Hull 2017 UK City of Culture: A Public History Analysis

This research has focused on understanding how effectively Hull 2017 UK City of Culture incorporated public history into its programme. This has been determined in context to the characteristics of 'good' public history highlighted in the historiography, as well as in context to the aims behind the event. Hull 2017 failed not only in effectively incorporating civic pride-inducing, and social memory-changing, public history, but, also, consistently 'good' public history that was in line with the ideals of the historiography. However, this research has pragmatically illustrated that 'good' and 'bad' public history are not mutually exclusive concepts and, in turn, that it is overly simplistic to dismiss the case study as merely 'bad' public history. More broadly, this research has shown how historians should adopt critical flexibility, rather than rigid adherence, when engaging with theoretical ideals, incorporating distorting factors into their analyses, and being measured in their conclusions.