(A)
HISTORICAL HISTORIAN
Herodotus
Historical Reasoning: In order to ensure that great deeds are not
forgotten
Herodotus wrote his history:
“in the hope of thereby preserving from decay the remembrance of what men have
done, and of preventing the great and wonderful actions of the Greeks and the
Barbarians from losing their due meed of glory, and withal to put on record what were
their grounds of feud.”
This was a popular idea in the ancient world. Many historians made the same case. Some,
notably Pliny the Younger, wanted to write history in order that they themselves might not be
forgotten. Failing that, Pliny wrote to the great Roman historian, Tacitus, asking him to include
Pliny’s own deeds in his history—assuming, rightly as it turned out, that Tacitus’s work would be
read for centuries to come thereby ensuring Pliny’s own immortality. Tacitus himself made a
similar case to that of Herodotus:
Tacitus (1st-2nd century CE):
“My purpose is not to relate at length every motion, but only such as were conspicuous
for excellence or notorious for infamy. This I regard as history’s highest function, to let no
worthy action be uncommemorated, and to hold out the reprobation of posterity as a
terror to evil words and deeds.” (Tacitus)
Note that Tacitus added a corollary to Herodotus’s idea—he proposed that, knowing that histories
would be written and future generations would remember, people would be deterred from
performing evil deeds.
Info on Herodotus:
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria (modern
Bodrum, Turkey) and lived in the 5th century BC (c. 484 BC – c. 425 BC). He has been called the
"Father of History" since he was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically,
test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a well-constructed and vivid
narrative. The Histories — his masterpiece and the only work he is known to have produced — is
a record of his "inquiry" (or historía, a word that passed into Latin and took on its modern meaning
of history), being an investigation of the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars and including a wealth
of geographical and ethnographical information. Although some of his stories were not completely
accurate, he claimed that he was reporting only what had been told to him. Little is known of his
personal history since ancient records are scanty, contradictory and often fanciful.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herodotus#The_Histories
Herodotus records in his Histories not only the events of the Persian Wars but also geographical
and ethnographical information, as well as the fables related to him during his extensive travels.
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Typically, he passes no definitive judgment on what he has heard. In the case of conflicting or
unlikely accounts, he presents both sides, says what he believes and then invites readers to
decide for themselves. The work of Herodotus is reported to have been recited at festivals, where
prizes were awarded, as for example, during the games at Olympia. Herodotus views history as a
source of moral lessons, with conflicts and wars as misfortunes flowing from initial acts of injustice
perpetuated through cycles of revenge. In contrast, Thucydides claims to confine himself to
factual reports of contemporary political and military events, based on unambiguous, first-hand,
eye-witness accounts, although, unlike Herodotus, he does not reveal his sources.
Thucydides
Historical Reasoning: In order to understand the present and
prepare for the future
One of the most enduring reasons for writing and studying history was given by Herodotus’s
successor, the great Greek historian, Thucydides.
He wrote of his history:
“…if it be judged useful by those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of the past as
an aid to the interpretation of the future, which in the course of human things must
resemble if it does not reflect it, I shall be content.”
Thucydides focused on history’s use for understanding the future, and didn’t mention its role in
helping one understand the present, but the Greek philosopher Aristotle did. He wrote:
“If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development.”
This idea—that everything has a past and that knowing the past is crucial to understanding, is one
of the great pillars on which history stands. Three centuries later, Cicero wrote, along the same
lines:
“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For
what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the
records of history?”
But was the past just like the present? Can one go beyond what the classical thinkers proposed
and assert that one can predict future events and behaviors based on how things turned out in the
past? My students often think so. They will often use the cliché that “history repeats itself” to
justify why it is important to study history. Some Renaissance thinkers believed this. Machiavelli
wrote, for example:
“Whoever considers the past and the present will readily observe that all cities and all
people are and ever have been animated by the same desires and the same passions;
so that it is easy, by diligent study of the past to foresee what is likely to happen in the
future in any republic, and to apply those remedies that were used by the ancients…”
Few historians were so optimistic, though. During the Enlightenment, thinkers focused on the
study of history not as a way to “foresee” the future but as an aid in planning for the future and
avoiding mistakes. Thomas Hobbes and Voltaire both made this case:
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“For the principal and proper work of history being to instruct and enable men, by the
knowledge of actions past, to bear themselves prudently in the present and providently
towards the future…”
“This benefit consists in the comparison which a statesman or citizen can make between
foreign laws and manners and those of his own country…. The great errors of the past
can also be used in this way. One cannot too often recall the crimes and misfortunes
caused by absurd quarrels. It is certain that by reviewing the memory of these quarrels
we can prevent them from being revived.”
th
In the 19 century, Aristotle’s point was made again by Jules Michelet:
“He who would confine his thoughts to present time will not understand present reality.”
Meanwhile, Macaulay was making the case, again, for using history to understand the present
and plan for the future:
“No past event has any intrinsic importance. The knowledge of it is valuable only as it
leads us to form just calculations with respect to the future.”
“An intimate knowledge of the domestic history of nations is, therefore, absolutely
necessary to the prognosis of political events.”
th
By the early 20 century, this argument had become a little more sophisticated. James Harvey
Robinson was well aware that no historian could ever know everything about the past—the
evidence for the reconstruction of most events has been lost. But even if one could know
everything (in a “Godlike” way, as he put it), Robinson didn’t believe that the actions of people in
the past would be able to provide useful “precedents of conduct.” He wrote:
“History… may be regarded as an artificial extension and broadening of our memories
and may be used to overcome the natural bewilderment of all unfamiliar
situations….Could we suddenly be endowed with a Godlike and exhaustive knowledge
of the whole history of mankind…we should gain forthwith a Godlike appreciation of the
world in which we live, and a Godlike insight into the evils which mankind now suffers, as
well as into the most promising methods for alleviating them, not because the past would
furnish precedents of conduct, but because our conduct would be based upon a perfect
comprehension of existing conditions founded upon a perfect knowledge of the past.”
By the 1930s, Huizinga was rejecting the idea that any “laws” could be ascertained for history or
that the future could be predicted based on the past:
“history is pre-eminently an inexact science, …its concept of causality is extremely
defective…it resists the formulation of laws…the concept of historical evolution can be
considered valid only so far as one accepts the organic analogy…”
“Though the past supplies our material and compels our attention, though the mind
realizes that not one minute of the future can be predicted, none the less it is the eternal
future that moves our mind. The widespread and persistent opinion that history should
deal with our understanding of the present rests on a misconception: a ‘present’ is as
little known to historical thought as it is to philosophical thought.”
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Marc Bloch, one of the founders of the Annales school of history, emphasized this further. In his
view, history never repeated itself, at least not exactly:
“History is, in its essentials, the science of change. It knows and it teaches that it is
impossible to find two events that are ever exactly alike, because the conditions from
which they spring are never identical.”
Nonetheless, even if history can’t predict the future, even if it doesn’t repeat itself, surely it is
essential for understanding the present and for our sensible functioning in the world. The classic
analogy of a people who have forgotten their history (though I’m not sure who first came up with
it) is to someone waking up with amnesia. This person can’t make any rational decisions because
he or she has no idea about his or her personal past. We all go through our days completely
dependent on the wisdom accumulated from our past experiences. So it is with societies and
nations. If they forget their pasts, they have no accumulated wisdom on which to act. Individuals
can’t predict their personal futures with any accuracy—anything might happen due to
circumstances that are out of their control—but that doesn’t prevent them from planning their
activities and making decisions based on their past experiences. So it is with history’s usefulness
to the population.
Historians, even today, still go back to Thucydides’ and Aristotle’s basic idea, formulated almost
2,500 years ago:
“With the historian it is an article of faith that knowledge of the past is a key to
understanding the present.” Kenneth Stampp
This idea has been expressed by many modern historians. A good example is found in the article
by Peter Stearns that was distributed to the participants in this summit, where he writes as
follows:
“The past causes the present, and so the future. Any time we try to know why something
happened…we have to look for factors that took shape earlier…. Only through studying
history can we grasp how things change; only through history can we begin to
comprehend the factors that cause change; and only through history can we understand
what elements of an institution or a society persist despite change.”
