ABSTRACT
The Routledge Companion to Cultural History in the Western World is a comprehensive examination of recent discussions and findings in the exciting field of cultural history.
A synthesis of how the new cultural history has transformed the study of history, the volume is divided into three parts – medieval, early modern and modern – that emphasize the way people made sense of the world around them. Contributions cover such themes as material cultures of living, mobility and transport, cultural exchange and transfer, power and conflict, emotion and communication, and the history of the senses. The focus is on the Western world, but the notion of the West is a flexible one. In bringing together 36 authors from 15 countries, the book takes a wide geographical coverage, devoting continuous attention to global connections and the emerging trend of globalization. It builds a panorama of the transformation of Western identities, and the critical ramifications of that evolution from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century, that offers the reader a wide-ranging illustration of the potentials of cultural history as a way of studying the past in a variety of times, spaces and aspects of human experience.
Engaging with historiographical debate and covering a vast range of themes, periods and places, The Routledge Companion to Cultural History in the Western World is the ideal resource for cultural history students and scholars to understand and advance this dynamic field.
General Introduction Part 1: Shaping Western Identities, 1250–1500 Introduction 1. Culture of Politics in the Middle Ages: Rituals to create and confirm political order 2. Cultures of Conflict 3. Material Cultures of Living: Spatiality and Everyday Life 4. Travel, Mobility, and Culture in Europe 5. Cultural Encounters and Transfer 6. Practices of Communication: Literacy, Gestures and Words 7. Making Sense of One’s Life and the World 8. Conceiving of Medieval Identities 9. Body, Sexuality and Health 10. Contextualizing Medieval Emotions Part 2: Europe meets the Globe: Western Identities in Question, 1500–1750 Introduction 11. God’s Green Garden: Interactions between humans and the environment 12. Material Cultures of Living: European Attitudes to Novelties 13. Reverence, Shame and Guilt in Early Modern European Cultures 14. Making Sense of the World: The Creation and Transfer of Knowledge 15. The Self: Representations and Practices 16. The Experience of Time 17. Written Communication: Publication, Textual Materiality and Appropriations 18. Mobility, Global Interaction and Cultural Transfers in the Age of Cultural Encounters 19. Faces of Power and Conflict Part 3: The Western World and the Global Challenge, from 1750 to the present Introduction 20. Enlightenment, Revolution and Melancholy 21. Individualism and Emotion in Modern Western Culture 22. Health and Illness, the Self and the Body 23. Family, Home and Variations in Domestic Life 24. Natural Disasters and Modernity 25. Cultures of Mobility 26. The Cultural Life of the Senses in Modernity 27. Media and Mediatization 28. Indigenous and Postcolonial Cultures 29. Violence and Trauma: Experiencing the Two World Wars 30. The Cold War Cultures and Beyond 31. The Culture of Commerce and the Global Economy 32. Epilogue: Cultural History in Retrospect
