In recent decades, public enthusiasm for history and popular engagement with the past has grown dramatically. The popularity of history is manifested most visibly in the proliferation of television documentaries and historical dramas but it is also discernible in the rebirth of the historical novel, the organization of large-scale commemorations of historical anniversaries, the development of new historical museums and exhibitions, re-enactments and living history activities and the emergence of public history as a separate field of academic study.