Info on Thucydides:
Thucydides (c.460 BC – c. 395 BC) was a Greek historian and author from Alimos. His History of
the Peloponnesian War recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year
411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientific history", because of his strict
standards of evidence-gathering and analysis in terms of cause and effect without reference to
intervention by the gods, as outlined in his introduction to his work.
He has also been called the father of the school of political realism, which views the relations
between nations as based on might rather than right. His text is still studied at advanced military
colleges worldwide, and the Melian dialogue remains a seminal work of international relations
theory.
More generally, Thucydides showed an interest in developing an understanding of human nature
to explain behaviour in such crises as plague, massacres, as in that of the Melians, and civil war.
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Thucydides views life exclusively as political life, and history in terms of political history.
Conventional moral considerations play no role in his analysis of political events while geographic
and ethnographic aspects are omitted or, at best, of secondary importance. Subsequent Greek
historians — Ctesias, Diodorus, Strabo, Polybius and Plutarch — held up Thucydides' writings as
a model of truthful history. Lucian refers to Thucydides as having given Greek historians their law,
requiring them to say what had been done. Greek historians of the fourth century BC accepted
that history was political and that contemporary history was the proper domain of a
historian. Cicero calls Herodotus the "father of history;" yet the Greek writer Plutarch, in
his Moralia (Ethics) denigrated Herodotus, as the "father of lies". Unlike Thucydides, however,
these historians all continued to view history as a source of moral lessons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thucydides#Thucydides_versus_Herodotus
Josephus
Historical Reasoning: In order to understand the will of God
Ancient historians, especially Jewish and Christian historians, had a main reason for studying
history, one that is never cited by historians today: one that now falls only into the realm of
theology, not history. It was expressed clearly in the 1st century by Josephus:
“the main lesson to be learned from this history by any who care to peruse it is that men
who conform to the will of God…prosper in all things beyond belief, and for their reward
are offered by God felicity; whereas in proportion as they depart from the strict
observance of these laws, things (else) practicable become impracticable, and whatever
imaginary good thing they strive to do ends in irretrievable disasters.”
This idea remained popular throughout the Medieval period in Europe, and elaborate frameworks
of thought developed around it, based on the Bible. To these historians, God played a role in
history, rewarding virtue and punishing sin. Medieval historians readily predicted the future based
on what they saw as the correlation between human history and biblical prophecy.
Martin Luther agreed with Josephus that God’s will could be seen in history:
“histories are nothing else than a demonstration, recollection, and sign of divine action
and judgment, how He upholds, rules, obstructs, prospers, punishes, and honors the
world, and especially men, each according to his just desert, evil or good.”
Starting with the Scientific Revolution, however, and continuing into the Enlightenment, historians
began to separate their studies from those of the theologians. History’s focus returned to the
study of human activities and their human and natural causes. The study of God was something
entirely separate.
Info on Josephus:
Josephus (37–c.100 AD), also Yoseph Ben Mattithyahu (Joseph son of Matthias) and Titus
Flavius Josephus was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and
royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st cent. AD and
the First Jewish–Roman War which resulted in the Destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD.
He has been credited by many as recording some of the earliest history of Jesus Christ outside of
the gospels, this being an item of contention among historians.
Josephus was a law-observant Jew who believed in the compatibility of Judaism and GraecoRoman thought, commonly referred to as Hellenistic Judaism. His most important works were The
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Jewish War (c. 75 AD) and Antiquities of the Jews (c. 94 AD). The Jewish War recounts the
Jewish revolt against Roman occupation (66–70). Antiquities of the Jews recounts the history of
the world from a Jewish perspective for a Roman audience. These works provide valuable insight
into 1st century Judaism and the background of Early Christianity.
The works of Josephus provide crucial information about the First Jewish-Roman War and are
also important literary source material for understanding the context of the Dead Sea Scrolls and
late Temple Judaism. Josephan scholarship in the 19th and early 20th century became focused
on Josephus' relationship to the sect of the Pharisees. He was consistently portrayed as a
member of the sect, but nevertheless viewed as a villainous traitor to his own nation— a view
which became known as the classical concept of Josephus. In the mid 20th century, this view was
challenged by a new generation of scholars who formulated the modern concept of Josephus, still
considering him a Pharisee but restoring his reputation in part as patriot and a historian of some
standing. Some later authors argued that Josephus was not a Pharisee but an orthodox
Aristocrat-Priest who became part of the Temple Establishment as a matter of deference, and not
willing association.
Josephus includes information about individuals, groups, customs and geographical places. Some
of these, such as the city of Seron, are not referenced in the surviving texts of any other ancient
authority. His writings provide a significant, extra-Biblical account of the post-Exilic period of the
Maccabees, the Hasmonean dynasty, and the rise of Herod the Great. He makes references to
the Sadducees, Jewish High Priests of the time, Pharisees and Essenes, the Herodian Temple,
Quirinius' census and the Zealots, and to such figures as Pontius Pilate, Herod the Great, Agrippa
I and Agrippa II, John the Baptist, James the brother of Jesus, and a disputed reference to Jesus.
He is an important source for studies of immediate post-Temple Judaism and the context of early
Christianity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus
Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch)
Historical Reasoning: In order to provide a moral lesson—a model
of good behavior and a warning about evil
Tacitus mentioned the role of history in condemning evil behavior. This, and its corollary—the
praise and emulation of virtue--became a common theme in works that promoted the study of
history, even when God was not seen as rewarding virtue or punishing evil.
In the Middle Ages, the Venerable Bede made this case:
“For if history records good things of good men, the thoughtful hearer is encouraged to
imitate what is good: or if it records evil of wicked men, the good, religious listener or
reader is encouraged to avoid all that is sinful and perverse, and to follow what he knows
to be good and pleasing to God.”
History was a moral lesson, one that would improve and inspire the student. Petrarch, the early
Renaissance writer agreed that history was designed to:
“point up to the readers those things that are to be followed and those to be avoided,
with plenty of distinguished examples provided on either side.”
Petrarch, perhaps a little futilely, wrote letters to Cicero and other classical authors, as though
they were his contemporaries (though they had been dead for well over a millennium), taking
issue with, or applauding them, for their actions (and even wondering whether they might taken
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offense at his word. He was a little eccentric, to our eyes, but he clearly felt that there was much
to be learned from the past. Two centuries later, Jean Bodin said much the same thing:
“This, then, is the greatest benefit of historical books, that some men, at least, can be
incited to virtue and others can be frightened away from vice.”
Generally, modern historians make little mention of this idea that history provides such a clear-cut
morality tale—even some “heroes” often prove to have feet of clay when studied in depth—but the
idea was raised by the Bradley Commission in the late 1980s as a reason to promote the study of
history in schools:
“It [history] can convey a sense of civic responsibility by graphic portrayals of virtue,
courage, and wisdom—and their opposites.”
Some virtues in historical figures are obvious, but some are less clear. What about someone like
Alexander the Great? Does he provide an example of virtue or vice? Anyone emulating Alexander
today would be roundly condemned by the international community. But to condemn him for his
behavior in the past would be ahistorical; he lived at a time when modern ideas of human rights
had not yet developed. We now believe that is not our job, as historians, to judge the past based
on modern values.
Peter Stearns provides a more nuanced view related to this reason for the study of history. Rather
than adopting the idea that there are clear, unambiguous instances of virtue and evil in history, he
proposes that students of history look at the very complexities of situations in the past in order to
“test” and “hone” their “moral sense”:
“Studying the stories of individuals and situations in the past allows a student of history
to test his or her own moral sense, to hone it against some of the real complexities
individuals have faced in difficult settings.”
Info on Petrarch:
Francesco Petrarca (July 20, 1304 – July 19, 1374), known in English as Petrarch, was
an Italian scholar, poet and one of the earliest Renaissance humanists. Petrarch is often called
the "Father of Humanism". In the 16th century, Pietro Bembo created the model for the
modern Italian language based on Petrarch's works, as well as those of Giovanni Boccaccio and,
especially, Dante Alighieri. This would be later endorsed by the Accademia della Crusca. His
sonnets were admired and imitated throughout Europe during the Renaissance and became a
model for lyrical poetry. Petrarch was also known for being one of the first people to refer to
the Dark Ages.
