Geschichte von morgen

Museums collect the present for a future history. This book illustrates how, since 1900, pasts have emerged from this process. Historical museums are regarded as places for preserving beautiful, rare, or valuable items. However, they are not merely places of antiquity; they are also connected to the present and approach this in highly varied ways: collecting what is at risk of disappearing, securing what current events produce, and documenting a panorama of contemporary society for the future are all strategies for collecting the present. The focus of historical museums is thus on today as a future past. Andreas Ludwig analyzes the development of contemporary collecting since 1900 using examples from national history museums, local and regional museums, as well as specialized institutions. Examples from Germany and beyond illustrate the different ideas about what seemed worth preserving for the future. Andreas Ludwig examines historically evolving material archives, collecting for exhibitions, time capsules, rapid response collecting, and participatory approaches in an increasingly diverse public, concluding that it is in museums that we see when and how the present becomes history.