In the event

the long version

"This book argues that the possibility of reading and writing history is tied to the endurance of traces of the past and their coming to legibility, allegorically, at a given time. Through attentive readings of a range of texts - including theoretical writings, diaries, newspaper reports, and "live" television broadcasts - In the Event elaborates the ways in which allegory disrupts our presumptions of continuity and simultaneity between the image (whatever its medium) and what we take it to represent."--BOOK JACKET.