Overview
- Interdisciplinary approach, combining historical insight with political theory to offer a more rounded understanding of this concept
- Highlights the importance and uses of authenticity in a variety of historical and contemporary contexts, rather than seeking to advocate or debunk the idea itself
- Includes both textual and visual sources in order to show how ideas of authenticity have changed from the eighteenth century to the present day
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About this book
Authenticity is everywhere: political leaders invoke the idea to gain our support, advertisers use it to sell their products. But is authenticity a dangerous hoax? What is, and is not, authentic has been hotly debated ever since the concept was invented. Many academics have sought to "unmask" authenticity claims as deceptive. This book takes a different approach. In chapters covering historical and contemporary examples, the authors explore why authenticity, real or imagined, exercises such a powerful hold on our imaginations. The chapters trace how invocations of authenticity borrow from one another, across arenas such as philosophy and theology, encounters with nature, leisure, and mass consumption, political and corporate leadership, left-wing and right-wing ideologies. This cultural history of authenticity is of interest to academic and lay readers alike, who are interested in the significance and history of a concept that shapes how we understand ourselves and the world we live in.
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Keywords
Table of contents (6 chapters)
Authors and Affiliations
About the authors
Maiken Umbach is Professor of Modern History at the University of Nottingham, UK. She has published on Enlightenment gardens, on industrial and urban design around 1900, on regionalism, and on cultural politics in Nazi Germany. She currently works on private photography and ideology under National Socialism.
Mathew Humphrey is Professor of Political Theory at the University of Nottingham. UK. He has published on environmental political philosophy, on democratic theory, political ideology, and radical protest. He currently works on environmental politics in the UK and Europe.
Both authors jointly direct the Centre for the Study of Political Ideologies at the University of Nottingham.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Authenticity: The Cultural History of a Political Concept
Authors: Maiken Umbach, Mathew Humphrey
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68566-3
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: History, History (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-68565-6Published: 06 December 2017
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-88621-3Published: 04 September 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-68566-3Published: 23 November 2017
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: IX, 144
Number of Illustrations: 7 illustrations in colour
Topics: Intellectual Studies, Cultural History, Cultural Studies, Political Communication