Historical Knowledge, Historical Error

A CONTEMPORARY GUIDE TO PRACTICE

Allan Megill

with contributions by Steven Shepard and Phillip H onenbe1ger

The University of Chicago Press t c H 1c Ac o AN o Lo N o o N

 Th e U nive rsity of C hi cago Press , C hi cago 60637
The Uni ve rsity of C hi cago Press, Ltd .. Lo nd o n
ID 2007 by Th e Unive rsity of C hi cago
A ll rig hts rese r ved. Published 2007
Printed in th e United States of A mc ri c:i

A Russian ve rsio n of thi s book, tra nslated by Ma rina Kuk a rtseva , V. S. Tim o nin, a nd
V. E. Kas haev, is slated to be published in Dece mbe r 2006. und e r th e titl e J!lc'rop11YeKaH
Jn11cTeM011onrn fHi sto ri ca l e pi ste mology I, by th e M oscow pu blishe r Ka na n +. Pe king
Unive rsity Press is slated to publish a C hin ese ve rsio n, tra nsl ated by H a n Zhao, in Janu -
a ry 2007, unde r the titl e IJJJe~iR - JJJ.5e~i~: ~ft~U!~it fLi shi z hi shi - li shi
miu w u : da ngda i shiji a n daolun f. For Rita and M aria, again

I6 I 5 14 I 3 I2 I I I 0 09 08 2 3 4 5

ISBN- IJ: 978 -o-226-5 I829-9 (cl oth )

ISBN - IO: o-226-5 I829-9 (cloth )
ISBN- I3: 978-o- 226-5 I830-5 (pa pe r)
ISBN- IO: 0-226-5 1830-2 (pa pe r)

LI B RAR Y O F CONGRESS CA T A L OG I NG- I N- P UB LI CA TI ON DA T A

Megill, A ll a n.
Hi sto ri cal kn ow led ge, histo ri ca l e rror : a conte mpo rary g uid e to practi ce I Alla n
Megill; w ith co ntributi o ns by Steve n Shepard a nd Phillip H a ne nbe rge r.
p. cm.
In clud es bibli og raphi ca l refe re nces a nd ind ex .
ISBN- I)' 978-0-226-5 1829-9 (cl oth : alk. pa pe r)
ISBN-10: 0-226-5 1829-9 (cl oth: alk. pa pe r)
1s BN- I3: 978-0-226-5 1830-5 (pa pe r: a lk. pa pe r)
ISBN-10: o- 226-5 I830-2 (pa pe r: alk. pape r)
1. Hi sto ry - Phil osophy. 2. Kn ow led ge , Th eo ry of. 1. She pa rd, Steve n, 1978-
11. H a ne nbe rge r, Philli p. 111. Titl e.

D 16.9.M299 2007
90 I- d c22 2006021 624

@ Th e paper used in thi s publi catio n m eets the minimum requireme nts of the American
N ation al Sta ndard for Informati o n Sciences- Pe rman e nce of Pa pe r for Printed Library
Mate ria ls, ANS I z39.48- 1992.
 CON TENTS

l would figur e out w h y Martin Gue rre left his vill age a nd w he re he we nt, how Preface ix
a nd w hy A rn aud du Tilh became a n imposto r, w h ethe r he foo led Bertrande
Ac kn owledg m ents xv
de Rois, and why he fa iled to m ak e it stick. This wo uld tell us new things abou t
sixtee nth -ce ntury rural society .... It turn ed o ut to be much more difficu lt Int roduction: The Teed fo r His to ri ca l Epistemology 1

th an I had th oug ht.

