Writing Visual Histories

What can visual artifacts tell us about the past? How can we interpret them accurately and mediate between their formal properties and social function to reach wider historical conclusions? Drawing on key historiographical and methodological issues, Writing Visual History provides students with the answers to these questions, showing visual analysis to be a key skill in historical research.

A straightforward structure makes this an extremely practical guide for writers of visual history. A first section includes essays of case studies -- such as artist John Collier's creative engagement with scientific developments in the Victorian period, or the emergence of the photobook as a cultural medium in the Weimar Republic. These historiographical examples are followed by in-depth discussion of essential concepts historians should engage with and think about, followed by a treatment of relevant practices and the practicalities (such as database usage and organising permissions) that scholars of visual history have to navigate.

This textbook is an invaluable tool kit for opening up a historical understanding of visual phenomena and looking practices, and for all types of historians to write new, integrated studies of the past.