Petrarch is traditionally called the father of Humanism and considered by many to be the "father of
the Renaissance." He was the first to offer a combination of abstract entities of classical culture
and Christian philosophy. In his work Secretum meum he points out that secular achievements
did not necessarily preclude an authentic relationship with God. Petrarch argued instead that God
had given humans their vast intellectual and creative potential to be used to their fullest. He
inspired humanist philosophy which led to the intellectual flowering of the Renaissance. He
believed in the immense moral and practical value of the study of ancient history and literature –
that is, the study of human thought and action. Petrarch was a devout Catholic and did not see a
conflict between realizing humanity's potential and having religious faith.
A highly introspective man, he shaped the nascent humanist movement a great deal because
many of the internal conflicts and musings expressed in his writings were seized upon by
Renaissance humanist philosophers and argued continually for the next 200 years. For example,
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Petrarch struggled with the proper relation between the active and contemplative life, and tended
to emphasize the importance of solitude and study. Later the politician and thinker Leonardo
Bruni argued for the active life, or "civic humanism". As a result, a number of political, military, and
religious leaders during the Renaissance were inculcated with the notion that their pursuit of
personal fulfillment should be grounded in classical example and philosophical contemplation.
Edward Gibbon
Historical Reasoning: With reason and rational thought, human
history will progress
Depth and accuracy
Gibbon’s methodology was so accurate that, to this day, little can be found to controvert his use of
primary sources for evidence. While modern historical methodology has changed, his skill in
translation of his sources was impeccable, and contemporary historians still rely on Gibbon as a
secondary source to substantiate references. His literary tone is old-fashioned, skeptical, and
pessimistic; it mirrors both his own character and the topic under discussion, the gradual decay of
a mighty empire.
Gibbon is considered to be a true representative of the Enlightenment; this is reflected in his
famous verdict on the history of the Middle Ages: "I have described the triumph of barbarism and
religion.” However, politically, he aligned himself with both Burke's rejection of the democratic
movements of the time as well as Burke's dismissal of the "rights of man." It is generally accepted
that Gibbon's treatment of Byzantium has had a detrimental effect on the study of the Middle
Ages. There remains a question as to whether his poor analysis is primarily due to a lack of
primary sources in this field or to the prejudices of the time. Gibbon's work has been praised for
its style, his piquant epigrams and its brilliant irony. Winston Churchill noted, "I set out upon
Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire [and] was immediately dominated by both the
story and the style. I devoured Gibbon. I rode triumphantly through it from end to end." Churchill
modeled much of his own style upon Gibbon's, though with less use of irony.
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Edward_Gibbon#Gibbon.27s_theory
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Because of its relative objectivity and heavy use of primary sources, at the time, its methodology
became a model for later historians. Gibbon writes with pessimism and detached use of irony.
Thesis
Gibbon offers an explanation for why the Roman Empire fell, a task made difficult by a lack of
comprehensive written sources, though he was not the only historian to tackle the subject. Most of
his ideas are directly taken from what few relevant records were available: those of the Roman
moralists of the 4th and 5th centuries.
According to Gibbon, the Roman Empire succumbed to barbarian invasions in large part due to
the gradual loss of civic virtue among its citizens. They had become weak, outsourcing their
duties to defend their Empire to barbarian mercenaries, who then became so numerous and
ingrained that they were able to take over the Empire. Romans, he believed, had
become effeminate, unwilling to live a tougher, "manly" military lifestyle. He further blames the
degeneracy of the Roman army and the Praetorian guards. In addition, Gibbon argued
that Christianity created a belief that a better life existed after death, which fostered an
indifference to the present among Roman citizens, thus sapping their desire to sacrifice for the
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Empire. He also believed its comparative pacifism tended to hamper the traditional Roman martial
spirit. Finally, like other Enlightenment thinkers, Gibbon held in contempt the Middle Ages as a
priest-ridden, superstitious, dark age. It was not until his own age of reason and rational thought, it
was believed, that human history could resume its progress.
Gibbon sees the primary catalyst of the empire's initial decay and eventual collapse in the
Praetorian Guard, instituted as a special class of soldiers permanently encamped in a
commanding position within Rome, a seed planted by Augustus at the establishment of the
empire. As Gibbon calls them at the outset of Chapter V: The Praetorian bands, whose licentious
fury was the first symptom and cause of the decline of the Roman empire. He cites repeated
examples of this special force abusing its power with calamitous results, including numerous
instances of imperial assassination and demands of ever-increasing pay.
Citations
Gibbon provides the reader with a glimpse of his thought process with extensive notes along the
body of the text, a precursor to the modern use of footnotes. Gibbon's footnotes are famous for
their idiosyncrasies. They provide an entertaining moral commentary on both ancient Rome and
18th-century Great Britain. This technique enabled Gibbon to compare ancient Rome to modern
times. Gibbon's work advocates a rationalist and progressive view of history.
Gibbon's citations provide in-depth detail regarding his use of sources for his work, which included
documents dating back to ancient Rome. The detail within his asides and his care in noting the
importance of each document is a precursor to modern-day historical footnoting methodology.
The work is notable for its erratic but exhaustively documented notes and research. John Bury,
following him 113 years later with his own "History of the Later Roman Empire," utilized much of
the same research, and commended the depth and accuracy of Gibbon's work. It is notable that
Bury, over a century after Gibbon, and Heather, over a century after Bury, both based much of
their own work on Gibbon's factual research. Both found little to argue with his facts, though both
disagreed with his theories, primarily on Christianity as a prime factor in the Empire's decline and
fall. Unusual for the 18th century, Gibbon was notably not content with secondhand accounts
when the primary sources were accessible, and used them so well that even today historians still
cite his work as the definitive factual history of the western empire. "I have always endeavoured,"
Gibbon wrote, "to draw from the fountain-head; that my curiosity, as well as a sense of duty, has
always urged me to study the originals; and that, if they have sometimes eluded my search, I
have carefully marked the secondary evidence, on whose faith a passage or a fact were reduced
to depend.” The Decline and Fall is a literary monument and a massive step forward in historical
methodology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_the_Decline_and_Fall_of_the_Roman_Empire#Legacy
Info on Edward Gibbon:
Edward Gibbon (April 27, 1737-January 16, 1794) was an English historian and MP. Gibbon's
work has been criticised for its scathing view of Christianity as laid down in chapters XV and XVI.
Those chapters were strongly criticised and resulted in the banning of the book in several
countries. Gibbon's alleged crime was disrespecting, and none too lightly, the character of sacred
Christian doctrine, by "treat[ing] the Christian church as a phenomenon of general history, not a
special case admitting supernatural explanations and disallowing criticism of its adherents".
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More specifically, Gibbon's blasphemous chapters excoriated the church for "supplanting in an
unnecessarily destructive way the great culture that preceded it" and for "the outrage of
[practicing] religious intolerance and warfare". Gibbon, though assumed to be entirely antireligion, was actually supportive to some extent, insofar as it did not obscure his true endeavour –
a history that was not influenced and swayed by official church doctrine. Although the most
famous two chapters are heavily ironical and cutting about religion, it is not utterly condemned,
and its truth and rightness are upheld however thinly.
Gibbon expected some type of church-inspired backlash, but the utter harshness of the ensuing
torrents far exceeded anything he or his friends could possibly have anticipated. Contemporary
detractors such as Joseph Priestley and Richard Watson stoked the nascent fire, but the most
severe of these attacks was an "acrimonious" piece by the young cleric, Henry Edwards
Davis. Gibbon subsequently published his Vindication in 1779, in which he categorically denied
Davis' "criminal accusations", branding him a purveyor of "servile plagiarism." Davis followed
Gibbon's Vindication with yet another reply (1779).
