The Culture of Politics: The Politics of Culture

Joanne B. Freeman
In a way, there is an unspoken subtext to this "state-of-the-field" panel on political history. For at least some of us, there is a whisper of uneasiness associated with this topic, a small internal voice concerned about the health and survival of political history. In the relatively recent past, the flowering of social history challenged and eventually toppled the dominance of political history—a fine development, given that in the long reach of history politics is only part of the story. Unfortunately, this shift of balance left some scholars with a bad taste in their mouths. [Read more] ...