"The Sound of Silence" From the imperceptible to the past history of listening

Historians have always reconstructed the past mainly by the study of texts, and only recently have they turned their attention to the analysis of images. They have almost entirely abstained, however, from using their ears when exploring the past: they have been content with the sound of silence. This can be partly explained by the scarcity of authentic acoustic sources which exist only for the time since about 1900. To the present day there exist only a few historical studies which focus on the function of listening in the past, the soundscapes of earlier epochs and the significance of acoustic signals. This paper attempts to sketch the social and cultural meaning of listening and the impact of our perception of sounds on our view of the world; it shows what historians can hear of the past and what remains inaudible; it discusses the effects of the inaudibility of the past on our historical understanding; and finally it presents some new perspectives of historical research dealing with the history of listening, with historical sound scapes and their meaning. The paper closes with some remarks about the possible benefits of a history of listening for our understanding of the past. © Oldenbourg.