Commentaries: McCants
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“McCants.” Commentaries in Journal of Interdisciplinary History
40.2 (2009): 295-296. © 2009 Massachusetts Institute of
Technology and The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Inc.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/jinh.2009.40.2.295
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McCants
Anne E.C. McCants
Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Volume 40, Number 2, Autumn
2009, pp. 295-296 (Article)
Published by The MIT Press
For additional information about this article
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COMMENTARIES
COMMENTARIES
mccants It has now been more than a half century since the
publication of Hobsbawm’s formulation of the seventeenth century as a time of crisis.1 Yet the historical questions that Hobsbawm raised, and the historiographical solution that he offered,
retain their vitality despite the numerous ªerce debates that they
have spawned during the intervening years. Unlike others before
him who had identiªed the various ills that befell Europeans who
lived at that time, he did not see the seventeenth century as merely
an age visited by the misfortune of numerous, but discrete, crises.
Rather, he argued that it was fundamentally, structurally, a moment of crisis sui generis. Moreover, in keeping with his Marxist
intellectual foundations, he invested this crisis with a purpose, discarding the lingering limitations (dare I say shackles?) of the old
feudal order and thereby opening a space for the industrial capitalism that he understood to be the deªning characteristic of the
modern economy.
Indeed, Hobsbawm’s notion of the good that might follow
such a crisis of great magnitude and broad scope might have a
renewed value during the global economic crisis of the early
twenty-ªrst century. The insights of historians are enjoying a rare
vogue at the moment, particularly in the hope that they can help
to ameliorate (or at least explain) the problems of the present. In
that spirit, what does the general crisis of the seventeenth century,
in all of its many dimensions, teach us?
Two lessons seem particularly salient. First, fundamental historical changes—even those that turn out to be beneªcial in the
long term—bring in their wake considerable suffering and distress.
To take one example from the many provided by the seventeenth
century, and recounted in these articles, the re-allocation of labor
to greater productivity uses almost always re-allocates resources as
well. Indeed, the newly unemployed are often left behind altogether.
Second, fundamental historical changes are much more
difªcult to frame than might be expected. In our respective writings, as well as in our collective discussions, those of us who contributed to this volume repeatedly returned to the same two stick1 Eric Hobsbawm, “The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century,” Past & Present, 5 (1954), 33–
53.
296 |
M C C AN T S
ing points—the problem of deªnition and the problem of
periodization. No matter how much the broad sweep of the seventeenth century looks like a rampant crisis, the devil really is in
the details. As all of the contributions demonstrate, a close look at
the arts, the courts, trade, population, and politics reveals a wide
range of experiences, varying both by location and by time.
Nonetheless, the feel of the (European, at least) world was clearly
different in 1680 than it had been in 1630. A person’s chances of
dying of plague, or of being burned as a witch, diminished sharply;
the goals and aspirations of governments became more secular and
more law-oriented; and the employment that would henceforth
sustain the population began to shift toward the modern sector.
Even if the “general” crisis of the seventeenth century was, in fact,
the cumulative expression of a wide variety of phenomena with
different manifestations, and hence not general in the usual sense
of having a common shape or identical chronology, it was nonetheless general to the extent that it decisively altered all aspects of
the European experience forever.
It remains to be seen whether the dire economic conditions
of 2009 will ultimately issue into a new, more beneªcial order, as
arguably the seventeenth-century crisis did. Will the fever heal
the patient or kill her? Or should we be more circumspect about
such metaphors? As Rabb warned in his ªrst contribution to the
seventeenth-century debate, metaphors have their uses, but they
cannot do everything.2 Structural change in history works on a
timescale radically different from that of illness in humans; the differences might not just be of degree but also of kind. Indeed,
when The Struggle for Stability in Early Modern Europe appeared, we
were in the midst of another moment of perceived crisis, which
seemed to end quickly, although a longer historical view than our
own may yet see unity where we see only discontinuity.
bever The ªve articles in this issue agree that Europe went
through an important transition in the seventeenth century, but
they are in less agreement about what it was or when it happened.
De Vries makes a strong case for important structural changes in
Europe during the ªrst half of the century, arguing persuasively for
the existence, and importance, of crisis in the European economy.
2
Rabb, The Struggle for Stability in Early Modern Europe (New York, 1975).