In the nineteenth century, the search for the artistic, architectural and written monuments promoted by the French State with the aim to build a unified nation transcending regional specificities, also fostered the development of local or regional identitary consciousness. In Roussillon, this distinctive consciousness relied on a basically cultural concept of nation epitomised mainly by the Catalan language – Roussillon being composed of Catalan counties annexed to France in 1659. In The Antiquarians of the Nation, Francesca Zantedeschi explores how the works of Roussillon's archaeologists and philologists, who retrieved and enhanced the Catalan specificities of the region, contributed to the early stages of a ‘national’ (Catalan) cultural revival, and galvanised the implicit debate between (French) national history and incipient regional studies.

The Trophies of Time presents the first comprehensive survey of the English antiquarians of the seventeenth century. In Britain throughout the period there was a persistent curiosity about the origins of the nation and its institutions, inspired initially by the publication in 1586 of Camden's Britannia. A remarkable campaign of scholarship developed, which attempted to imagine the vanished societies that had once flourished there. What could be known of prehistoric Britain from its monuments and language? Could the lay-out of Roman Britain be recovered? Was it possible somehow to retrieve the language, religion, and laws of Saxon England? The answers to these questions often had a bearing on contemporary issues of church and state and also enabled citizens to gain a new insight into the character and identity of their nation. Many of the most learned men of the age addressed themselves to antiquarian enquiry and this book presents lively and fascinating portraits of Camden, Cotton, Selden, Spelman, Ussher, Dugdale, Aubrey, and many other lesser-known scholars.

First published in 1999, this volume examines antiquarianism which had its roots in Renaissance thought and was a popular intellectual and cultural pursuit throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The antiquarian work of collecting, compiling and presenting material which exposed the past was seminal to the formation of social and national identities. These essays evaluate the cultural and poltical implications of antiquarianism in the period 1700-1850. The volume also considers how the antiquarians laid the foundations of later museum culture and the discipline of history. With a preface by Stephen Bann and introduced by Martin Myrone and Lucy Peltz, Producing the Past has contributions from Stephen Bending, Alexandrina Buchanan, Susan A. Crane, David Haycock, Maria Grazia Lolla, Heather MacLennan, Martin Myrone, Lucy Peltz, Annegret Pelz, Sam Smiles and Johann Reusch.

This volume explores the changing process of evaluating objects during the period of Japan’s rapid modernization. Originally published in Japanese, Antiquarians of Nineteenth-Century Japan looks at the approach toward object-based research across the late Tokugawa and early Meiji periods, which were typically kept separate, and elucidates the intellectual continuities between these eras. Focusing on the top-down effects of the professionalizing of academia in the political landscape of Meiji Japan, which had advanced by attacking earlier modes of scholarship by antiquarians, Suzuki shows how those outside the government responded, retracted, or challenged new public rules and values. He explores the changing process of evaluating objects from the past in tandem with the attitudes and practices of antiquarians during the period of Japan’s rapid modernization. He shows their roots in the intellectual sphere of the late Tokugawa period while also detailing how they adapted to the new era. Suzuki also demonstrates that Japan's antiquarians had much in common with those from Europe and the United States. Art historian Maki Fukuoka provides an introduction to the English translation that highlights the significance of Suzuki’s methodological and intellectual analyses and shows how his ideas will appeal to specialists and nonspecialists alike.

In Germany, Nazi ideology casts a long shadow over the history of archaeological interpretation. Propaganda, school curricula, and academic publications under the regime drew spurious conclusions from archaeological evidence to glorify the Germanic past and proclaim chauvinistic notions of cultural and racial superiority. But was this powerful and violent version of the distant past a nationalist invention or a direct outcome of earlier archaeological practices? By exploring the myriad pathways along which people became familiar with archaeology and the ancient past—from exhibits at local and regional museums to the plotlines of popular historical novels—this broad cultural history shows that the use of archaeology for nationalistic pursuits was far from preordained. In Germany’s Ancient Pasts, Brent Maner offers a vivid portrait of the development of antiquarianism and archaeology, the interaction between regional and national history, and scholarly debates about the use of ancient objects to answer questions of race, ethnicity, and national belonging. While excavations in central Europe throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries fed curiosity about the local landscape and inspired musings about the connection between contemporary Germans and their “ancestors,” antiquarians and archaeologists were quite cautious about using archaeological evidence to make ethnic claims. Even during the period of German unification, many archaeologists emphasized the local and regional character of their finds and treated prehistory as a general science of humankind. As Maner shows, these alternative perspectives endured alongside nationalist and racist abuses of prehistory, surviving to offer positive traditions for the field in the aftermath of World War II. A fascinating investigation of the quest to turn pre- and early history into history, Germany’s Ancient Pasts sheds new light on the joint sway of science and politics over archaeological interpretation.

