BOOKS IN SUMMARY

FINDING PHILOSOPHY IN SOCIAL SCIENCE. By Mario Bunge. New Haven, Conn.: Yale
University Press, 1996. Pp. xii, 432.
The author claims that the social sciences (including history) are “crammed with philo-
sophical concepts, such as those of fact, system, process, theory, test, and truth. They also
contain or presuppose some philosophical assumptions, such as that societies are (or are
not) mere aggregates of individuals, that people can (or cannot) choose and act rational-
ly, and that social facts can (or cannot) be studied scientifically” (xi). His aim is to ferret
out and examine some such ideas.
The book is divided into three main parts: From Fact to Theory, From Explanation to
Justification, and General Philosophical Problems in Social Science. The first part studies
four families of concepts: those of fact, idea, inquiry, and systematization. The discussions
of emergence, event, process, pattern, causation, chance, social fact, ideal type, law, and
reduction are likely to be of interest to the historian.
The second part examines explanation, prediction, testability, social indicator, and real-
ity check. It also discusses the commonalities and differences between basic science,
applied science and technology; the concepts of pseudoscience and ideology are analyzed
as well, and the constructivist-relativist sociology of science is branded as a pseudo-sci-
ence.
The third part is devoted to a number of longstanding controversies: individualism ver-
sus collectivism, idealism versus materialism, empiricism versus rationalism, and subjec-
tivism versus realism. It also contains a detailed criticism of rational choice theories, as
well as of phenomenology, hermeneutics, and other schools.
M. B.

L’INCHIESTA E LA PROVA: IMMAGINE STORIOGRAFICA, PRATICA GIURIDICA E RETORICA NELLA

GRECIA CLASSICA. By Paolo Butti de Lima. Torino: Giulio Einaudi Editore, 1996. Pp. viii,
201.
The problem of truth in ancient historiography has been seen from two points of view by
modern scholars. Some have stressed the influence of rhetoric, or have emphasized those
aspects that apparently distinguish ancient historical narrative from the more “rational”
approach of modern history. Others have linked ancient historiography with other branch-
es of “scientific” knowledge, in particular with medicine, or have seen a continuity
between the ancient and modern attachment to truth in historical methodology. This book
looks at the specific nature of Greek rationality itself by exploring the relation between
juridical praxis and historiography in classical Greece. It affirms the importance of the
correspondence between juridical and historical discourses concerning the statement of
truth. It further attempts to demonstrate the inadequacy for the Greek world of the idea of
the historian as judge, as well as the importance of legal means of proof in the construc-
tion of a historical “truth.”
 BOOKS IN SUMMARY 431
After posing the general problem in the Introduction (including the preeminence of the
juridical analogy with respect to medical or rhetorical–literary comparisons), the first part
of the book attempts an analysis of some of the main characteristics of Athenian legal
praxis. Chapter 1 discusses the secondary place of the notion of inquiry in Athenian
courts. The necessity of “acting out” the facts in popular courts allowed the development
of rhetoric and logography, and these interacted with legal procedures in the shaping of a
juridical discourse. Chapter 2 consists of an analysis of this discourse with regard to the
truthfulness of the past: the distinction between proof and narration, the way in which evi-
dence was presented, the problem of time and the duration of the lawsuits, and the use of
means of proof, particularly the eikos (likelihood).
The second part of the book is devoted to Herodotus and Thucydides. Chapter 4 looks
at the enunciation of the historian’s presence in his own discourse and the mention of
informers as a way of asserting the truthfulness of the narrative. Chapter 5 then considers
the historians’ mention of the means of proof studied in the first part. It demonstrates that
these means form a critical historical vocabulary, a way by which the historian can prop-
erly affirm the validity of a certain piece of information: the “image” of truth he constructs
in his own discourse.
The third part discusses “the limits of the image.” For if it is possible to affirm the
importance of the use of juridical means of proof in historical discourse, it is however also
necessary to see that the notion of historia (inquiry) plays a secondary role in Greek
juridical praxis. So the stress laid on investigation by the ancient historian can be placed
in the general context of the reaction against rhetoric.
P. B. L.

