What is history for? / Beverley Southgate.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 201-208) and index.

Humanities and therapeutic education -- History for its own sake -- Holy Grail of truth -- 'For its own sake'? -- Straw men? -- Professed purposes -- Transferable skills -- 'Cultivation' -- Myth-breaking -- Theological confirmations and questionings -- Obligations to the dead -- Hidden agendas -- Political puppertry: the case of Germany -- Justifying the status quo -- Discipline and power -- Gender of history -- Life and needs in postmodernity -- Postmodernity -- Centres and certainties -- Order -- Direction -- Problems of identity: selfhood and others -- History in postmodernity: future prospects -- Closure and openness -- Self, narrativity and meaning: personal and national identities -- Historic moments and empowerment: making choices -- Colonising the future: towards a better world -- Histories for postmodernity -- some aspirations -- Realism, pessimism, hope -- History and myth again -- Labyrinth of language -- Transferable qualities -- Histories for postmodernity -- some examples -- Robert A. Rosenstone and Japan -- Peter Novick and the Holocaust -- Sven Lindqvist and bombing -- Tzvetan Todorov and hope.