When people experience a traumatic event, such as war or the threat of annihilation, they often turn to history for stories that promise a positive outcome to their suffering. During World War II, the French took comfort in the story of Joan of Arc and her heroic efforts to rid France of foreign occupation. To bring the Joan narrative more into line with current circumstances, popular retellings modified the original story so that what people believed took place in the past was often quite different from what actually occurred. Paul A. Cohen believes this interplay between story and history is a worldwide phenomenon found in countries of radically different cultural, religious, and social character. He focuses on Serbia, Israel, the Soviet Union, China, Great Britain, and France, all of which experienced severe crises in the twentieth century and, in response, appropriated age-old historical narratives that resonated with what was happening in the present to serve a unifying, restorative purpose. A central theme in the book is the distinction between popular memory and history. Although vitally important to historians, this distinction is routinely blurred in people's minds, and the historian's truth often cannot compete with the power of a compelling story from the past, even when it has been seriously distorted by myth or political manipulation. Cohen concludes by suggesting that the patterns of interaction he probes, given their near universality, may well be rooted in certain human propensities that transcend cultural difference.

Since its first publication, Paul A. Cohen's Discovering History in China has occupied a singular place in American China scholarship. Translated into three East Asian languages, the volume has become essential to the study of China from the early nineteenth century to today. Cohen critiques the work of leading postwar scholars and is especially adamant about not reading China through the lens of Western history. To this end, he uncovers the strong ethnocentric bias pervading the three major conceptual frameworks of American scholarship of the 1950s and 1960s: the impact-response, modernization, and imperialism approaches. In place of these, Cohen favors a "China-centered" approach in which historians understand Chinese history on its own terms, paying close attention to Chinese historical trajectories and Chinese perceptions of their problems, rather than a set of expectations derived from Western history. In an important new introduction, Cohen reflects on his fifty-year career as a historian of China and discusses major recent trends in the field. Although some of these developments challenge a narrowly conceived China-centered approach, insofar as they enable more balanced comparisons between China and the West and recast the Chinese and their history in more human, less exotic terms, they powerfully affirm the central thrust of Cohen's work.

《历史三调:作为事件、经历和神话的义和团(中译修订版)》荣获1997年美国历史学会费正清东亚历史学奖、荣获1997年新英格兰历史学会图书奖。书中以义和团为例向人们解说了认识历史的三条不同途径，即历史的三调：事件、经历和神话。《历史三调:作为事件、经历和神话的义和团(中译修订版)》的主要目的不在于讲述义和团的历史，而在于探讨与历史撰述有关的一系列问题，“义和团只是这项工作的‘配角’。”因此这本书在某种程度上也是一部史学理论著作，它为我们提供了一种新的思考历史的方法。

《历史三调：作为事件、经历和神话的义和团（典藏版）》荣获1997年美国历史学会费正清东亚历史学奖、荣获1997年新英格兰历史学会图书奖。书中以义和团为例向人们解说了认识历史的三条不同途径，即历史的三调：事件、经历和神话。本书的主要目的不在于讲述义和团的历史，而在于探讨与历史撰述有关的一系列问题，“义和团只是这项工作的‘配角’。”因此这本书在某种程度上也是一部史学理论著作，它为我们提供了一种新的思考历史的方法。

《在传统与现代性之间：王韬与晚清改革》通过对王韬的透视，展现、剖析了晚清思潮、政局与社会的变迁，提出了近代中国的“沿海”与“内地”的问题。

这本书较全面地介绍了战后美国研究中国近代史的方法、成果与趋向。全书共四章先后着重讨论了近代中国在政治、思想、经济与社会等方面的发展，涉及的美国当代史家、学者一百二十余人，对其中的代表人物进行了详细评介。

历史是什么？到底应该如何看待历史？人们经历的历史、历史学家笔下的历史和神话化的历史三者之间存在什么样的互动关系？本书以义和团运动为例，对上述问题进行了如此探讨和解释：第一部分是历史学家笔下的义和团运动的史实，以叙事为主；第二部分考察直接参与义和团运动的中外各类人物当时的想法、感受和行为，指出他们对正在发生之事的看法与后来重塑历史的历史学家的看法大为不同；第三部分评述在20世纪初中国产生的关于义和团的种种神话。作者认为，就上述三条认识历史的不同途径而言，后两条途径对普通读者具有更大的说服力和影响力。作为时间的义和团，代表的是对过去的一种特殊的解读；作为神话的义和团，代表的是以过去为载体对现在进行的一种特殊的解读，对现在仍发生深刻的影响。