Cohen, one of the West's pre-eminent historians of China, traces the development of his work from its inception in the early 1960s to the present, offering fresh perspectives that consistently challenge readers to think more deeply about China and the historical craft in general--Provided by publisher.
In this book, first published in 1984, Paul Cohen examines the Catholic revival among the young French intelligentsia prior to the First World War. He explores this intellectual revival by studying that period’s "talas", the Catholic students at the elite Ecole Normale Supérieure, and devotes his attention to some of the highest-profile coverts, such as Charles Péguy and Jacques Maritain. This title will be of interest to students of nineteenth- and twentieth-century religious and social history.
This handsome volume features 65 full-color maps charting Manhattan's development from the first Dutch settlement to the present. Each map is placed in context by an accompanying essay.
"When people experience a traumatic event, such as war or the threat of annihilation, they often turn to history for stories that promise a positive outcome to their suffering. During World War II, the French took comfort in the story of Joan of Arc and her heroic efforts to rid France of foreign occupation. To bring the Joan narrative more into line with current circumstances, however, popular retellings modified the original story so that what people believed took place in the past was often quite different from what actually occurred. Paul A. Cohen identifies this interplay between story and history as a worldwide phenomenon, found in countries of radically different cultural, religious, and social character. He focuses here on Serbia, Israel, China, France, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain, all of which experienced severe crises in the twentieth century and, in response, appropriated age-old historical narratives that resonated with what was happening in the present to serve a unifying, restorative purpose. A central theme in the book is the distinction between popular memory and history. Although vitally important to historians, this distinction is routinely blurred in people's minds, and the historian's truth often cannot compete with the power of a compelling story from the past, even when it has been seriously distorted by myth or political manipulation. Cohen concludes by suggesting that the patterns of interaction he probes, given their near universality, may well be rooted in certain human propensities that transcend cultural difference."--Publisher's description
Cohen critiques the work of leading postwar scholars and adamantly opposes reading China through the lens of Western history. More specifically, he counters the strong ethnocentric bias pervading three major conceptual frameworks from the 1950s and 1960s.