Excavating Nations traces the history of archaeology and museums in the contested German-Danish borderlands from the emergence of antiquarianism in the early nineteenth-century to German-Danish reconciliation after the Second World War. J. Laurence Hare reveals how the border regions of Schleswig-Holstein and Snderjylland were critical both to the emergence of professional prehistoric archaeology and to conceptions of German and Scandinavian origins. At the center of this process, Hare argues, was a cohort of amateur antiquarians and archaeologists who collaborated across the border to investigate the ancient past but were also complicit in its appropriation for nationalist ends. Excavating Nations follows the development of this cross-border network over four generations, through the unification of Germany and two world wars. Using correspondence and site reports from museum, university, and state archives across Germany and Denmark, Hare shows how these scholars negotiated their simultaneous involvement in nation-building projects and in a transnational academic community. --Provided by publisher.

Hunters and Collectors is about historical consciousness and environmental sensibilities in European Australia from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. It is in part a collective biography of amateur antiquarians, archaeologists, naturalists, journalists and historians: people who shaped the Australian historical imagination. Dr Griffiths illuminates the way these avid collectors and investigators of the Australian land and of its indigenous inhabitants contributed a sense of identity at colony-wide and eventually nationwide level. He also considers the rise of professional history, anthropology and archaeology in the universities, which ignored the efforts of the amateurs. Griffiths shows how the seemingly trivial activities of these hunters and collectors feed into the political and environmental debates of the 1990s. This book is outstanding in its originality, interpretative insight and literary flair.

As a result, the reader gains fresh and surprising insights into Euro/Native American relations and the formation of U.S. national identity pertaining to culture. At the same time, the book enlarges the domain of American Romanticism and sheds new light on the ideological use of gothic fiction. Focusing on New York State and the Iroquois, The Crimsoned Hills of Onondaga includes studies of De Witt Clinton’s A Memoir on the Antiquities of the Western Part of the State of New York (1818); Josiah Priest’s American Antiquities, And Discoveries in the West (1833); Joshua V.H. Clark’s Onondaga (1849); and E. G. Squier’s Aboriginal Monuments of the State of New York (1849). The Cardiff Giant hoax is re-examined along with other 19th century archaeological frauds associated with antiquarians."--pub. desc.

Weaving together literary and scholarly insights, History and Its Objects will prove indispensable reading for historians and cultural historians, as well as anthropologists and archeologists worldwide. — Nathan Schlanger, École nationale des chartes, Paris Cultural history is increasingly informed by the history of material culture—the ways in which individuals or entire societies create and relate to objects both mundane and extraordinary—rather than on textual evidence alone. Books such as The Hare with Amber Eyes and A History of the World in 100 Objects indicate the growing popularity of this way of understanding the past. In History and Its Objects, Peter N. Miller uncovers the forgotten origins of our fascination with exploring the past through its artifacts by highlighting the role of antiquarianism—a pursuit ignored and derided by modem academic history—in grasping the significance of material culture. From the efforts of Renaissance antiquarians, who reconstructed life in the ancient world from coins, inscriptions, seals, and other detritus, to amateur historians in the nineteenth century working within burgeoning national traditions, Miller connects collecting—whether by individuals or institutions—to the professionalization of the historical profession, one which came to regard its progenitors with skepticism and disdain. The struggle to articulate the value of objects as historical evidence, then, lies at the heart both of academic history-writing and of the popular engagement with things. Ultimately, this book demonstrates that our current preoccupation with objects is far from novel and reflects a human need to reexperience the past as a physical presence.