Engaging with records and archives: Histories and theories, ed.

摘要

The past two decades have witnessed a renewed interest in the history of archives and archival practices, on the part of historians and archivists alike. For archivists and scholars of archival science, awareness of the historical development of their field is often taken to indicate the growing maturity of their discipline; for historians, it reflects increasing recognition that archives are not mere containers of neutral information awaiting reuse in scholarly research, but are contingent and contestable objects of study in themselves. In recent months, historians have been very active in scrutinizing the changing formation and transmission of archives, with both Past & Present and European History Quarterly publishing special issues on archival history in 2016, and a volume of essays on Archives and Information in the Early Modern World expected from the British Academy in 2017.