Decontesting Historical Consciousness

Decontesting Historical Consciousness provides a comprehensive exploration of historical consciousness, redefining it not just as an academic concept but as a fundamental human state of mind essential for navigating the modern world. By approaching historical consciousness from an ontological perspective, and by viewing humans and the world as both “history-made” and “history-making,” the text illuminates how our understanding of the past directly shapes our individual well-being and collective survival.

After an overview of how historical consciousness has been defined over time, this book offers a new ontological definition of the concept. Then it proceeds to analysing the historicity of the world and the human, the historicity of time and historical narratives, and the ways in which history is used. Further, the book discusses the relation of historical consciousness to historical knowledge and historical thinking. A distinctive feature of the work is the introduction of original typologies, including an eleven-part model of historical thinking and a three-tiered quality level of consciousness: innate, reflective, and scholarly. The author also bridges the gap between theory and practice by examining the application of history in politics, education, and entertainment, while utilizing Bloom’s taxonomy to categorize historical knowledge.

Designed for scholars, students, and practitioners in history, history education, philosophy, and sociology, this book is an essential resource for those seeking to enhance historical thinking and self-awareness. Its unique “two-timensional” versus “three-timensional” approach makes it a compelling read for anyone interested in how historical narratives and “biocultural” evolution influence contemporary democratic participation and global crises like climate change.

Apostolos Spanos is professor of History at the University of Agder, Norway. His research and teaching are based on interdisciplinary approaches to history as a discipline and to historical evolution as a phenomenon. His interests lie in applied history, historical consciousness, the multi-dimensionality of historical time, the coinherence of present, past and future, modeling history, the use of AI in studying and teaching history, the use of games to study the past, and the study of innovation as a mode of historical existence and evolution.