NATAL IE ZEMON DAVIS, TheRetumofMartinGuerre
PART 1. Memory
o NE Histo ry w ith Memo ry, Histo ry without Memory 17
Memo1y versus H ist01y 18
For the simpl e truth is that truth is often ha rd to co m e by, and that once found History and the Present 26
it may easil y be los t aga in . Confficti11g Attitudes toward the Past 31
Conjectures and Refutations:
K A RL R . P O PPER, H istory\· Legitimate Roles 36
The Growth of Scientific Knowledge
Two Hi sto ry, Memory, Identity 41
Identity and the Memory Wave 42
Identity, Memory, and Historical Understanding 46
H ist01y, Memo1y, and the Unknown 53

PAR T 1 1. Narrative & Knowledge

THREE Does N a rrative H ave a Cogn itive Va lue of Its Ow n ? 63
Th e "Crisis" of Narrative 66
The Epistemological L imits of Narrative 71

F o u R Na rrati ve a nd th e Four T as k s o f Hi sto ry-Writin g 78

Explanation and Description 79
Narrative and Braudel's Med iterranean 92
Th e Four Tasks of H istory-Writing 96
PA RT 1 11 . Objectivity & Specu lation PR E F ACE
F 1v E Ob jec ti vity fo r Hi sto ri ans 10 7

Objectivity and Comm itment 107

Defining Objectivity 1 12

s 1 x A Case Study in Histo ri ca l Epistem ology: W hat Did the

Ne ig hbo rs Kn ow a bout Thom as Je ffe rso n a nd Sall y H emings?
RY S TE VEN SHEP A RD , P HI L LI P l-I ON E N B E H. G l: H. AN D A LL AN ME G I LL 125