Gibbon's apparent antagonism to Christian doctrine spilled over into the Jewish faith, leading to
charges of anti-Semitism. For example, he wrote:
Humanity is shocked at the recital of the horrid cruelties which [the Jews] committed in
the cities of Egypt, of Cyprus, and of Cyrene, where they dwelt in treacherous friendship
with the unsuspecting natives; and we are tempted to applaud the severe retaliation
which was exercised by the arms of legions against a race of fanatics, whose dire and
credulous superstition seemed to render them the implacable enemies not only of the
Roman government, but also of humankind.
Burke, Churchill and ‘the fountain-head'
Gibbon is considered to be a son of the Enlightenment and this is reflected in his famous verdict
on the history of the Middle Ages:
"I have described the triumph of barbarism and religion." However, politically, he aligned
himself with the conservative Edmund Burke's rejection of the democratic movements of
the time as well as with Burke's dismissal of the "rights of man."
Gibbon's work has been praised for its style, his piquant epigrams and its effective irony. Winston
Churchill memorably noted,
"I set out upon...Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire [and] was immediately
dominated both by the story and the style. ...I devoured Gibbon. I rode triumphantly
through it from end to end and enjoyed it all."
Churchill modelled much of his own literary style on Gibbon's. Like Gibbon, he dedicated himself
to producing a "vivid historical narrative, ranging widely over period and place and enriched by
analysis and reflection."
Unusually for the 18th century, Gibbon was never content with secondhand accounts when the
primary sources were accessible (though most of these were drawn from well-known printed
editions). "I have always endeavoured," he says, "to draw from the fountain-head; that my
curiosity, as well as a sense of duty, has always urged me to study the originals; and that, if they
have sometimes eluded my search, I have carefully marked the secondary evidence, on whose
faith a passage or a fact were reduced to depend." In this insistence upon the importance of
primary sources, Gibbon is considered by many to be one of the first modern historians:
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In accuracy, thoroughness, lucidity, and comprehensive grasp of a vast subject, the
'History' is unsurpassable. It is the one English history which may be regarded as
definitive. ...Whatever its shortcomings the book is artistically imposing as well as
historically unimpeachable as a vast panorama of a great period.
Influence on other writers
The subject of Gibbon's writing as well as his ideas and style have influenced other writers.
Besides his influence on Churchill, Gibbon was also a model for Isaac Asimov in his writing of The
Foundation Trilogy, which he said involved "a little bit of cribbin' from the works of Edward
Gibbon".
Evelyn Waugh admired Gibbon's style but not his secular viewpoint. In Waugh's 1950
novel Helena, the early Christian author Lactantius worried about the possibility of " '...a false
historian, with the mind of Cicero or Tacitusand the soul of an animal,' and he nodded towards
the gibbon who fretted his golden chain and chattered for fruit."
J. C. Stobart, author of The Grandeur that was Rome (1911), wrote of Gibbon that "The mere
notion of empire continuing to decline and fall for five centuries is ridiculous...this is one of the
cases which prove that History is made not so much by heroes or natural forces as by historians."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Gibbon#Burke.2C_Churchill_and_.27the_fountain-head.27
Auguste Comte
Historical Reasoning: In order to understand the history of one’s
nation and to increase patriotism or sense of identity:
With the development of the idea of the “nation” came a new role for history. People reasoned
that a sense of national identity could be generated through a knowledge of shared history.
Already, this was being voiced by Leonardo Bruni in the Renaissance when he referred to “our
own history”:
“History: a subject which must not on any account be neglected by one who aspires to
true cultivation. For it is our duty to understand the origins of our own history and its
development; and the achievements of Peoples and of Kings.”
In the 19th century, French historian Augustin Thierry was typical of his time in proposing that
national history be widely taught in order to strengthen patriotism:
“I believe that our patriotism would gain a great deal both in selflessness and in
steadfastness if the knowledge of history, and particularly of French history, were more
widely diffused among us and were to become in a certain sense more popular.”
By the late 20th century the Bradley Commission recognized the need for both a common political
vision and a recognition of the multicultural nature of American society, both of which were aided
through the study of history:
“An historical grasp of our common political vision is essential to liberty, equality, and
justice in our multicultural society.”
Peter Stearns emphasized that awareness of a shared history could provide not only a nation, but
a business, institution, or ethnic group with a common identity:
“History also helps provide identity, and this is unquestionably one of the reasons all
modern nations encourage its teaching in some form….Many institutions, businesses,
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communities and social units, such as ethnic groups in the United States, use history for
similar identity purposes.”
Info on August Comte:
Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte (19 January 1798 – 5 September 1857), better
known as Auguste Comte, was a French philosopher, a founder of the discipline of sociology and
of the doctrine of positivism. He may be regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern
sense of the term.
Strongly influenced by the Utopian socialist Henri de Saint-Simon, Comte developed the positive
philosophy in an attempt to remedy the social malaise of the French revolution, calling for a new
social paradigm based on the sciences. Comte was of considerable influence in 19th century
thought, impacting the work of thinkers such as Karl Marx and John Stuart Mill. His version
of sociologie and his notion of social evolutionism, though now outmoded, set the tone for
early social theorists and anthropologists such as Harriet Martineau and Herbert Spencer. Modern
academic sociology was later formally established in the 1890s by Émile Durkheim with a firm
emphasis on practical and objective social research.
Comte attempted to introduce a cohesive "religion of humanity" which, though largely
unsuccessful, was influential in the development of various Secular Humanist organizations in the
19th century. He also created and defined the term "altruism".
Lord Acton
Historical Reasoning: In order to pass moral judgment
Notable quotations of Lord Acton:
“And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too
frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that. All
power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
“Universal History is . . . not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.”
“The strong man with the dagger is followed by the weak man with the sponge.”
"The science of politics is the one science that is deposited by the streams of history, like
the grains of gold in the sand of a river; and the knowledge of the past, the record of
truths revealed by experience, is eminently practical, as an instrument of action and a
power that goes to making the future."
"Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right of being able to do what we
ought.”
Info about Lord Acton:
John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, KCVO, DL (10 January 1834 – 19 June
1902), usually referred to simply as Lord Acton, was an English Catholic historian, politician, and
writer. Acton took a great interest in America, considering its Federal structure the perfect
guarantor of individual liberties. During the American Civil War, his sympathies lay entirely with
the Confederacy, for their defense of States' Rights against a centralized government that, by all
historical precedent, would inevitably turn tyrannical. His notes to Gladstone on the subject helped
sway many in the British government to sympathize with the South. After the South's surrender,
he wrote to Robert E. Lee that "I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply
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than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo," adding that he "deemed that you were
fighting battles for our liberty, our progress, and our civilization."
He was an intimate friend and constant correspondent of Prime Minister Gladstone, and the two
men had the very highest regard for one another. Matthew Arnold used to say that "Gladstone
influences all round him but Acton; it is Acton who influences Gladstone."[4]
Religion and writings
In 1870 came the great crisis in Catholicism over the First Vatican Council's promulgation of
the doctrine of papal infallibility.It was in this context that, in a letter he wrote to scholar and
ecclesiastic Mandell Creighton, dated April 1887, Acton made his most famous pronouncement:
"I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men with a
favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other
way, against the holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic
responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. All power tends to
corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men,
even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the
tendency or certainty of corruption by full authority. There is no worse heresy than that
the office sanctifies the holder of it."
Thenceforth he steered clear of theological polemics. He devoted himself to reading, study and
congenial society. With all his capacity for study, he was a man of the world and a man of affairs,
not a bookworm.[4] His only notable publications were a masterly essay in the Quarterly Review of
January 1878 on "Democracy in Europe;" two lectures delivered at Bridgnorth in 1877 on "The
History of Freedom in Antiquity" and "The History of Freedom in Christianity" — these last the only
tangible portions put together by him of his long-projected "History of Liberty;" and an essay on
modern German historians in the first number of the English Historical Review, which he helped to
found (1886).
Legacy
Acton's reputation for learning gradually spread abroad, largely through Gladstone's influence.
