Processing the Past

Francis X. Blouin Jr. is Director of the Bentley Historical Library and Professor in the History Department and School of Information at the University of Michigan. From 1984 to 2004 he led an effort to do a complete inventory of the archives of the Vatican. He has served on the board of the Council on Library and Information Resources. William G. Rosenberg is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Michigan. He has authored, co-authored, or edited some thirteen books on Russian and Soviet history. His interest in archival issues developed from his responsibilities as vice president for research of the American Historical Association. He has also served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, and is a vice chair of the board of trustees of the European University at St. Petersburg.

• Introduction: On the Intersections of Archives and History ; PART I: ARCHIVES, HISTORY, AND THE OPENING OF THE ARCHIVAL DIVIDE ; Chapter 1 - Authoritative History and Authoritative Archives ; Chapter 2 - The Turn Away from Historical Authority in the Archives ; Chapter 3 - Archival Authorities and New Technologies ; Chapter 4 - The Turn Away from Archival Authority in History ; Chapter 5 - Archival Essentialism and the Archival Divide ; PART II: PROCESSING THE PAST ; Chapter 6 - The Social Memory Problem ; Chapter 7 - Contested Archives, Contested Sources ; Chapter 8 - The Archivist as Activist in the Production of (Historical) Knowledge ; Chapter 9 - Rethinking Archival Politics: Trust, Truth, and the Law ; Chapter 10 - Archives and the Cyberinfrastructure ; Chapter 11 - Can Archives and History Reconnect: Bridging the Archival Divide ; Index

a challenging and stimulating book