A Disputed Case 1 26

Inf erence to the Best Explanation 127

Thagard's Th ree Criteria 132

.rl Fourth Criterion 1 34

Inferring the Relationship 1 37

Th e Case for Our Alternative Accou/7/ 148 Som e yea rs ago the Ame ri ca n hi sto ri an Dav id H ackett F isc he r publi shed
SE v E N Co unte rfac tual History: O n 1ia ll Fe rg uso n's Virtual H z»·tory
a n amusing and t ro ubling boo k, H istorians' Fallacies: Toward a L ogic of His-
a nd Simil a r Wo rk s 1 5 1 torical Thought. Althoug h it appea red in 1970, it rem ain s in print today, a
m in o r classic. It is read by lay persons interested in how hi stori an s go about
their jobs, and teac hers of histo rical method have long assig ned it to his-
PAR T 1v . Fragmen ration to ry ma jo rs a nd fir st-yea r g raduate stud ents as a sa luta ry wa rning of the
E 1 G HT Frag m entation a nd t he Future of Histo ri og raph y: pitfa ll s of th e di scipline. F isc her catalogued 11 2 differe nt "fa ll acies," sorted
O n Pete r ovick 's T hat Noble Dream 159 into twelve types, and th en fo und a wide a rray of hi sto ri ans of th e 1920s
th ro ug h th e 1960s g uilty of com m itting them - in deed, he seem s to hav e
N 1NE "G rand Na rrat ive" a nd the D iscipli ne of H isto r y 165
left no emin ence unstoned .
Fou r Ideal-Typical Attitudes toward the Overall Coherence of H isto1y 167
I ca nnot rise to the level of Fi scher's refr eshing wit, but I d o ta ke inspi -
Four Postulates Suggested by the Preceding Account 182
rati o n fr om hi s wo rk . My co nce rn , now rather un fas hi onabl e, is Fi sc he r's
TE N Coherence :rnd Inco he re nce in Historica l Stu d ies: co nce rn , and m y questio n is Fi sche r's qu esti o n. In sho rt, m y ce ntral interest
From th e An11ales School to th e ew C ultura l Histo ry 188 in thi s book is in th e substratum of a rg ument and justifi catio n that all ows a n
Th e Anna les School and the Problem of Coherence 190
a nswer to th e q uesti on, Wh at g ro un ds do we have fo r acceptin g the accoun ts
Th e Anna les School: From Con ve1gence to Multiplicity 198
of th e past that hi sto ri a ns and others offe r to us? O r, to put thi s in a slig htl y
Coherence as a Willed Com m itment 202
d iffe rent way, H ow ca n we best avoid hi sto ri ographi c e r ro r ? Histo ri ca l
e pi stem ology - o r, if yo u will , epi stemology fo r hi sto ri ans - is conce rned
Co nclusio n: Aga inst C urre nt Fashi on 209 with detecting a nd avoiding such error. But no o ne ca n un de rsta nd th e a r-
g um entative or justifi cato ry side of histo rica l resea rch a nd w riting w ith out
N otes 2 17
a n understa nding of oth er, related topics. H ence this book also deals w ith
Ind ex 269
the role of m em ory in - a nd against - histo ry; with d escription, ex plana-
ti on, and interpretatio n in hi sto ry; with obj ectivity a nd the place of specul a-
ti on (o r "abd ucti on") in hi sto rical resea rch; a nd with framing assumpti ons
in hi storical resea rch a nd w riting that are offered, usuall y surre ptitiously, by
noti ons of"pa rad ig m " and "g ra nd na rrative." Thi s book also attacks a few
bl atant solecism s- most nota bly, the w idely held notio n th at the hi sto ria n
shoul d strive to give us an "im mediate" expe rience of th e past.
X t PREFACE
Some sig nposts a re ca ll ed fo r. I shou ld note first of all that the chapters a re
not conn ected in a loc k-step way. Th ere are inte rtwinings, but usuall y one
chapter does not pose a proble m that is th en resolved in th e next. This is not
that kin d of book - no r d oes th e sub ject m atte r lend itself to such a treat-
ment. It is not my intention to offe r a th eo ry of hi sto ri ca l w riting, because [
do not think that a sing le theo ry, e ith e r of hi stori ca l w riting in ge neral or of
histo ri cal episte mology in particular, ca n be offe red. At a ny rate, no accept-
able theo ry ca n be offe red . Rather, thi s book offers a set of th eo retical re Aec-
tions on histo ri ca l e pistemology- that is, on th e probl em of th e limits and
conditions of histo ri cal knowledge. Th e th eo retical reAections arise in th e
course of exa mining particular exampl es. Th e payoff w ill be found m o re
in th e gene ral reflecti o ns offe red in-and I hope also prompted by - this
book than in the illuminati on cast on the specific examples. The a im is less
to co ntribute to a phil osophical exa minati on of epistemological issues than
to alert (or re-al ert) practicing histo rian s-a nd espec ially beginners-to
the epistemological aspect of their practice. I ofte n return to th e same issue
from d ifferent angles. I hope in this way to stimulate th e reader's ow n reAec-
tions. Above all , I hope that reade rs w ill tak e w hat is offered and apply it to
their ow n reading and w riting of history.
In th e introd ucti on, "Th e Need fo r Histori ca l Epistemology," [ reAect
o n instances of good a nd bad e pistem ologica l practice in hi sto ry, ta king ex-
amples from th e so-ca ll ed new cultural histo ry th at has rece ntl y pl ayed a
dom in ant role in professiona l hi sto ry-w ritin g in th e United States. In par-
ti cular, I co ntras t th e sense of e pistem ologica l res po nsibility to be d isce rned
in Nata li e Z. D av is's Th e Return of Martin Guerre (a ri veting account of an
in stance of" identity the ft" in sixteenth-century France) with what I ta ke to
be th e epistem ologica l irres po nsibility manifested in a rece nt "ex pe riment"
in Web-based, o r "digital," histo ry relating to slavery a nd the U.S. C ivil
War - a n experim ent that, in my view, ge nerates negative results. This, too,
is a contributio n to historical knowledge, at least if we recogni ze th at we
should now move on in different directions.
Part r, "Memory," pursues issues brought to lig ht in the introduction.
The two chapters in this part a re both concerned w ith casting doubt on the
frequentl y hea rd claim that history is simpl y a fo rm of m emory. C hapter r ,
"History w ith Memory, History w ith out Memo ry," attacks this ass ump-
ti on directly, yet a rg ues at th e same tim e that we ca nnot sim ply dispense
w ith "me mo ry." We ca n view history in two ways that a re polar o ppos ites:
as hav ing an affirmativ e function (a ffirmin g some pa rticular human com-
PREF ACE t XI
munity) and as hav ing a negating function (c ritici z ing th e m yths that thi s
comm unity has mad e fo r itself ). Ne ith er of these two poles ca n justifiably
be re jected . The cha pte r end s, however, by prefe rring the critica l pol e, as
the one m o re necessa ry at the prese nt tim e, whe n affirm ati on of the reig n-
ing coll ectivities is strongly ex pressed, and when multipl e forms of m em o ry
cha llenge a histo ry th at is often seen as yet a nother self-interested and self-
regard in g fo rm of intell ectual "discourse."
C ha pte r 2, "H istory, Memory, Id entity," adds "id entity" to the mix. In
the las t ge neratio n id entity has becom e both a problematic a nd a hig hly
va lu ed category in A m eri ca n culture a nd elsew he re. Id entity is closely tied
up w ith memory, and both identity and m emory have a complex relati on
to history. Th e fact that hi sto ry 's relati on to memory is actually, in many
respects, a negative relation has unfortunate ly bee n largely lost from sight.
Ce rtain important distinctions have also been lost from sight. One of these
is the distinction between m emory, which is deeply rooted in present-day
subj ectiviti es, and tradition , w hich is conn ected to an ob jectively existing
set of cultural artifacts or articulations. Another is the distinction between
memory a nd nostalgia. In empiri cal reality, such catego ri es often ove rlap.
H oweve r, we can not think cl early abo ut them unl ess th ey a re distinguished
at a conceptual level. Mo reo ver, histo rian s a nd others w ho confuse histo ry
w ith m emory, tradition, o r nosta lgia a re d estin ed to fa ll into error. Th ey
w ill always be tempted to turn th e auth enticity, usefulness, o r att ractiveness
of such and such a claim abo ut th e past into a reason fo r holding that th e
claim in qu esti on is t ru e.
Part 2, "Na rrativ e and Know ledge," add resses the cogn itive dim ensio n
of hi sto rica l na rrative . C hapter 3, "Does Narrative H ave a Cognitive Valu e
of Its Ow n? " starts out from L ouis 0 . Mink's suggestio n that it is possibl e to
discern "co nceptual presuppositions" embedd ed w ithin na rrative. In Mink 's
view, this g ives na rrative a cognitive va lue. C hapte r 3 both affi rm s a nd de-
ni es Mink 's claim. It notes the ubiquity of narrati ve- how it keeps popping
up aga in a nd aga in eve n w hen it is supposedly in crisis. This suggests that
narrati ve has va lu e for human beings, a nd part of th at va lue is surely th at it
helps people to see their way aro und in the wo rld. At the same time, differ-
ent people o r groups of people give their allegiance to mutually incompatible
narratives. Th e chapte r co nclud es that we need to deploy epistemological
criteria if we a re to decid e w hat to accept or reject of pa rticular na rratives .
C hapte r 4, "Na rrative and th e Four Tasks of History-Writing," casts
li ght on the cogn itive sid e of th e hi sto ri a n's enterpri se by parsin g out the
main tasks of histo riograph y. It also offe rs a redefinition of na rrative that
is intended not so much to replace the usual defi nitio n (namely, a chrono-
XII t PREFA C E
logicall y o rde red acco unt) as to clarify it, by focus ing not on the ma nn e r of
telling but instead on what na rrative co nveys (cha racters, settings, actions,
happenings) . C hapte r 4 contends that history has fo ur main tasks: desc ri p-
tio n; explanatio n; a rgument, o r justification; and interpretatio n. From the
perspective of histo ri ca l epistemology, the most importa nt point is that his-
torians can not simpl y assert that such and such claims a re true abo ut the
past. Rather, th ey must put fo rwa rd a rg um ents and ev idence that justify
our ag ree ing th at the cl aim s in q uestion are true. "Simply tellin g a story"
isn't good enough: we need more than "simpl y a story" if we a re to rega rd a
historical accou nt as ep istemologica ll y res ponsible.
Part 3 turns to th e interconnected topics of objectivity a nd specu lation in
hi story. C hapte r 5, "Objectivity fo r Hi sto ri ans,'' argues that objecti vity is an
inherently complex conception, for in stead of having a single mean ing at its
core, it has fo ur different but related m eanings . A ll fo ur senses of objectiv-
ity a re essential to the doing of histo ry: they constitute a kind of "factor X"
that allows the work to be hi sto ry and not m ere propaganda. T o be sure,
historians are m otivated by commitm ents th at we can refe r to, for the sake
of ve rbal econom y, as "political" (taking political in a broad sense, to include
religious, phil osophi ca l, aesthetic, cultural, and other simil a r comm itm ents,
as wel l as strictly political ones). Without such comm itme nts, hi stori ans
wo uld have no drive to w rite histo ry a nd no perspectiv e from w hich to do
so. And yet politi cal comm itm ent is a dangerous poison in the absence of an
equal comm itme nt to objectivity.
C hapter 6, "A Case Study in Historical Epistemology: What D id th e
eig hbors Know about Thomas Jefferson and Sall y H emings?" (co-
authored by Steve n Shepard, Phillip Hon enberge r, and All an Megill ), ad-
d resses a probl em th at historians a lways face in th eir work-the problem
of w hat socia l scienti sts fond ly ca ll "bad data." One way to deal w ith bad
data is to take a position of ag nostici sm, making no claims about th e past
unl ess one ca n be quite ce rtai n that they a re true. But hi sto ri a ns fo ll ow ing
such a st rategy wo ul d be able to offe r their readers onl y "scatte red empiri ca l
fragments," as the nineteenth-century hi stor ian and th eo ri st of histo ry J. G .
Droysen put it. In o rde r to produce an y worthy history at all , historians
need to specu late .
O ur cla im in chapter 6 is that histo rians oug ht to speculate in a self-aware
m a nner, and that, furth er, they o ug ht to signal to their reade rs how they a re
going beyond the ev idence. In this cha pter we conside r one historian's asse r-
tions about rumors that all eged ly circul ated in Albem a rl e County, Vi rgi nia
between 1 790 and 1802 about a sexua l relationship betwee n th e American
fo und ing fathe r Thomas Jefferso n and one of hi s slaves, Sa ll y Hemings .
PREFA C E t XIII
