{"product_id":"the-presence-of-the-past-popular-uses-of-history-in-american-life","title":"The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life","description":"\u003cp\u003eSome people make photo albums  collect antiques  or visit historic battlefields. Others keep diaries  plan annual family gatherings  or stitch together patchwork quilts in a tradition learned from grandparents. Each of us has ways of communing with the past  and our reasons for doing so are as varied as our memories. In a sweeping survey  Roy Rosenzweig and David Thelen asked 1 500 Americans about their connection to the past and how it influences their daily lives and hopes for the future. The result is a surprisingly candid series of conversations and reflections on how the past infuses the present with meaning.  Rosenzweig and Thelen found that people assemble their experiences into narratives that allow them to make sense of their personal histories  set priorities  project what might happen next  and try to shape the future. By using these narratives to mark change and create continuity  people chart the courses of their lives. A young woman from Ohio speaks of giving birth to her first child  which caused her to reflect upon her parents and the ways that their example would help her to become a good mother. An African American man from Georgia tells how he and his wife were drawn to each other by their shared experiences and lessons learned from growing up in the South in the 1950s. Others reveal how they personalize historical events  as in the case of a Massachusetts woman who traces much of her guarded attitude toward life to witnessing the assassination of John F. Kennedy on television when she was a child.  While the past is omnipresent to Americans  \"history\" as it is usually defined in textbooks leaves many people cold. Rosenzweig and Thelen found that history as taught in school does not inspire a strong connection to the past. And they reveal how race and ethnicity affects how Americans perceive the past: while most white Americans tend to think of it as something personal  African Americans and American Indians are more likely to think in terms of broadly shared experiences--like slavery  the Civil Rights Movement  and the violation of Indian treaties.\"  Rosenzweig and Thelens conclusions about the ways people use their personal  family  and national stories have profound implications for anyone involved in researching or presenting history  as well as for all those who struggle to engage with the past in a meaningful way.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44952010555445,"sku":"ByrdShop_0231111487","price":60.27,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780231111485.jpg?v=1770148272","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-presence-of-the-past-popular-uses-of-history-in-american-life","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}