"This is a Borzoi book"--Title page verso. Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents:
Part One. On history and the struggle to get it right -- Considering the slave trade : history and memory -- Context in history -- Three trends in modern history -- History and the creative imagination -- The losers -- Part Two. The peripheries of the first British Empire -- Thomas Hutchinson in context : the ordeal revisited -- England's cultural provinces : Scotland and America (co-authored with John Clive) -- Peopling the peripheries -- The search for perfection -- Appendix.
Summary:
"From one of the most respected historians in America, twice the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, a new collection of essays that reflect a lifetime of erudition and accomplishments in history. The past has always been elusive: how can we understand people whose worlds were utterly different from our own without imposing our own standards and hindsight? What did things feel like in the moment when outcomes were uncertain? How can we recover the uncertainties of the past, before the outcomes were known? What kind of imagination goes into the writing of transformative history? Are there latent trends that distinguish the kinds of history we now write? How unique was North America among the far-flung peripheries of the early British empire? As Bernard Bailyn argues in this elegant, deeply informed collection of essays, history always combines approximations based on incomplete data, with empathic imagination and the interweaving of strands of knowledge into a narrative which also explains. This is a stirring and insightful work drawing on the wisdom and perspective of a career spanning more than five decades--a book that will appeal to anyone interested in history"--From publisher's website.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.