History and the Media

'This book brings us the thoughts of Ian Kershaw, Tristram Hunt, Melvyn Bragg, Simon Schama, John Tusa, Jeremy Isaacs and others, in pieces that build up into a surprisingly penetrating look at what history can do for the media, and - this is the surprising bit - what the broadcast media can do for history...History made and in the making, and the time-loops it both creates and follows, prove endlessly fascinating in these writings. There is something here that will make anyone think more deeply about the interaction between a new and apparently instant medium and an old and apparently time-enhanced discipline. It is unlikely, after this, that anyone can continue to accuse the best of TV history of being nothing byt a pageant of kings and queens.' - Financial Times Magazine

'interesting and illuminating essays on diverse aspects of this recent cultural and intellectual revolution [the flourishing of history in the media]. - The Sunday Telegraph

'Simon Schama and Jeremy Isaacs offer particularly eloquent apologia for the sort of period dramatics that have happened on television' - The Spectator

MELVYN BRAGG Novelist and Broadcaster
TAYLOR DOWNING Writer and Independent Television Producer
MAX HASTINGS Writer and Historian
TRISTRAM HUNT Writer and Historian, Queen Mary College, University of London, UK
JEREMY ISAACS Independent Television Producer
IAN KERSHAW Professor of Modern History, University of Sheffield, UK
DAVID PUTTNAM Film Producer
SIMON SCHAMA University Professor of Art History and History, Columbia University, New York, USA
JEAN SEATON Professor of Media History, University of Westminster, London, UK
ROGER SMITHER Keeper of the Film and Video Archives, Imperial War Museum, London, UK
JOHN TUSA Managing Director of the Barbican Arts Centre, London, UK