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Imagining the Past: East Hampton Histories
How we make history--and what we then make of it--is engagingly dramatized in T. H. Breen's portrait of a 350-year-old American community faced with the costs of its “progress.” In the particulars of one town's struggle to check development and save its natural environment, Breen shows how our sense of history reflects our ever-changing self-perceptions and hopes for the future.Breen first went to East Hampton, the celebrated Long Island resort town, to write about the Mulford Farmstead, a picturesque saltbox dating from the 1680s. Through his research, he came across a fascinating cast of local characters, past and present, who contributed to, invented, and reinvented the town's history. Breen's work also drew him into contemporary local affairs: factionalism among residents, zoning disputes, and debates over resource management. Driving these heated issues, Breen found, were some dearly held notions about a harmonious, agrarian past that conflicted with what he had come to know about the divisiveness and opportunism of East Hampton's early days.
Imagining the Past is about the interplay between some of the East Hampton histories Breen encountered: the “official” histories of many generations, the myths and oral traditions, and the curious stories that Breen, as an outsider, discerned in the town's rich holdings of artifacts and documents. With a warm yet wry regard for human nature, Breen obliges us to confront our pasts in all their complexities and ironies, no matter how unsettling or inconvenient the experience.
Imagining the Past is about the interplay between some of the East Hampton histories Breen encountered: the “official” histories of many generations, the myths and oral traditions, and the curious stories that Breen, as an outsider, discerned in the town's rich holdings of artifacts and documents. With a warm yet wry regard for human nature, Breen obliges us to confront our pasts in all their complexities and ironies, no matter how unsettling or inconvenient the experience.
320 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1989
24 people want to read
About the author
T.H. Breen
55 books29 followersTimothy H. Breen is the William Smith Mason Professor of American History at Northwestern University. He is also the founding director of the Kaplan Humanities Center and the Nicholas D. Chabraja Center for Historical Studies at Northwestern. Breen is a specialist on the American Revolution; he studies the history of early America with a special interest in political thought, material culture, and cultural anthropology.
Breen received his Ph.D in history from Yale University. He also holds an honorary MA from Oxford University. In addition to the appointment at Northwestern University, he has taught at Cambridge University (as the Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions), at Oxford University (as the Harmsworth Professor of American History), and at University of Chicago, Yale University, and California Institute of Technology. He is an honorary fellow of the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford University. He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and has also enjoyed research support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Humboldt Foundation, the National Humanities Center, the Mellon Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation. An essay he published on the end of slavery in Massachusetts became the basis for a full-length opera that was produced in Chicago. He has written for the New York Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, American Scholar, the New York Times, and the London Review of Books.
Breen received his Ph.D in history from Yale University. He also holds an honorary MA from Oxford University. In addition to the appointment at Northwestern University, he has taught at Cambridge University (as the Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions), at Oxford University (as the Harmsworth Professor of American History), and at University of Chicago, Yale University, and California Institute of Technology. He is an honorary fellow of the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford University. He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and has also enjoyed research support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Humboldt Foundation, the National Humanities Center, the Mellon Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation. An essay he published on the end of slavery in Massachusetts became the basis for a full-length opera that was produced in Chicago. He has written for the New York Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, American Scholar, the New York Times, and the London Review of Books.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 22, 2019
3.5 stars.
Pretty decent history and story of the town of East Hampton. I loved how upfront the author was about all of his research. I have actually never read a book from an historian’s point of view, so this was really interesting to me to see how the public’s interpretation of history can change throughout time. I enjoyed learning the story of East Hampton’s founding and how it’s commercial aspects shaped its its citizens.
One thing I noticed was that I think Breen, the author, was biased towards the Indians that lived in the area because of some of the wording he used to describe the Montauks. I also thought Breen sometimes gave an unnecessary amount of detail about the background of the these people he was meeting in to find out more about the town and the warehouse. About the warehouse, I hope they can one day do an archeological project in the Northwest bay to find it — I’m very curious about its exact whereabouts and what Samuel Mulford did in this complex.
That’s all for this review. I am interested to discuss this book more in my history class.
Pretty decent history and story of the town of East Hampton. I loved how upfront the author was about all of his research. I have actually never read a book from an historian’s point of view, so this was really interesting to me to see how the public’s interpretation of history can change throughout time. I enjoyed learning the story of East Hampton’s founding and how it’s commercial aspects shaped its its citizens.
One thing I noticed was that I think Breen, the author, was biased towards the Indians that lived in the area because of some of the wording he used to describe the Montauks. I also thought Breen sometimes gave an unnecessary amount of detail about the background of the these people he was meeting in to find out more about the town and the warehouse. About the warehouse, I hope they can one day do an archeological project in the Northwest bay to find it — I’m very curious about its exact whereabouts and what Samuel Mulford did in this complex.
That’s all for this review. I am interested to discuss this book more in my history class.
July 12, 2009
This is the story of an East Hampton (NY) community and how its history has been written, revisited, and rewritten over the course of three and a half centuries. Written by a brilliant historian, it's a thorough consideration of the intersection of local politics and local history, and a must-read for anyone interested in this part of Long Island and how the "received wisdom" regarding the past is constantly negotiated and renegotiated.
February 4, 2012
What a great book about the trials and tribulations of being a public historian. The writing is great and the book flows well. One of my all time favorites.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews