The Concept of Public History

Many people around the world ask themselves: what is in fact this "public history". All those who work at the junction of historical research and the history-related public outreach or public policy in museums, at memorial sites, in editorial offices, administrations, schools and universities must find themselves asking this question, as it concerns both their daily professional practice and their history-related freelance activities. What connects all these people around the world who although they work in different institutional settings experience their work as essentially common, and describe their professions as a part of a larger field of public history? There are countless answers to this question, yet they often converge on a simple common descriptive level which strives to address as many different practices as possible. In recent years, however, an attempt has been made to explain the nature of public history in a way that would provide an operationalizable definition of the concept. This volume presents a continuation of this debate with contributions from Germany, the United Kingdom, Poland, Italy, Austria, Russia, the USA and Venezuela. By opening a space for a constructive, explicit and reciprocal discourse, this volume also renders public history visible in its form as a dynamic, theoretical scholarly practice.