ABSTRACT
A cursory glance at a current catalogue of books described as cultural history reveals miscellaneous titles on language, travel, disease, crime, consumption, migration and commodities such as sugar, tobacco and wine, many of which could equally have been classified as social history. Although it had tended to defy definition, cultural history has flourished recently and now occupies a special place within the practice of history. Few areas of historical inquiry have been more influenced by the rise of cultural history than that of empire. There are few historical studies of culture that could be described as purely structural; any such study would probably be quite dull. Questions of myth and memory have featured prominently in recent cultural history. Equally important has been the recognition that the course of the carnival reveals much about the nature of its host society.
