David Lowenthal

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KTH Environmental Humanities Laboratory presents a lecture series with humanist scholar David Lowenthal Stockholm Archipelago Lectures Quest for the Unity of Knowledge 3-19 September 2012 KTH Environmental Humanities Laboratory at the Division of History of Science, Technology and Environment, KTH Monday 3 September, 5-6pm: Thinking with Islands: An Overview of the Work of David Lowenthal, followed by a small reception. The Division of History, Brinellvägen 32, KTH. Wednesday 5 September , 4 pm. George Perkins Marsh’ Man and Nature – 1864 and Now. The Division of History, Brinellvägen 32, KTH. Friday 7 September, 11-12am: Blood and Soil: Ecological Purity and Nature Restoration. The Division of History, Brinellvägen 32, KTH. Tuesday 11 September, 3-4.30pm: Heritage Conflicts and Dilemmas: Selfish Stewards and Global Needs, Botans hörsal, Lilla Frescativägen 5, Stockholm University. Thursday 13 September, 11-12am: Passport to The Past as a Foreign Country, The Division of History, Brinellvägen 32, KTH. Friday 14 September, 10-11am: “In Conversation with David Lowenthal”, The Division of History, Brinellvägen 32, KTH (reserved primarily for students taking the course “Geographies of Heritage”). Wednesday 19 September, 4-5.30pm: Reflections on the Environmental Humanities – What Can They Contribute to the Challenges of Our Time? F3, Lindstedsvägen 26, KTH. Followed by a reception. David Lowenthal is Professor Emeritus of Geography at University College London. His books include The Past Is a Foreign Country, West Indian Societies, and The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History. Lowenthal’s multidisciplinary research addresses the relationship between nature and culture in a broad sense, including fields such as cultural geography, heritage and landscape studies, and conservation practices. He has worked for UNESCO, ICOMOS and the British Museum. Since 2001, he is a member of the British Academy. .

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The Past Is a Foreign Country – Revisited David Lowenthal Frontmatter More Information
Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-85142-8 - The Past is a Foreign Country – Revisited David Lowenthal Frontmatter More information THE PAST IS A FOREIGN COUNTRY – REVISITED The past is past, but survives in and all around us, indispensable and inescap- able. Three decades after his classic The Past Is a Foreign Country, David Lowenthal re-examines why we love or loathe what seems old or familiar. His new book reveals how we know and remember the past, and the myriad ways – nostalgia or amnesia, restoration, replay, chauvinist celebration or remorseful contrition – we use and misuse it. We transform the past to serve present needs and future hopes, alike in preserving and in discarding what nature and our ancestors have handed down. Whether treasured boon or traumatic bane, the past is the prime source of personal and collective identity. Hence its relics and reminders evoke intense rivalry. Resurgent conflicts over history, memory, and heritage pervade every facet of public culture, making the foreign country of the past ever more our domesticated own. The past in the Internet age has become more intimate yet more remote, readily found but rapidly forgotten. Its range today is stupendous, embracing not just the human but the terrestrial and even the cosmic saga. And it is seen and touched and smelled as well as heard and read about. Traumatic recol- lection and empathetic re-enactment demote traditional history. A clear-cut chronicle certified by experts has become a fragmented congeries of contested relics, remnants and reminiscences. New insights into history and memory, bias and objectivity, artefacts and monuments, identity and authenticity, and remorse and contrition, make Lowenthal’s new book an essential key to the past that we inherit, reshape, and bequeath to the future.
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Introduction
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David Lowenthal
DAVID LOWENTHAL David Lowenthal 26 April 1923 – 15 September 2018 elected Fellow of the British Academy 2001 by TREVOR BARNES Fellow of the Academy HUGH CLOUT Fellow of the Academy Belonging to a family of lawyers and professors, the polymath David Lowenthal hated disciplinary divisions. American by birth but British by inclination, he learned the practice of geography through wartime service in Western Europe. During a long and highly productive career, spent mainly at the American Geographical Society and then at University College London, he made important contributions to Caribbean studies, environmental history, landscape interpretation and cultural and historical geography. His later work on heritage informs mangement agencies across the globe. The ideas of the pioneering nineteenth-century environmentalist George Perkins March formed an essential touchstone for many aspects of his writing. In addition to scholarly articles and books (notably The Past is a Foreign Country), Lowenthal also wrote for a wider audience. His impact in the public realm was arguably as great as that among academics. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the British Academy, XVIII, 337–363 Posted 31 October 2019. © British Academy 2019. DAVID LOWENTHAL David Lowenthal was an intellectual giant who worked with brilliance and originality across many fields of scholarly enquiry. American by birth, British by inclination, his span of expertise extended far beyond the disciplines of geography and history in which he was formally trained. At the convergence of the humanities and social sci- ences, his writings covered historical geography, environmental perception, Caribbean studies, landscape interpretation, environmental history, heritage studies and cultural history. Peter Seixas remarked: ‘I marvelled at his breadth of knowledge.
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