Addresses how academic historians engage with
Downton Abbey
and similar programmes on a personal, intellectual, and professional basis
As representations of history, period dramas perform serious work, and can be used to discuss both historical and contemporary issues (voting rights, war and trauma, reproductive rights). The contributors challenge the narrow view of period drama TV as conservative nostalgia; through sharing their experiences with these series (as consultants, bloggers and public speakers) they suggest ways in which historians can navigate the boundaries between academic and public history.
Key Features
Gives personal accounts of the ways US historians have been publicly in work on one of the most talked-about television dramas
Looks at
from historians' perspectives, not to challenge its historical accuracy but to explore how it works as popular history
Explores the divide between public and academic history
Brings together British and American historians to help us understand how British popular culture is used and consumed in different ways