Join us for a special conversation with Richard Cohen for his new book Mak ing History: The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past. In conversatio n with Library director Richard Reyes-Gavilan\, Cohen will discuss this fa scinating\, epic exploration of who gets to record the world's history--fr om Julius Caesar to William Shakespeare to Ken Burns--and how their biases influence our understanding about the past.
\nBooks will be availab le for sale and signing with our friends from East City Bookshop. We will hav e a limited number of free copies to give away thanks to the DC Publi c Library Foundation.
\nView the discussion live on our Youtube channel.
\n< p>More about the book and author:\nThere are many stories we can sp in about previous ages\, but which accounts get told? And by whom? Is ther e even such a thing as &ldquo\;objective&rdquo\; history? In this lively a nd thought-provoking book\, Richard Cohen reveals how professional histori ans and other equally significant witnesses\, such as the writers of the B ible\, novelists\, and political propagandists\, influence what becomes th e accepted record. Cohen argues\, for example\, that some historians are p ractitioners of &ldquo\;Bad History&rdquo\; and twist reality to glorify t hemselves or their country.
\nMaking History \;investigates the published works and private utterances of our greatest chroniclers to disc over the agendas that informed their&mdash\;and our&mdash\;views of the wo rld. From the origins of history writing\, when such an activity itself se emed revolutionary\, through to television and the digital age\, Cohen bri ngs captivating figures to vivid light\, \;from Thucydides and Tacitus to Voltaire and Gibbon\, Winston Churchill and Henry Louis Gates. Rich in complex truths and surprising anecdotes\, the result is a revealing explo ration of both the aims and art of history-making\, one that will lead us to rethink how we learn about our past and about ourselves.
\nRichar d Cohen is the author of \;By the Sword\, \;Chasing the Sun\, \;and \;How to Write Like Tolstoy. The former publishing director of t wo leading London publishing houses\, he has edited books that have won th e Pulitzer\, Booker\, and Whitbread/Costa prizes\, while twenty-one have b een #1 bestsellers. He has written for most UK quality newspapers as well as for \;The \;New York Times Book Review \;and \;The \;Wall Street Journal\, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature . \;
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