Historians can play a dynamic and essential role in contributing to public understanding of the past, and those who work in historic preservation, in museums and archives, in government agencies, as consultants, as oral historians, or who manage crowdsourcing projects need very specific skills. This book links theory and practice and provides students and practitioners with the tools to do public history in a wide range of settings. This new edition reflects how much the field of public history has changed in the past few years, with public history now being more established and international. New chapters have therefore been added on the definition, history, and international scope of public history, as well as on specific practices and theories such as historical fictions, digital public history, and shared authority.
Split into four sections, this textbook provides approaches, methodologies, and tools for historians and other public history practitioners to play a bigger role in public debates and public productions of historical interpretations:
Whether in public history methods courses or as a resource for practicing public historians, this book lays the groundwork for making meaningful connections between historical sources and popular audiences.
Thomas Cauvin is ATTRACT-Fellow and Associate Professor of Public History at the Centre for Contemporary and Digital History, University of Luxembourg. He leads the Public History as the New Citizen Science of the Past project (2020–2025) and was the President of the International Federation for Public History from 2018 to 2021.