The Importance of Cultural History
Culture is the collection of ideas, attitudes and beliefs that distinguishes a group of people from another. This includes a wide variety of practices, ranging from the artistic creations of a particular civilization to its most basic values, assumptions and prejudices. These range from magical beliefs and gender roles to racial hierarchies and political structures. Cultural history seeks to understand how these various elements interact to create the distinctive cultural characteristics that distinguish a specific society or historical period from another.
This is a complex concept with many different interpretations. The term originated as an adjective, designating the cultivated state of a person or group, and eventually came to mean a set of shared attitudes, beliefs, and values. A society’s values may be learned and passed on from generation to generation through teaching, oral tradition, or even written works. A person’s culture is also determined by their surroundings, such as the family or community in which they live.
As the discipline of cultural history has evolved, scholars have sought to understand how a society’s values are determined and communicated through its art and literature. The anthropological approach has been a key influence on this new genre of historical writing, as has a postmodern awareness of the collapse of disciplinary boundaries and the ubiquity of interconnectedness.
The emergence of this new form of history is most evident in the growing number of books that address premodern Europe, which has been a focus of several influential studies, including David Sabean’s Power in the Blood and Carlo Ginzburg’s reconstruction of the cosmology of a sixteenth-century Italian miller in The Cheese and the Worms. These examples reflect the increasing permeability of scholarly borders and the tendency for different historical disciplines to borrow from one another, a development that has been facilitated by increased access to diverse textual sources.
A major function of cultural history is to promote intercultural respect and understanding. This is a role that museums, in particular, have a vital part to play, particularly as the world becomes increasingly globalized and interconnected through mass migration and travel. As such, the exhibition of artifacts from other cultures can act as a powerful catalyst for discussion and debate, encouraging empathy and cooperation between members of different social, ethnic and religious groups.
In addition, the preservation of cultural heritage is an important task, especially in times of conflict and war. For example, in Ukraine, archivists, curators and librarians have worked to preserve the country’s vast collection of historical artifacts during the ongoing civil war, which threatens to destroy valuable collections and jeopardize the safety of those who are working to protect them.
Culture is the collection of ideas, attitudes and beliefs that distinguishes a group of people from another. This includes a wide variety of practices, ranging from the artistic creations of a particular civilization to its most basic values, assumptions and prejudices. These range from magical beliefs and gender roles to racial hierarchies and political structures. Cultural history seeks to understand how these various elements interact to create the distinctive cultural characteristics that distinguish a specific society or historical period from another. This is a complex concept with many different interpretations. The term originated as an adjective, designating the cultivated state of a person or group, and eventually came to mean a set of shared attitudes, beliefs, and values. A society’s values may be learned and passed on from generation to generation through teaching, oral tradition, or even written works. A person’s culture is also determined by their surroundings, such as the family or community in which they live. As the discipline of cultural history has evolved, scholars have sought to understand how a society’s values are determined and communicated through its art and literature. The anthropological approach has been a key influence on this new genre of historical writing, as has a postmodern awareness of the collapse of disciplinary boundaries and the ubiquity of interconnectedness. The emergence of this new form of history is most evident in the growing number of books that address premodern Europe, which has been a focus of several influential studies, including David Sabean’s Power in the Blood and Carlo Ginzburg’s reconstruction of the cosmology of a sixteenth-century Italian miller in The Cheese and the Worms. These examples reflect the increasing permeability of scholarly borders and the tendency for different historical disciplines to borrow from one another, a development that has been facilitated by increased access to diverse textual sources. A major function of cultural history is to promote intercultural respect and understanding. This is a role that museums, in particular, have a vital part to play, particularly as the world becomes increasingly globalized and interconnected through mass migration and travel. As such, the exhibition of artifacts from other cultures can act as a powerful catalyst for discussion and debate, encouraging empathy and cooperation between members of different social, ethnic and religious groups. In addition, the preservation of cultural heritage is an important task, especially in times of conflict and war. For example, in Ukraine, archivists, curators and librarians have worked to preserve the country’s vast collection of historical artifacts during the ongoing civil war, which threatens to destroy valuable collections and jeopardize the safety of those who are working to protect them.