Collecting and Historical Consciousness in Early Nineteenth-Century Germany

This provocative book challenges long-held assumptions about the nature of historical consciousness in Germany. Susan A. Crane argues that the ever-more-elaborate preservation of the historical may actually reduce the likelihood that history can be experienced with the freshness and individuality characteristic of the early collectors and preservationists. Her book is

This book offers the first ever comparative study of historical consciousness among young citizens from different regions, provinces, identities, and first languages.

The last several decades have witnessed an explosion of new empirical research into representations of the past and the conditions of their production, prompting claims that we have entered a new era in which the past has become more “present” than ever before. Contemplating Historical Consciousness brings together leading historians,

Our understanding of the past shapes our sense of the present and the future: this is historical consciousness. While academic history, public history, and the study of collective memory are thriving enterprises, there has been only sparse investigation of historical consciousness itself, in a way that relates it to the

"Contents" -- "Preface to the Paperback Edition" -- "List of Figures" -- "Transliteration" -- "Preface" -- "1. Historical Consciousness and the Ethnography of History" -- "2. Dreaming and Temporality in Greece" -- "3. Dreaming of Buried Icons in the Kingdom of Greece" -- "4. An Epidemic of Dreaming" -- "5.