The latter found him a valuable political adviser, and in 1892, when the Liberal government came
in, Lord Acton was made a lord-in-waiting. Finally, in 1895, on the death of Sir John Seeley,
Lord Rosebery appointed him to the Regius Professorship of Modern History at Cambridge. His
inaugural lecture on The Study of History, afterwards published with notes displaying a vast
erudition, made a great impression in the university, and the new professor's influence on
historical study was felt in many important directions. He delivered two valuable courses of
lectures on the French Revolution and on Modern History, but it was in private that the effects of
his teaching were felt most. The Cambridge Modern History, though he did not live to see it, was
planned under his editorship.
According to Hugh Chisholm, editor of the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica:
"Lord Acton has left too little completed original work to rank among the great historians;
his very learning seems to have stood in his way; he knew too much and his literary
conscience was too acute for him to write easily, and his copiousness of information
overloads his literary style. But he was one of the most deeply learned men of his time,
and he will certainly be remembered for his influence on others.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dalberg-Acton,_1st_Baron_Acton
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Frederick Jackson Turner
Historical Reasoning: In order to encourage civic participation
and citizenship
History could do more than simply make citizens feel proud of their nation, or share a common
identity. It could make them better citizens.
In the 19th century, Frederick Jackson Turner wanted history to come alive and to be relevant to
students, and to inspire them to be good citizens.
“But perhaps its most practical utility to us, as public school teachers, is its service in
fostering good citizenship… We must make history living instead of allowing it to seem
mere literature, a mere narration of events that might have occurred on the
moon….Historical study has for its end to let the community see itself in the light of the
past, to give it new thoughts and feelings, new aspirations and energies.”
A few years later, John Bagnell Bury also emphasized the need for citizens to be knowledgeable
about history, a theme continued, after World War II, in a yearbook put together by the National
Council for Social Studies:
“it is of vital importance for citizens to have a true knowledge of the past and to see it in
a dry light, in order that their influence on the present and future may be exerted in the
right directions.”
NY Times on the NCSS Yearbook (1947):
“American history is called the necessary and vital core in any program of preparation for
intelligent American citizenship in an interdependent world….The educators observe that
citizens of the United States must, without losing their national identity, become citizens
of the world.” (NY Times, Feb 2, 1947)
By the late 20th century and continuing today, this was seen as one of the most important
reasons for placing history at the center of the school curriculum—a familiarity with history, along
with the “habits of mind” it encourages, are seen as absolutely necessary in order for citizens to
function in our democratic society.
“It [history] is vital for all citizens in a democracy, because it provides the only avenue we
have to reach an understanding of ourselves and our society, in relation to the human
condition over time, and of how some things change and others continue….The
knowledge and habits of mind to be gained from the study of history are indispensable to
the education of citizens in a democracy.” The Bradley Commission (1989)
“History that lays the foundation for genuine citizenship returns, in one sense, to the
essential uses of the study of the past….studying history encourages the habits of mind
that are vital for responsible public behavior, whether as a national or community leader,
an informed voter, a petitioner, or a simple observer.” Peter Stearns (2007)
A number of other reasons for the study of history have been put forward over the last century,
most of which remain valid and are uncontroversial.
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Info on Frederick Jackson Turner
Frederick Jackson Turner (November 14, 1861 – March 14, 1932) was an influential
American historian in the early 20th century. He is best known for his book, The Significance of
the Frontier in American History, whose ideas are referred to as the Frontier Thesis. He is also
known for his theories of geographical sectionalism. In recent years western history has seen
pitched arguments over his Frontier Thesis, with the only point of agreement being his enormous
impact on historical scholarship and the American mind.
Turner's "Frontier Thesis", was put forth in a scholarly paper in 1893, "The Significance of the
Frontier in American History", read before the American Historical Association in Chicago during
the Chicago World's Fair. He believed the spirit and success of the United States was directly tied
to the country's westward expansion. Turner expounded an evolutionary model; he had been
influenced by work with geologists at Wisconsin. The West, not the East, was where distinctively
American characteristics emerged. The forging of the unique and rugged American identity
occurred at the juncture between the civilization of settlement and the savagery of wilderness.
This produced a new type of citizen - one with the power to tame the wild and one upon whom the
wild had conferred strength and individuality. As each generation of pioneers moved 50 to 100
miles west, they abandoned useless European practices, institutions and ideas, and instead found
new solutions to new problems created by their new environment. Over multiple generations the
frontier produced characteristics of informality, violence, crudeness, democracy and initiative that
the world recognized as "American".
Turner's ideas influenced many areas of historiography. In the history of religion, for example,
Boles notes that William Warren Sweet at the University of Chicago Divinity School, argued that
churches adapted to the characteristics of the frontier, creating new denominations such as
the Mormons, the Church of Christ, the Disciples of Christ, and the Cumberland Presbyterians.
The frontier, they argued, shaped uniquely American institutions such as revivals, camp meetings,
and itinerant preaching. This view dominated religious historiography for decades. Moos (2002)
shows that the 1910s to 1940s black filmmaker and novelist Oscar Micheaux incorporated
Turner's frontier thesis into his work. Micheaux promoted the West as a place where blacks could
transcend race and earn economic success through hard work and perseverance.
Slatta argues that the widespread popularization of Turner's frontier thesis influenced popular
histories, motion pictures, and novels, which characterize the West in terms of individualism,
frontier violence, and rough justice. Disneyland’s Frontierland of the late 20th century reflected the
myth of rugged individualism that celebrated what was perceived to be the American heritage.
The public has ignored academic historians' anti-Turnerian models, largely because they conflict
with and often destroy the icons of Western heritage. However, the work of historians during the
1980s-1990s, some of whom sought to bury Turner's conception of the frontier and others who
have sought to spare the concept while presenting a more balanced and nuanced view, have
done much to place Western myths in context and rescue Western history from them.
Turner ignored gender and race, downplayed class, and left no room for victims. His values
represented a challenge to historians of the 1960s and later who stressed that race, class and
gender were powerful explanatory tools. The new generation stressed gender, ethnicity,
professional categorization, and the contrasting victor and victim legacies of manifest destiny and
imperialist expansion. Some criticized Turner's frontier thesis and the theme of American
exceptionalism. The disunity of the concept of the West, the similarity of American expansion to
European colonialism and imperialism in the 19th century, and the realities of minority group
oppression revealed the limits of Turnerian and exceptionalist paradigms.
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His sectionalism essays are collected in The Significance of Sections in American History, which
won the Pulitzer Prize in History in 1933. Turner's sectionalism thesis had almost as much
influence among historians as his frontier thesis, but never became widely known to the general
public as did the frontier thesis. He argued that different ethno-cultural groups had distinct
settlement patterns, and this revealed itself in politics, economics and society.
Turner's theories slipped out of fashion in the 1960s, as critics complained, unfairly, that he
neglected regionalism. They complained that he celebrated too much the egalitarianism and
democracy of a frontier that was rough on women and minorities. His ideas never disappeared;
indeed they influenced the new field of environmental history. Turner gave a strong impetus to
quantitative methods, and scholars using new statistical techniques and data sets have, for
example, confirmed many of Turner's suggestions about population movements.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Jackson_Turner
George Macaulay Trevelyan
Historical Reasoning: In order to lessen prejudices:
Knowing more about the histories of peoples different from oneself tends to generate more
understanding. Trevelyan referred to this as “sympathizing with others:
“It [history] can mould the mind itself into the capability of understanding great affairs and
sympathizing with other men.”
Others have written more recently of history’s ability to undermine stereotypes and diminish
unfounded prejudices.
Info on George Macaulay Trevelyan:
George Macaulay Trevelyan, (16 February 1876 – 21 July 1962), was an English historian.
Trevelyan was the third son of Sir George Trevelyan, whose staunch liberal Whig principles he
espoused in accessible works of literate narrative avoiding a consciously dispassionate analysis
that became old-fashioned during his long and productive career. The noted historian E. H.
Carr considered Trevelyan to be one of the last historians of the Whig tradition.
Many of his writings promoted the Whig Party, an important aspect of British politics from the 17th
century to the mid-19th century, and of its successor, the Liberal Party. Whigs and Liberals
believed the common people had a more positive effect on history than did royalty and that
democratic government would bring about steady social progress.
