Using Non-Textual Sources

<p><i>Using Non-Textual Sources</i> provides history students with the theoretical background and skills to interpret non-textual sources. It introduces the full range of non-textual sources used by historians and offers practical guidance on how to interpret them and incorporate them into essays and dissertations. In addition to this the book posits a theoretical framework that justifies the use of these items as historical sources and explains how they can be used to further understand the past. <p/>There is coverage of the creation production and distribution of non-textual sources; the acquisition of skills to 'read' these sources analytically; and the meaning significance and reliability of these forms of evidence. <i>Using Non-Textual Sources</i> includes a section on interdisciplinary non-textual source work outlining what historians borrow from disciplines such as art history archaeology geography and media studies as well as a discussion of how to locate these resources online and elsewhere in order to use them in essays and dissertations. <p/>Case studies such as the Tudor religious propaganda painting <i>Edward VI and the Pope</i> the 1954 John Ford Western <i>The Searchers</i> and the Hereford <i>Mappa Mundi</i> are employed throughout to illustrate the functions of main source types. Photographs cartoons maps artwork audio clips film places and artifacts are all explored in a text that provides students with a comprehensive cohesive and practical guide to using non-textual sources.</p>