In the course of exam ining the ev ide nce fo r a nd aga in st this hi sto rian's as-
se rti o ns, we show the role that "inference to the best ex planation"- a lso
known as abduction o r abductive inference - plays in histo ri cal resea rch
and writing. Ind eed , eve n such appa re ntl y obv io us hi sto rical assertions as
"Napoleon existed" o r "Wo rld War I bega n in 19 14" a re kn own to us not
empirically, a nd certainl y not d eductively, but only by abducti ve in fe rence.
We also claim in this chapte r that a n e pistemologically res ponsible hi sto ry
req uires that histo ri a ns make compa rative judg m ents, ca nvass ing th e arg u-
ments both fo r a nd aga in st the h ypotheses th at occur to them.
C hapte r 7, "Counter fact ual Hi story: On Nia ll Fe rg uson's Virtua l His-
tory and Simil a r Works," refl ects on the place of one spec ies of speculation,
counterfac tual reaso ning, in th e resea rching a nd writing of hi sto ry. It does
so by looking at the ex plicitly counte rfactua l gen re of "v irtual" or "im agi-
nary" history. It distinguishes between the legitimate, in deed essential, role
of counte rfactuality in any attempt on the pa rt of the historian to m ake
claims about w hat caused what in histo ry, a nd a nother use of counterfact u-
ality that is cl ose r to imagin ative literature tha n to histo ry.
Part 4, "Fragmentation," turns to the splitting up of th e histo ri ca l field
that has come about w ithin academ ic histo riography. This fr agmentatio n
has occurred as different interpretive pe rspectives h ave a risen and com e into
confl ict w ith each othe r. Ind eed, fragm entati on see ms to be a n inev itabl e
consequence of the interpreti ve nat ure of historical resea rch and w riting that
is noted in chapte r 4. I co ntend that a n e pistemologically responsible hi sto ri -
ography needs in la rge measure to go along w ith such fragme ntation.
Chapte r 8, "Fragmentatio n a nd th e Future of Hi sto ri ography: O n Peter
Nov ick 's That Noble Dream," looks at th e fragm entation of hi sto ry in rela-
tion to th e fina l part of Pete r Nov ick's wel l-known 1988 book, in w h ich he
desc ribes a n Ame ri ca n hi sto rica l professio n in w hi ch , at the time that he
wrote, there was "no king"- that is, no dominant conse nsus. Some reade rs
of Nov ick 's book saw him as lame nting this fac t. I co ntend , o n the contra ry,
that th ere was a nd is no reason for lam entation.
C hapter 9, '"G rand Narrative' a nd the Discipline of Hi sto ry," is a much
longe r and heav ie r chapter, but I hope that it w ill repay th e attention that it
requires. It offe rs a number of distinctions a nd perspectives that are essenti al
to und ersta nding the nature of histo riog rap hi c coherence. We ca n think
of the cohe rence of the hi storica l accou nt as occupyi ng fo ur distinct levels:
the re is the coherence of na rrativ e proper, of master narrative, of g ra nd na r-
rati ve, and, fi nall y, of meta na rrative. Furthe r, we need to co nside r notions
of the cohe rence of the histo rical wo rld as rooted in fo ur d istinct attitudes
toward hi story-attitudes that ca n coexist, but that also have a hi stori ca l
X IV t PREFA C E
progression. We can hold that th ere is a single, unified hi story and that we
know w hat it is now; that thi s history wi ll o nly be known late r, afte r "fur-
ther resea rch" is done; that such a histo ry is a purely regul ative idea a nd w ill
neve r actua ll y be know n; o r that the notio n that we oug ht to aim fo r a sing le
histo ry is unju stifi ed and li miting. C hapter 6 also ex plores th e options that
fo ll ow when the idea of a unifi ed history is abandoned.
In spite of the ev id ent multiplicity of interpretive perspectives that a re
now being broug ht to the hi sto ri ca l past, a strong dri ve toward the "re-
coherenti zation" of history pe rsists. C hapter ro, "Cohe rence a nd Incohe r-
ence in Hi sto rica l Studies: From th e Anna/es Sc hool to th e New Cu ltural
History," examines this tend ency, foc using o n one res ponse to the retreat
of the notion that histo rical scholarship wi ll eve ntuall y und erpin a unifi ed
account of the hi sto ri ca l world , a "un ive rsal history." Th e most w id ely in -
