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Practical Knowledge and History
Being, preservation, and time
History and Time
As a highly respected field of investigation, history has long suffered from a theoretical crisis. Initially dominated by modernist philosophies, then postmodern philosophies, the field has more recently been rocked by a crisis of faith.
According to results from a nationwide survey, the American Historical Association (AHA) reported that trust in historians, nonfiction books, college professors, high school teachers, and museums had declined significantly from a study just over 20 years prior (Thelen and Rosenzweig, 1998). This comes on the heels of a long-standing debate between two different types of historiography: public history and academic history.
The distinction often comes down to this: a harsh distinction between “practical history” and “scholarly history.” Historic preservation, especially built environment preservation, has often claimed it is more “practical” and does real, economic good on the ground. While preservation has significant potential to do economic good, to claim this in a vacuum is a disservice to its true social impact.
Pierre Bourdieu’s Outline of a Theory of Practice adds significant depth to the debate over what exactly constitutes preservation. Historians should view the…