Trevelyan's history is engaged and partisan. Of his Garibaldi trilogy, "reeking with bias", he
remarked in his essay "Bias in History", "Without bias, I should never have written them at all. For
I was moved to write them by a poetical sympathy with the passions of the Italian patriots of the
period, which I retrospectively shared."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._M._Trevelyan
Simon Schama
Historical Reasoning: In order to appreciate arts and literature:
All works of art and literature were produced during specific time periods. In many instances the
works cannot truly be appreciated without an understanding of the histories of those times.
34
“Another educative function of history is to enable the reader to comprehend the
historical aspect of literature proper….For much of literature is allusion, either definite or
implied….History and literature cannot be fully comprehended, still less fully enjoyed,
except in connection with one another.” George Macaulay Trevelyan (1913)
“History provides both framework and illumination for the other humanities. The arts,
literature, philosophy, and religion are best studied as they develop over time and in the
context of societal evolution. In turn they greatly enliven and reinforce our historical
grasp of place and moment.” Bradley Commission (1989)
Info on Simon Schama
Simon Michael Schama (born 13 February 1945) is a British historian and art historian. He is a
professor at Columbia University. He is best known for writing and hosting the 15-part BBC
documentary series A History of Britain. Other works on history and art include The
Embarrassment of Riches, Landscape and Memory, Dead Certainties, Rembrandt's Eyes, and his
history of the French Revolution, Citizens. Schama is an art and cultural critic for The New Yorker.
Schama is a supporter of the Labour Party, donating £2,000 to Oona King's bid to become
Labour's candidate for the 2012 London Mayoral election.
Schama was critical of a call by British novelist John Berger for an academic boycott of Israel over
its policies towards the Palestinians. Writing in The Guardian in an article co-authored with lawyer
Anthony Julius, Schama compared Berger's academic boycott to policies adopted by Nazi
Germany, noting "This is not the first boycott call directed at Jews. On 1 April 1933, a week after
he came to power, Hitler ordered a boycott of Jewish shops, banks, offices and department
stores."
In 2006 on the BBC, Schama debated with Vivienne Westwood the morality of Israel's actions in
the Israel-Lebanon war. He characterised Israel's bombing of Lebanese city centres as unhelpful
in Israel's attempt to "get rid of" Hezbollah. With regard to the bombing he said: "Of course the
spectacle and suffering makes us grieve. Who wouldn't grieve? But it's not enough to do that.
We've got to understand. You've even got to understand Israel's point of view."
Schama is a vocal supporter of Barack Obama and critic of George W. Bush. He appeared on the
BBC's coverage of the 2008 U.S. presidential election, clashing with John Bolton.
Schama has a literary way of writing that is attractive to both historians and a wider readership. It
is "packed with evocative detail: rich fruit cakes crammed with raisins, currants, nuts and glacé
cherries all mulled in brandy sauce". He has also received criticism from one critic for dumbing
down history, presenting a "grossly oversimplified and mythologising view of the history of
nations" and not fostering critical thinking.
Susan Buck-Morss criticizes Schama's The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch
Culture in the Golden Age for its "selective national history" of the Dutch Republic, "that omits
much or all of the colonizing story." "One would have no idea that Dutch hegemony in the slave
trade (replacing Spain and Portugal as major players) contributed substantially to the enormous
"overload" of wealth that he describes as becoming so socially and morally problematic during the
century of Dutch "centrality" to the "commerce of the world.""
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Schama
35
Michel Foucault
Historical Reasoning: In order to foster personal growth
In addition to making us better, more informed citizens, a knowledge of history simply makes us
wiser, according to this line of thought.
“It [history] can satisfy young people’s longing for a sense of identity and of their time
and place in the human story. Well-taught, history and biography are naturally engaging
to students by speaking to their individuality, to their possibilities for choice, and to their
desire to control their lives.” Bradley Commission (1989)
“[History] offers the only extensive evidential base for the contemplation and analysis of
how societies function, and people need to have some sense of how societies function
simply to run their own lives.” Peter Stearns (2007)
Info on Michel Foucault:
Paul-Michel Foucault (15 October 1926 – 25 June 1984), was a French philosopher, social
theorist and historian of ideas. He held a chair at the prestigious Collège de France with the title
"History of Systems of Thought," and also taught at the University at Buffalo and the University of
California, Berkeley.
Foucault is best known for his critical studies of social institutions, most notably
psychiatry, medicine, the human sciences, and the prison system, as well as for his work on
the history of human sexuality. His writings on power, knowledge, and discourse have been
widely influential in academic circles. In the 1960s Foucault was associated with structuralism, a
movement from which he distanced himself. Foucault also rejected the poststructuralist and
postmodernist labels later attributed to him, preferring to classify his thought as a critical history
of modernity rooted in Kant. Foucault's project was particularly influenced by Nietzsche, his
"genealogy of knowledge" being a direct allusion to Nietzsche's "genealogy of morality". In a late
interview he definitively stated: "I am a Nietzschean."
Foucault was listed as the most cited scholar in the humanities in 2007 by the ISI Web of Science.
The English edition of Madness and Civilization is an abridged version of Folie et déraison:
Histoire de la folie à l'âge classique, originally published in 1961. A full English translation
titled The History of Madness has since been published by Routledge in 2006. "Folie et deraison"
originated as Foucault's doctoral dissertation; this was Foucault's first major book, mostly written
while he was the Director of the Maison de France in Sweden. It examines ideas, practices,
institutions, art and literature relating to madness in Western history.
Foucault begins his history in the Middle Ages, noting the social and physical exclusion
of lepers. He argues that with the gradual disappearance of leprosy, madness came to occupy
this excluded position. The ship of fools in the 15th century is a literary version of one such
exclusionary practice, namely that of sending mad people away in ships. In 17th century Europe,
in a movement Foucault famously calls the "Great Confinement," "unreasonable" members of the
population were institutionalised. In the 18th century, madness came to be seen as the reverse of
Reason, and, finally, in the 19th century as mental illness.
36
Foucault also argues that madness was silenced by Reason, losing its power to signify the limits
of social order and to point to the truth. He examines the rise of scientific and "humanitarian"
treatments of the insane, notably at the hands of Philippe Pinel and Samuel Tuke who he
suggests started the conceptualization of madness as 'mental illness'. He claims that these new
treatments were in fact no less controlling than previous methods. Pinel’s treatment of the mad
amounted to an extended aversion therapy, including such treatments as freezing showers and
use of a straitjacket. In Foucault's view, this treatment amounted to repeated brutality until the
pattern of judgment and punishment was internalized by the patient.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault#Criticisms
Niall Ferguson
Historical Reasoning: In order to prepare for work by developing
analytical skills:
The skills one uses in learning to read, analyze, and interpret history extend to many other
aspects of life. Whether at home (for example, trying to determine the credibility of information on
a website) or at work (e.g. doing research for a business report), skills learned in well-taught
history classes have a lasting value. Such skills even help students do well on standardized tests
of reading, though this can hardly be viewed as an end in itself. More important is that a different
(and arguably more useful) type of literacy is needed for reading primary or secondary sources in
history than is required for reading fiction.
“A proper teaching of history, the Yearbook authors hold, can develop critical thinking
among students, as well as built democratic attitudes.” NY Times on NCSS Yearbook
(NY Times, Feb 2 1947)
“History is generally helpful to the third aim of education, preparation for work. It is
needed for such professions as law, journalism, diplomacy, politics, and teaching. More
broadly, historical study develops analytical skills, comparative perspectives, and modes
of critical judgment that promote thoughtful work in any field or career.” Bradley
Commission (1989)
“History is useful for work. Its study helps create good businesspeople, professionals,
and political leaders.” Peter Stearns (2007)
These are not the only reasons for studying history, of course. One can think of many more. What
rings true throughout the centuries, however, is that history has always been an essential element
of the educational curriculum. It is not a luxury or an add-on to be brought in if time allows. Its
study is part of the life-blood of a society.
Info on Niall Ferguson:
Niall Campbell Douglas Ferguson (born April 18, 1964) is a Scottish historian who specializes
in financial and economic history, particularly hyperinflation and the bond markets, as well as
the history of colonialism.