BORDERS OF CHINESE CIVILIZATION: GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY AT EMPIRE’S END. By D. R.

Howland. Durham: Duke University Press, 1996. Pp. viii, 341.
Borders of Chinese Civilization explores China’s representations of Japan in the chang-
ing world of the late nineteenth century and, in so doing, examines the cultural borders
between the two neighbors. Looking at Chinese accounts of Japan written during the
1870s and 1880s, Howland analyzes the main genres that the Chinese used to portray
Japan: the travel diary, poetry, and the geographical treatise. As “poetic” genres, travel
diaries and geographical poetry offer an experiential knowledge of geography and culture;
as an “expository” genre, the geographical treatise presents an abstract and objectified
knowledge. This discussion of epistemology concludes with the marginalization of these
forms of geographical representation after 1900, as new forms for representing Japan
arose: new genres of travel diary and European geography.
Parallel to this development is a change in Chinese and Japanese modes of communi-
cation. In his discussion of the practice of “brushtalking,” in which Chinese and Japanese
scholars communicated with each other by exchanging the written characters of literary
Chinese, Howland shows how the Chinese viewed the communication of their language
and its dominant modes—history and poetry—as the textual and cultural basis of a shared
and arguably universal civilization. By the 1890s, however, when both countries had
adopted European diplomatic habits, the use of interpreters signaled the rise of an alter-
native worldview: rather than assuming the universality of literary Chinese, Chinese
diplomats had begun the practice of translating Japanese in order to communicate in
speech.
With Japan’s decision in the 1870s to westernize, China’s relationship with Japan
underwent a crucial change—one that resulted in Japan’s decisive separation from
Chinese civilization and, according to Howland, a destabilization of China’s worldview.
432 BOOKS IN SUMMARY

His examination of the ways in which Chinese perceptions of Japan altered in the 1880s
reveals the crucial choice faced by the Chinese of whether to interact with Japan as “kin,”
based on geographical proximity and the existence of common cultural threads, or as a
“barbarian,” alien force molded by European influence. By probing China’s poetic and
expository modes of portraying Japan, Borders of Chinese Civilization exposes the chang-
ing world of the nineteenth century and China’s comprehension of it.
D. R. H.

ECONOMICS AND THE HISTORIAN. By Thomas G. Rawski, et al. Berkeley: University of

California Press, 1996. Pp. xiv, 297.
Written by a group of historically-oriented economists with long experience of working
with historians, Economics and the Historian sets out to introduce economics to histori-
ans who want to apply economic thinking to their research but lack the time and interest
to wade through the mathematical formalism that pervades the dismal science. This vol-
ume shows how historians can use economic thinking, economic models, and economic
methods to enrich their studies of the past. It explores the fundamental concepts of eco-
nomic analysis in clear, jargon-free language. A wealth of applications demonstrates the
value of economic approaches in illuminating the history of different regions and time
periods. The book explains the analysis of specific markets and of entire economic sys-
tems. The authors devote separate chapters to long-term trends, institutions, labor, money
and banking, and international issues—subjects of vital concern to historians. The authors
tested these materials with a group of China historians who subsequently produced a com-
panion volume, Chinese History in Economic Perspective (ed. Thomas G. Rawski and
Lillian M. Li [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992]), that shows how working
historians can use the materials in Economics and the Historian to build economic per-
spectives into studies of famine, market integration, public policy, class and ethnic dis-
crimination, gender roles, income distribution, local politics, and world systems.
Economics and the Historian provides scholars and teachers of history with a provoca-
tive guide to a difficult but important subject. Historians will find it useful as a spring-
board for their own research and a lively and valuable source of collateral reading for both
undergraduate and graduate students.
T. G. R.

