Society and space

Vladimir Maksakov reviews Пространственная история. Три текста об истории/ Prostranstvennaya istoria. Tri teksta ob istorii [The Spatial History. Three Texts on History] by Russian historian Mikhail Yampolsky. The book was published by Masterskaya Seans Press in 2013.

Spatial History, the title of Mikhail Yampolsky’s new book, evokes a vertical, rather than horizontal (or chronological), approach to history. The idea that historical process (and the writing of history) contains some focal points which allow one to take the gist of the events and deploy the logic of history in depth rather than in breadth is not new in principle. According to Yampolsky, the idea of progress at the basis of text teleology can be traced all the way back to ancient historians. Their aim was to show the history of the rise and exaltation of Rome, or, on the contrary, the decline of Greece. Here, textual coherence and narrative began to dictate their terms. Such works contained the concept of time at the level of plot, which implicitly led to a particular purpose. To avoid this in his own work, Yampolsky chooses an unconventional narrative. Spatial History consists of interconnected essays crafted from different materials from all areas of the humanities and are linked to major philosophers, historians, philologists, art historians, writers, poets, and architects. Continue reading Vladimir’s review here.