Our Shadowed Present: Modernism, Postmodernism, and History

by J.C.D. Clark

This important and stimulating volume seeks to defend the value of historical understanding in the face of social-scientific and especially postmodernist criticisms of historical method and the usefulness of history for understanding the present. Clark argues that modernism and postmodernism can both be explained historically; that we cannot emancipate ourselves from the past; that historical identities are deeply rooted; and that the interplay of ideas in the public arena frequently disguises these truths, but does not abolish them.

Genres: History

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Jonathan Charles Douglas Clark is the Joyce C. and Elizabeth Ann Hall Distinguished Professorship of British History Emeritus at the University of Kansas. He received his undergraduate degree at Downing College, Cambridge and prior to his move to Kansas in 1996 he taught at Peterhouse, Cambridge and All Souls College, Oxford.