READING THE BOOK OF HISTORY: INTELLECTUAL CONTEXT AND EDUCATIONAL FUNCTIONS OF

FRANCISCAN HISTORIOGRAPHY (1226-ca. 1350). By Bert Roest. Doctoral Dissertation.
Groningen: Bert Roest, 1996. Pp. 358.
This study is intended to provide a more encompassing study of Franciscan historical
writing and Franciscan historical reflection than has been available to date. The first three
chapters present an overview of Franciscan historiography up to 1350 (including hagio-
graphical writings and travel stories). Two chapters are devoted to evaluating the contexts
of religious life and theological learning in which Franciscan historical writing and his-
torical reflection could evolve and might have been welcomed. The final two chapters
contain a series of case studies, in which it is argued that the form and content of
Franciscan historical writing to a large extent can be explained in terms of the functions
which Franciscan historiography fulfilled in the order.
 BOOKS IN SUMMARY 433
This study is directed against a longstanding scholarly tradition, going back to nine-
teenth-century historicism, according to which the culmination of medieval historical
writing took place in the twelfth century. The author argues that the thirteenth and four-
teenth centuries often are portrayed as the age of high scholasticism, when a scientific,
ahistorical science of theology would have ruled supreme. From this perspective, histori-
cal reflection in the thirteenth century is easily assigned to backward eschatological move-
ments on the margins of intellectual life, while the writing of history is delegated to the
lesser minds, seemingly out of touch with the requirements of hard-core scholastic learn-
ing. The author tries to modify this view by focusing on the intellectual contexts and edu-
cational functions of Franciscan historiography, written in an order which was very active
in the field of scientific theology but which also harbored several eschatological move-
ments opposed to it.
B. R.

DIE ERFINDUNG DES AMERIKANISCHEN WESTENS: DIE GESCHICHTE DER FRONTIER-DEBATTE.

By Matthias Waechter. Freiburg: Rombach Verlag, 1996. Pp. 413.
Frederick Jackson Turner’s famous “frontier thesis” of 1893 is probably the most influen-
tial interpretation of American history. In the past hundred years, historians have contin-
uously debated the accuracy of Turner’s argument that America’s uniquely democratic
civilization was the product of the process of westward expansion. Waechter’s book does
not add another statement to this discussion, but analyzes the debate on the frontier thesis
as a phenomenon of American intellectual history. It demonstrates how the controversy
about Turner’s thesis reflects the changes of ideological and theoretical commitments
within the American historical profession.
Die Erfindung des amerikanischen Westens deals in its first part with the frontier thesis
itself and its prehistory. Waechter first outlines main currents of American historical
thought from the Puritans to the late nineteenth century and then interprets the Turner the-
sis and its political and cultural implications. He draws attention to the importance of late
nineteenth-century evolutionist thought for the shaping of Turner’s ideas. Waechter also
stresses Turner’s commitment to Progressive reform and his decisive role in the shaping
of the so-called “progressive school” of American historical scholarship.
The second part of the book traces the debate on the frontier thesis from its beginnings
to developments in the 1980s. Waechter shows how the frontier interpretation was applied
to various topics of American political, social, and cultural history, and how it became an
element of political rhetoric. The frontier thesis served as a means to legitimize reform
movements like Progressivism and the New Deal; at the same time, however, it was used
by those who opposed liberal reform and advocated a return to the ethics of pioneer indi-
vidualism. Intellectuals of the 1920s and 1930s also drew on the frontier thesis in their
cultural criticism of contemporary features of American life.
Since the 1940s, the refutation of Turner and his thesis about the encompassing influ-
ence of the frontier increased, as historians began to view the United States as a part of
the “Atlantic community,” and stressed European roots of American democracy. The book
concludes with an analysis of the findings of practitioners of the “New Western History,”
the most recent contributors to the frontier debate, who criticize the Eurocentric, racist,
and sexist implications of Turner’s thought and advocate a multicultural perspective of
western history.
M. W.