flu ential school of historical resea rch and w riting in the second half of th e
twentieth century was the so-called Anna/es school in France. Such luminar-
ies of th e Anna/es school as Lucie n F ebv re a nd Fernand Braud el lo nged to
w rite a " total hi story" (o r, as Febvre o nce ca lled it, a "totalitarian histo ry") .
Their effort fa il ed. Subsequ entl y, a new gene ratio n of histo ri ans , linked
closely to th e Annale.; sc hool, in vented th e "new cultural hi sto ry." These hi s-
to ri a ns no longe r as pire to w rite total history, fo r they well und erstand th at
the past holds far more to write abo ut than will eve r be accommodated in a
single, " total" view. Yet they still look to cohe rence-an imposed cohere nce,
fo r which th ey find justifi catio n in Thomas S. Kuhn's noti o n that sc ientifi c
d isciplin es a re usually uni fied by th e ad herence of all competent resea rche rs
to a singl e " paradigm ," o r mode l, of sci e ntifi c resea rch. C hapte r 1 o points
out that th e paradigm notio n is itself unjustifi ed-as som e of th e m o re as-
tute proponents of th e new cultural hi sto ry fr eely acknow ledge.
In the conclusion, "Aga in st C urrent Fashi on," I refl ect bri efly on how
history is and is not valuabl e fo r the prese nt. In particul ar, I ca ll attentio n
to the unju stified, un -self-aware, eve n a rroga nt characte r of th e popular as-
sumption th at the histo ri an ca n and ought to aim at making the expe ri ence
of peopl e in th e past ava ilable to us in its raw immediacy.
Some of these chapte rs a re quite demanding, whereas others are m o re
accessible. Reade rs unfamilia r with histo rica l theory may wish to begin by
rea ding the introduction, chapters 3, 5, 7, and 8, and the conclusion before
tac kling such weig hty chapters as 4, 6, 9, a nd ro .
Ivy, Viiginia, January 2006
ACKNOWLEDGMEN T S
In my thinkin g about hi sto ry a nd how it shoul d be writte n I have been in -
fluenced by ma ny people. In pre vious w ritings I have th an ked a la rge num-
ber of them fo r th ei'r help . H ere, in a minim ali st spirit, I shall mostly d esist
from naming names. Still, I must m enti on the following fo r their readings
of th e manuscript o r parts th ereof: Babak Ashrafi , Malachi Hacohen, John
H oll o ran , Mich ael H olt, E rik Midelfort, Pete r O nuf, Dav id Pickus, Brad
W hitener, Perez Zagorin , a nd two a nonymous readers fo r the U nive rsity of
C hi cago Press. I thank m y editor, Doug Mitchell, and hi s ass ista nt, Tim o-
thy McGove rn , fo r th eir comm itm ent to this proj ect, a nd Nicholas Murray
fo r his ex pert co pyediting. I am also indebted to fo ur peo pl e I encounte red
d uring fiftee n years spent at the U nive rsity of Iowa: th e late William 0 .
Aydelotte, D eirdre McCl os key, John S. N elso n, a nd A lan B. Spitzer, all of
w hom have w ritten on issues add ressed in thi s book. Two classes that I cur-
rentl y teach on hi sto ri ca l th eo ry g rew out of a g raduate class o n th e philoso-
phy of hi sto ry that Bill Aydelotte taught fo r m a ny yea rs; I was privil eged to
atte nd Aydelotte's fin al offe ring of that co urse a nd to continu e it after him.
Ph illip H a nenberger was a helpful ass istant in th e writi ng and rev ision
of this book. Besid es pushing th e work along, he ente red into th e spirit of
a pape r by Steven Shepard that form ed the basis for chapter 6, bringing
his own impo rtant contributio ns to it. Conseq uentl y, he is listed as second
author of that cha pter.
I thank collectivel y th e many students at the unive rsities of Iowa and
Virginia who have tak en my classes on phil osophy of histo ry, historiog ra-
phy, and related topics. They have g reatl y contributed to the working out of
my ideas.
Th e U nive rsity of Virg ini a gave m e time off from teaching in the sp ring
se m este rs of 1994, 2000, a nd 2005, as well as some summ er support a nd
help with resea rch ex penses. Without th ese sem esters free of teaching my
XV I t A C KNOWLED G MENT S
w riting vvould have proceeded m o re slowly (howeve r, teac hing has usuall y
helped m ore th a n hinde red my resea rch). Th e book coll ection and supe rb
