Irfan Habib (AMU): The Philosophy of History. The Journal of Contemporary History is at the crossroads of past and present: A special issue on "contemporary" history and the historical discipline. The new dangers of politicization: With the past ceasing to be a body of knowledge and becoming a public issue, a new form of political influence has exerted itself upon historians. Scott McLemee reviews The Terror of History: On the Uncertainties of Life in Western Civilization by Teofilo R. Ruiz. The persistence of the past: The triumph of liberal democracy was supposed to herald an end to history — but it has returned with a vengeance. A review of Deep History: The Architecture of Past and Present by Andrew Shryock and Daniel Lord Smail. History Heroes: Smithsonian profiles Marc Bloch. Mysteries and Masterpieces: Adam Kirsch on the latest stage in the “American conquest of the Middle Ages”. From Perspectives on History, William Cronon on the public practice of history in and for a digital age; and Anthony T. Grafton on historians at work — public history. Reflections on writing history: A review of Political Concepts and Time.