Ferguson, who was born in Glasgow, is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard
University as well as William Ziegler Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business
School, and also currently the Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at
the London School of Economics. He was educated at the private Glasgow Academy in Scotland,
and at Magdalen College, Oxford. During the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Ferguson advised
Senator John McCain's campaign.
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In 2008, Ferguson published The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World, which he
also presented as a Channel 4 television series. Both at Harvard College and at LSE, Ferguson
teaches a course entitled "Western Ascendancy: The Mainsprings of Global Power from 1600 to
the Present."
In October 2007, Ferguson joined the Financial Times where he is now a contributing editor. He
also writes for Newsweek. Ferguson has often described the European Union as a disaster
waiting to happen, and has criticized President Vladimir Putin of Russia for authoritarianism. In
Ferguson's view, certain of Putin's policies, if they continue, may stand to lead Russia to
catastrophes equivalent to those that befell Germany during the Nazi era.
Ferguson is an academic champion of counterfactual history, and edited a collection of essays
exploring the subject titled Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals (1997). Ferguson likes
to imagine alternative outcomes as a way of stressing the contingent aspects of history. For
Ferguson, great forces don't make history; individuals do and nothing is predetermined. Thus, for
Ferguson there are no paths in history that will determine how things will work out. The world is
neither progressing nor regressing; only the actions of individuals will determine whether we live
in a better or worse world. His championing of the method has been controversial within the field.
Ferguson is critical of what he calls the "self-flagellation" that he says characterizes modern
European thought.
"The moral simplification urge is an extraordinarily powerful one, especially in this
country, where imperial guilt can lead to self-flagellation," he told a reporter. "And it leads
to very simplistic judgments. The rulers of western Africa prior to the European empires
were not running some kind of scout camp. They were engaged in the slave trade. They
showed zero sign of developing the country's economic resources. Did Senegal
ultimately benefit from French rule? Yes, it's clear. And the counterfactual idea that
somehow the indigenous rulers would have been more successful in economic
development doesn't have any credibility at all."
Fellow academics have questioned Ferguson's commitment to scholarship. Benjamin WallaceWells, an editor of The Washington Monthly, comments that:
"The House of Rothschild remains Ferguson's only major work to have received prizes
and wide acclaim from other historians. Research restrains sweeping, absolute claims:
Rothschild is the last book Ferguson wrote for which he did original archival work, and
his detailed knowledge of his subject meant that his arguments for it couldn't be too
grand."
John Lewis Gaddis, a renowned Cold War era historian, characterized Ferguson as having
unrivaled "range, productivity and visibility" at the same time as criticizing his work as being
"unpersuasive". Gaddis goes on to state that "several of Ferguson's claims, moreover, are
contradictory".
Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm has praised Ferguson as an excellent historian. However, he
has also criticized Ferguson, saying, on the BBC Radio programme "Start the Week", that he was
a "nostalgist for empire".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niall_Ferguson#Career_as_commentator
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Fernand Braudel
Historical Reasoning: History Provides Identity
History also helps provide identity, and this is unquestionably one of the reasons all modern
nations encourage its teaching in some form. Historical data include evidence about how families,
groups, institutions and whole countries were formed and about how they have evolved while
retaining cohesion. For many Americans, studying the history of one's own family is the most
obvious use of history, for it provides facts about genealogy and (at a slightly more complex level)
a basis for understanding how the family has interacted with larger historical change. Family
identity is established and confirmed. Many institutions, businesses, communities, and social
units, such as ethnic groups in the United States, use history for similar identity purposes. Merely
defining the group in the present pales against the possibility of forming an identity based on a
rich past. And of course nations use identity history as well—and sometimes abuse it. Histories
that tell the national story, emphasizing distinctive features of the national experience, are meant
to drive home an understanding of national values and a commitment to national loyalty.
Info on Fernand Braudel:
Fernand Braudel (24 August 1902 – 27 November 1985) was a French historian and a leader of
the Annales School. His scholarship focused on three main projects, each representing several
decades of intense study: The Mediterranean (1923–49, then 1949–66), Civilization and
Capitalism (1955–79), and the unfinished Identity of France (1970–85). His reputation stems in
part from his writings, but even more from his success in making the Annales School the most
important engine of historical research in France and much of the world after 1950. As the
dominant leader of the Annales School of historiography in the 1950s and 1960s, he exerted
enormous influence on historical writing in France and other countries.
Braudel has been considered one of the greatest of the modern historians who have emphasized
the role of large-scale socioeconomic factors in the making and writing of history. He can also be
considered as one of the precursors of World Systems Theory.
At the outbreak of war in 1939, he was called up and subsequently taken prisoner in 1940 by the
Germans. While a prisoner of war in a camp near Lübeck in Germany, Braudel drafted his great
work La Méditerranée et le Monde Méditerranéen a l'époque de Philippe II (The Mediterranean
and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II), without access to his books or notes but
relying on his prodigious memory.
Braudel became the leader of the second generation of Annales historians after 1945. In 1962, he
wrote A History of Civilizations as the basis for a history course, but its rejection of the traditional
event-based narrative was too radical for the French ministry of education, which in turn rejected
it.
A feature of Braudel's work was his compassion for the suffering of marginal people. He
articulated that most surviving historical sources come from the literate wealthy classes. He
emphasized the importance of the ephemeral lives of slaves, serfs, peasants, and the urban poor,
demonstrating their contributions to the wealth and power of their respective masters and
societies. Indeed, he appeared to think that these people form the real material of civilization. His
work was often illustrated with contemporary depictions of daily life, rarely with pictures of
noblemen or kings.
According to Braudel, prior to the Annales approach, the writing of history was focused on
the courte durée (short span), or on histoire événementielle (a history of events). Political and
diplomatic history is a prime example of histoire événementielle, which he criticized as too limited.
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His followers admired his use of the longue durée approach to stress the slow and often
imperceptible effects of space, climate and technology on the actions of human beings in the past.
The Annales historians, after living through two world wars and massive political upheavals in
France, were deeply uncomfortable with the notion that multiple ruptures and discontinuities
created history. They preferred to stress inertia and the longue durée, arguing that the continuities
in the deepest structures of society were central to history. Upheavals in institutions or the
superstructure of social life were of little significance, for history, they argued, lies beyond the
reach of conscious actors, especially the will of revolutionaries. They rejected the Marxist idea
that history should be used as a tool to foment and foster revolutions. A proponent of historical
materialism, Braudel rejected Marxist materialism, stressing the equal importance of infrastructure
and superstructure, both of which reflected enduring social, economic, and cultural realities.
Braudel's structures, both mental and environmental, determine the long-term course of events by
constraining actions on, and by, humans over a duration long enough that they are beyond the
consciousness of the actors involved
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernand_Braudel
E.H. Carr
Historical Reasoning: Why study history?
Why study history? The answer is because we virtually must, to gain access to the laboratory of
human experience. When we study it reasonably well, and so acquire some usable habits of
mind, as well as some basic data about the forces that affect our own lives, we emerge with
relevant skills and an enhanced capacity for informed citizenship, critical thinking, and simple
awareness. The uses of history are varied. Studying history can help us develop some literally
"salable" skills, but its study must not be pinned down to the narrowest utilitarianism. Some
history—that confined to personal recollections about changes and continuities in the immediate
environment—is essential to function beyond childhood. Some history depends on personal taste,
where one finds beauty, the joy of discovery, or intellectual challenge. Between the inescapable
minimum and the pleasure of deep commitment comes the history that, through cumulative skill in
interpreting the unfolding human record, provides a real grasp of how the world works.
Info on E.H. Carr:
Edward Hallett "Ted" Carr (28 June 1892 – 3 November 1982) was a liberal and later leftwing Marxist British historian, journalist and international relations theorist, and an opponent
of empiricism within historiography.
Carr was best known for his 14-volume history of the Soviet Union, for his writings on international
relations, and for his book What Is History?, in which he laid out historiographical principles
rejecting traditional historical methods and practices.
