Translating Past to Present

“Brilliantly conceived. Translating Past to Present encourages a level of awareness about the work in which historians engage that will both inspire and deepen our own understanding of the perspectives we bring to our research and writing. It also alerts us-with a hearty dose of good humor and occasional irony-to just what can go wrong with the interpretive process and the complex misunderstandings to which this can give rise. One can hear the echoes of the wonderful conversations that produced this collection of essays as one reads!”-Andrea Geiger, author of Converging Empires: Citizens and Subjects in the North Pacific Borderlands, 1867–1945 “Translating Past to Present provides a fine model that other historians, ethnologists, and anthropologists can turn to as a reference point. From archives across North America to oral histories to family conversations, the works covered are richly researched and thoroughly documented. It will be of great use to specialists in borderlands and Latin American studies, as well as ethnohistorians. No one should be able to look at transcripts the same way after reading this book.”-David C. Beyreis, author of Blood in the Borderlands: Conflict, Kinship, and the Bent Family, 1821–1920