline’s tasks it takes on and its complexities. Secondly, this edition takes into consideration the works of historians and views history as being academic discipline academically and involves the use of the ideas which are historical in the extensive world. The Professor in her revised edition has added a new section that addresses the role of globalization, globalization and the current fixation for the military history.  Ludmilla Jordanova is a professor of Visual Culture and History at Durham University and Co-Director in the department of the Centre for Visual Arts and Culture in the same institution in the UK. Earlier at King’s College she was Professor of Modern History, London. She also served in the department of Centre for Research as Director in Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts in Cambridge University. Her recent publication is The Look of the Past Visual and Material Evidence in Historical Practice.

This work by professor Jordanova ‘History in Practice is one of the latest century’s most  level-headed and humane thoughts on the practice of history and its cultural significance…to both academic historians and undergraduates’ as acknowledged by the American History Journal. The quote by the group shows a precise figure or representation of the piece by Professor Jordanova, this publication is not only inspecting the role played by the historians in the big context, expounding on the complex nature of history but it also focuses on how history relates to other disciplines and what is born from such relationships, whether there are any conflicting views, how valid is the knowledge gained historically, the impacts of the time passage resulting to a multitude of new issues of concern. It is an authentic tribute to Professor  Jordanava’s work pertaining how the publication is structured and the detail it contains whereby she breaks down and comes up with a historical basis other fields of history which are previously put into consideration and others which were put out of the account and considered beforehand.

Starting with the analysis of history about Ludmilla Jordanava, she is a member of the Royal History Society. She is also a Professor at Durham University serving in the department of history. Ludmilla stands out as one of the leading experts in Britain concerning history within other fields such as culture, politics art, science among others. This is evident through works of publications such as,’Self Portrait: Renaissance to Contemporary’ and other more.

In the second edition of her publication in, professor Jordanava revised her work and she included sections which tackle the increased use of the internet, globalization, world history, the recent world events, and the military history. This may raise a question on how relevant piece by Jordanova maybe with time, though the publication with time at one point will become outdated regardless of the date of publication, but also some parts like those covering the issue of internet and that of the current world events may be out of concentration though that was expected. Other sections likes of the current fixation with military history may be carried ahead extensively to the then current military fixation period in which are present. Consequently, pertaining to the relevance and usability of Ludmilla’s publication normally in some of the sections it portrays how long it mat last. Some of the exact points made by Professor Ludmilla Jordanova contain a lot of essence in the discussion even in the years to come.

In a political perspective, ‘History in Practice’ interlinks practically as well as academic field the historical practice into the views of the world. ‘History in Practice is not a publication that will renew or revise the political structure but it will proclaim and make public the politics although theories and favours which are political are ever subject to intensive inspection.

The piece ‘History in Practice’ improves the relationship between other disciplines attached to history and academic history. She gives more insight concerning the topics she had earlier in the older publications tackled. The topics are gender and culture and she concentrates on a significant part of her work covering how the history and politics relate. She considers politics place in political history and on the other hand came up with a conception that politics and history are both distinctive naturally. Professor Ludmilla explains the importance of the presence of politics in the historical field as, ‘allowing historians a favoured insight into the past’.

The Professor’s theme which is the main derived from her work revolves the misinterpretation and status of historical knowledge. The main theorem which professor Jordanova emphasizes much in his book is the basic ideology of misinterpretation and misunderstanding of how history works. She goes forth to mention about an attribute that it is normally very difficult to exclaim and explain the historical works and knowledge without first knowing about how this discipline operates and the mechanisms which it uses to address her ideas. The historian who therefore wants to study and argue in defense of the history should make it the subject matter of it and ensure that they not only follow what they have found it being contemplated but also should develop a sense of criticism about the historical work of others. In her book, she has pointed out that historian scholars should be much focused with adding up new concepts and methods of understanding history as not only as a developed phenomenon but also as a specialization which has its a dynamic aspect of changing in the day in day out.

Professor Jordanova has structured her book according to different chapters whereby he points out different ideas on each topic. This makes it much easier for the reader to acknowledge and use an idea of what is going on in each topic. This encourages the readers to develop and phase of a vivid image about a certain subject matter which is portrayed in each chapter. There are many ideas running through each topic a state which compliments ideas in other topics which gives a great proof to the composition of the image portrayed in her book. The state of a modernist in her book she does not identify the past experiences about the world past history but concentrates much on the history of the world from the five years. She does not concentrate on historical developments which have faced the world history but describes her view on her own platform which scholars have identified her as centric in her book. In her book, the way she points out ideas seems so complicated as it’s clearly noticed that she tends to translate theorems flow into writing which shows that she is deriving a subsequent analysis to meet a particular conclusion.

It is quite clear when she outlines the concept of the historical positioning of the periodic times. She identifies that the rate of which people depend on the past experiences to construct the present not always legit as it is often misunderstood and overemphasised. The periodic framing has drawn a lot of critics which has made it that she was only writing for publicity and not for the real description of people’s culture. It is well clear that the critic she gives about the periodic times to constitute the percent is very debatable. She points out that the works of history cannot be associated with experiences of decades while there are more current factors shaping world history like of globalization, genocide and technological advancement. She is not ready to accept the fact that history and emotional feeling of the people are intertwined and writing a book with fulfilling self-concern is much devastating and employs a lot of misunderstanding by the scholars as the past is of great importance to current and can’t be ignored.

 As per Jordanova’s book, her main focus can be associated with the aim of opening up new debates about the historical experience and the new perspective theorem. She intends to break the chronology that historical state of affairs is not a real phenomenon but according to her it’s a testament of unproven truths. She intends to show that she has just a concluding experience which she uses to link one statement and ideas on one topic with the others so as to ensure that her works look complete and true. She ignores many truths about history and stresses that in her book mostly in the Las chapter, she acknowledges that the world revolves around percent evidence about the history and the real Genesis of historical facts has no firm evidence that they should be set apart.

Joradovas book is one of the books the world of historians has witnessed raising a lot of questions in the minds of the readers. The flow of ideas drawing up of topics and conclusions makes a lot of question on whether she was writing for the personal attainment of her career or to explain the real facts of the world. Her book has opened a lot of debate and follows up by historians to exclaim and argue about the terms used like of globalization and meaning of genocide topics according to her. Therefore her book is of high importance but opens up room for more research and study of the facts which she has discussed. The interested learners have a privilege of having the intense study of the book. The relevance of the book will remain on some topics regardless of some sections getting outdated with time.

Reference

Jordanova, L., 2016. History in Practice, Bloomsbury Publishing.