Educated at the Merchant Taylors' School, London, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, Carr
began his career as a diplomat in 1916. Becoming increasingly preoccupied with the study of
international relations and of the Soviet Union, he resigned from the Foreign Office in 1936 to
begin an academic career. In 1961, he delivered the G. M. Trevelyan lectures at the University of
Cambridge that became the basis of his book, What is History? Moving increasingly towards the
left throughout his career, Carr saw his role as the theorist who would work out the basis of a new
international order.
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Carr is famous today for his work of historiography, What is History? (1961), a book based upon
his series of G. M. Trevelyan lectures, delivered at the University of Cambridge between January–
March 1961. In this work, Carr argued that he was presenting a middle-of-the-road position
between the empirical view of history and R. G. Collingwood's idealism. Carr rejected the
empirical view of the historian's work being an accretion of "facts" that he or she has at their
disposal as nonsense. Carr claimed:
"The belief in a hard core of historical facts existing objectively and independently of the
interpretation of the historian is a preposterous fallacy, but one which it is very hard to
eradicate".
Carr maintained that there is such a vast quantity of information, at least about post-Dark Ages
times, that the historian always chooses the "facts" he or she decides to make use of. In Carr's
famous example, he claimed that millions had crossed the Rubicon, but only Julius Caesar's
crossing in 49 BC is declared noteworthy by historians. Carr divided facts into two categories,
"facts of the past", that is historical information that historians deem unimportant, and "historical
facts", information that the historians have decided is important. Carr contended that historians
quite arbitrarily determine which of the "facts of the past" to turn into "historical facts" according to
their own biases and agendas.
Carr stated that:
"Study the historian before you begin to study the facts. This is, after all, not very
abstruse. It is what is already done by the intelligent undergraduate who, when
recommended to read a work by that great scholar Jones of St. Jude's, goes round to a
friend at St. Jude's to ask what sort of chap Jones is, and what bees he has in his
bonnet. When you read a work of history, always listen out for the buzzing. If you can
detect none, either you are tone deaf or your historian is a dull dog. The facts are really
not at all like fish on the fishmonger's slab. They are like fish swimming about in a vast
and sometimes inaccessible ocean; and what the historian catches will depend partly on
chance, but mainly on what part of the ocean he chooses to fish in and what tackle he
chooses to use – these two factors being, of course, determined by the kind of fish he
wants to catch. By and large, the historian will get the kind of facts he wants. History
means interpretation. Indeed, if, standing Sir George Clark on his head, I were to call
history "a hard core of interpretation surrounded by a pulp of disputable facts", my
statement would, no doubt, be one-sided and misleading, but no more so, I venture to
think, than the original dictum"
For this reason, Carr argued that Leopold von Ranke's famous dictum wie es eigentlich
gewesen (show what actually happened) was wrong because it presumed that the "facts"
influenced what the historian wrote, rather than the historian choosing what "facts of the past" he
or she intended to turn into "historical facts". At the same time, Carr argued that the study of the
facts may lead the historian to change his or her views. In this way, Carr argued that history was
"an unending dialogue between the past and present."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._H._Carr#Contribution_to_the_theory_of_International_relations
Eric Hobsbawm
Historical Reasoning: What Kind of History Should We Study?
The question of why we should study history entails several subsidiary issues about what kind of
history should be studied. Historians and the general public alike can generate a lot of heat about
what specific history courses should appear in what part of the curriculum. Many of the benefits of
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history derive from various kinds of history, whether local or national or focused on one culture or
the world. Gripping instances of history as storytelling, as moral example, and as analysis come
from all sorts of settings. The most intense debates about what history should cover occur in
relation to identity history and the attempt to argue that knowledge of certain historical facts marks
one as an educated person. Some people feel that in order to become good citizens students
must learn to recite the preamble of the American constitution or be able to identify Thomas
Edison—though many historians would dissent from an unduly long list of factual obligations.
Correspondingly, some feminists, eager to use history as part of their struggle, want to make sure
that students know the names of key past leaders such as Susan B. Anthony. The range of
possible survey and memorization chores is considerable—one reason that history texts are often
quite long.
Info on Eric Hobsbawm:
Eric John Ernest Hobsbawm (born 9 June 1917) is a British Marxist historian, public intellectual,
and author. His best known works include the trilogy about the long 19th century: The Age of
Revolution: Europe 1789-1848, The Age of Capital: 1848-1875 and The Age of Empire: 18751914.
One of Hobsbawm's interests is the development of traditions. His work is a study of their social
construction in the context of the nation state. He argues that many traditions are invented by
national elites to justify the existence and importance of their respective nation states.
Hobsbawm has written extensively on many subjects as one of Britain's most prominent
historians. As a Marxist historiographer he has focused on analysis of the "dual revolution" (the
political French revolution and the industrial British revolution). He sees their effect as a driving
force behind the predominant trend towards liberal capitalism today. Another recurring theme in
his work has been social banditry, a phenomenon that Hobsbawm has tried to place within the
confines of relevant societal and historical context thus countering the traditional view of it being a
spontaneous and unpredictable form of primitive rebellion.
He has published numerous essays in various intellectual journals, dealing with subjects
like barbarity in the modern age to the troubles of labour movements and the conflict between
anarchism and communism.
Thirty years ago Hobsbawm was described by the newspaper The Spectator as "arguably our
greatest living historian — not only Britain's, but the world's." James Joll wrote in The New York
Review of Books that "Eric Hobsbawm's nineteenth century trilogy is one of the great
achievements of historical writing in recent decades." Tony Judt, director of the Erich Maria
Remarque Institute at New York University, argued that Hobsbawm's tendency to disparage any
nationalist movement as passing and irrational weakened his grasp of parts of the 20th century.
Judt however, also wrote that "Hobsbawm is a cultural folk hero. His fame is well deserved.
Hobsbawm doesn't just know more than other historians, he writes better, too." In Neal
Ascherson's view "Eric's Jewishness increased his sensitivity about nationalism. He's the original
happy cosmopolitan, who's benefited from being able to move freely." Hobsbawm has attracted
criticism for his support for communism, even after the Hungarian and Czechoslovak
rebellions. Oliver Kamm wrote: "Hobsbawm has rarely missed an opportunity even after
communism’s demise to obfuscate its record". while Michael Gove has criticised Hobsbawm's
defense of Marxism, saying that "only when Hobsbawm weeps hot tears for a life spent serving an
ideology of wickedness will he ever be worth listening to." Also, Robert Conquest has claimed that
in an interview with Canadian author and politician Michael Ignatieff on British television in 1994,
Hobsbawm responded to the question of whether 20 million deaths may have been justified if the
proposed communist utopia had been created as a consequence by saying "yes". More
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specifically, Hobsbawm reportedly said that "in a period in which, as you might imagine, mass
murder and mass suffering are absolutely universal, the chance of a new world being born in
great suffering would still have been worth backing". He stressed that since the utopia had not
been created, the sacrifices were in fact not justified—a point that he also emphasized in his own
1994 book, Age of Extremes:
“Still, whatever assumptions are made, the number of direct and indirect victims must be
measured in eight rather than seven digits. In these circumstances it does not much
matter whether we opt for a "conservative" estimate nearer to ten than to twenty million
or a larger figure: none can be anything but shameful and beyond palliation, let alone
justification.”
J. Bradford DeLong strongly criticized Hobsbawm's Age of Extremes, writing: "The remains of
Hobsbawm's commitment to the religion of World Communism get in the way of his judgment, and
twist his vision. On planet Hobsbawm, for example, the fall of the Soviet Union was a disaster,
and the Revolutions of 1989 a defeat for humanity. On planet Hobsbawm, Stalin planned multiparty democracies and mixed economies for Eastern Europe after World War II, and reconsidered
only after the United States launched the Cold War." David Evanier, in an article published in the
American conservative magazine The Weekly Standard, called Hobsbawm "Stalin's cheerleader,"
writing: "One can learn almost nothing about the history of communism from Hobsbawm's
"Interesting Times"--nothing about the show trials, the torture and execution of millions, the
Communist betrayal of Spain."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Hobsbawm
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