However, the highlights are more theoretical and discuss the archive and study of history in a Fun, readable cultural theory. But even those parts, if you enter with the proper mind-set (I'm going to learn a little something new today!), can be interesting. What keeps me from giving the book a 5-star rating is that there are a few sections about, say, the history of paper (was it?) that are a little dry. I started reading this in a graduate level film studies course and finished on my own time. There's much more archival and historical theory out there, and I daresay most of it's better.moreįun, readable cultural theory. Beyond that gratifying point I didn't see any need to slog through this book more than I already have. I enjoyed reading the analysis of Derrida's Archive Fever, probably because my and Steedman's conclusions are the same. Others have commented that the theory turned them off, but I wish there had been more: it was the concrete examples that felt random and uncontextualized to me. It's rambling and unstructured, making it extremely hard to follow or focus on or maintain any interest in. Actually I quit 50 pages in yet it took me a year and a half to go that far. I enjoyed reading the analysis of Derrida's Archive Fe People have been recommending this to me forever and it's likewise taken forever to get through it. People have been recommending this to me forever and it's likewise taken forever to get through it. This unique work will be welcomed by all historians who want to think about what it is they do.more Steedman begins by asserting that in recent years much attention has been paid to the archive by those working in the humanities and social sciences she calls this practice 'archivization.' By definition, the archive is the repository of 'that which will not go away,' and the book goes on to suggest that, just like dust, the 'matter of history' can never go away or be erased. Drawing on her own published and unpublished writing, Carolyn Steedman has produced a sustained argument about the way in which history writing belongs to the currents of thought shaping the modern world. Dust: The Archive and Cultural History considers our stubborn set of beliefs about an objective material world inherited from the nineteenth century with which modern history writing and its lack of such a belief, attempts to grapple. Dust: The Archive and Cultural History considers our stubborn set of beliefs about an objective material world inherited from the nineteenth century with which modern history writing and its lack of su In this witty, engaging, and challenging book, Carolyn Steedman has produced an original and sometimes irreverent investigation into how modern historiography has developed.

In this witty, engaging, and challenging book, Carolyn Steedman has produced an original and sometimes irreverent investigation into how modern historiography has developed.

Dust the archive and cultural history