Description
Lynch and Bogen detail the practices through which the historical agents at the center of the hearings composed, confirmed, used, erased, and denied the historical record. They show how partisan skirmishes over the disclosure of records and testimony led to a divided and irresolute outcome, an outcome further facilitated by the "applied deconstruction" deployed by North and his allies. The Spectacle of History immerses the reader in a crowded field of texts, utterances, visual displays, and media commentaries, but, more than a case study, it develops unique insight into problems at the heart of society and social theory-lying and credibility, the production of civic spectacle, the relationship between testimony and history, the uses of memory, and the interplay between speech and writing.
Drawing on themes from sociology, literary theory, and ethnomethodology and challenging prevailing concepts held by contemporary communication and cultural studies, Lynch and Bogen extract valuable theoretical lessons from this specific and troubling historical episode.
About the Author
Michael Lynch is Professor in the Department of Human Sciences at Brunel University, Middlesex.
David Bogen is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Emerson College.
Book Information
ISBN 9780822317388
Author David Bogen
Format Paperback
Page Count 368
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press
Weight(grams) 680g