Book review Carla Rodríguez González & Rubén Valdés Miyares, Eds. Historia y representación en la cultura global. Oviedo: KRK, 2008

Abstract

How do you adequately sum up twenty eight sophisticated contributions to a book in a short review? You can’t – especially (and ironically) when the volume to be considered often questions the whole idea of globalizing histories. However, what is possible is a series of ruminations on the first part of the book as an introduction to the kinds of questions and arguments the reader can expect from the rest of the book. Thus, I begin with an apology to the contributors who may feel offended that their particular contribution has only been mentioned in passing – it is to be understood not as a form of devaluation but as a sign of the impossibility of doing any kind of justice to a book of this kind. This is intensified by the sheer variety of the theoretical models which now constitute cultural studies and, as will be seen below, the very wide range of subjects that the book addresses.