se rvice provided by the University of Virginia's Alderma n Libra ry also con-
tributed to the completion of this book . The ea rli est suppo rt fo r this proj ect
came in 1986 in the fo rm of a summ e r g ra nt from the Un ive rsity of Iowa's
University H ouse (now th e Obe rmann Ce nte r for Advanced Studies).
My g reatest debts a re to Rita Felski and Maria Fe lski, and I am also glad
fo r the consta nt support of Jaso n, Jess ica, and Jo nath an Megill.
Pa rts of thi s book have a ppea red in differe nt ve rsio ns elsew he re, although
a ll prev iousl y published m ate ri al has been rev ised, some of it ex tensively. l
th an k m y ea rli er editors a nd publishers fo r t heir fait h in m y wo rk and fo r
permitting its republication. The o rig inal titl es a nd places of publi cati o n are
as follows: "History, Memo ry, Id e ntity," History of the H uman Sciences 1 1 ,
no. 3 (1998): 7-fo lchapter 2]; "D oes Narrative H ave a Cognitive Value ofi ts
Ow n ?" in Dimensionen der Historik: Geschichtstheorie, Wissenschaftsgeschichte
und Geschichtskultur heute: ]Orn Rusen z um 60. Geburtstag, ed . Horst Walte r
Blanke, Fri edri ch Jaege r, and Thomas Sandkilhl er (Koln: Bohlau, 1998),
41-52 [chapter 3J; "Recounting the Past: 'Descripti on,' Explanation, and
Na rrative in Hi sto ri og raphy," American Historical Review 94 (1989): 627-
53 [chapter 4]; "Four Senses of Objectivity," Annals of Scholarship 8 (199 1):
30 1- 20, reprinted in Rethinking Objectivity, ed. A. Megill (D urham, NC:
Duk e Unive rsity Press, 1994) !chapter 5J; "The Tew Counte rfactuali sts,"
Historically Speaking 5, no. 4 (Ma rch 2004): 17- 18 !cha pter 7]; "Fragm en -
tation a nd th e Future of Hi sto ri ograp hy," American Historical Review 96
(199 1): 693-98 !chapte r 81; "'G ra nd Na rrative' a nd th e Disciplin e of His -
to ry," in A New Philo.wphy of History, ed. Frank A nk ersmit a nd H a ns Kell-
ner (Lo ndo n: Rea ktio n Books, 1995), 151-73 , 263-7 1 !chapte r 9J; "Coher-
e nce a nd Incohe rence in Histo ri cal Studies: From th eA nnales School to th e
New C ultural Histo ry," New Litera1y H isto1y 35 (2004):207-3 1 !chapter JO J;
a nd "A re We As king T oo Much of Histo ry?" H istorically Speaking 3, no.
4 (April 2002): 9- 11 !co nclusio n]. In add iti on, I have reused in this book a
small bit of m ate ri al fr om m y pape r, "W hat ls Distinctiv e about Modern
Histori ograp hy ?" in History of Historiography Reconsidered: Essays in Honor
of Ge01g G. lggers, ed. Q. Edward Wang and Franz L. Fillafer (New York:
Berghahn Books, 2007).
In an ea rli er fo rm, chapter 1 , "History w ith Memo ry, Hi sto ry without
Memo ry," was prese nted as a "Tuesday Lecture" at the Institut filr die Wis-
se nschaften vom Mensc hen / ln stitute fo r Hum an Sci ences in Vienn a in th e
spring of 2000.
The Need for Historical Epistemology
INTROD UC TION
n th e past twenty-five yea rs hi sto ri ans have cha nged how th ey stud y the
I past. Perhaps the m ost significant shift has bee n a turn to cultural histo ry.
The rise of the new cultural history has broadened the vision of histo rians,
bringing into view aspects of the human past th at we re once ig no red or
underrated. For example, one widely noticed book was Natalie Davis's The
Return of Martin Guerre, the story of a sixtee nth-century French pea sant
woman, Bertra nd e d e Rois, whose husba nd , Martin G ue rre, disappea red
from th e village in w hi ch th ey lived and th en, eig ht yea rs later, appa rentl y
returned a much better pe rso n- o nl y to be ex posed as a n imposto r w hen
the real Martin G uerre finally ca me back, minu s a leg lost w hil e fi g hting
as a soldi er fo r Spain. 1 Davis tell s us much about Bertra nd e's situatio n a nd
spec ul ates about w hat sh e must have bee n thinking w hen she made the
choices she did. But Davis always cl ea rl y id entifies her specul ati ons as spec-
ul ations: "pe rh aps" thi s ha ppened; peo pl e "must have," o r "wo uld have,"
o r " would probably have" don e thi s und er thi s set of circum sta nces; Be r-
tra nd e " m ay have been" helped by so a nd so; " pe rhaps" sh e thought this;
"pe rhaps" she acce pted th e fa lse Ma rtin Gue rre fo r such a nd such reasons;
"as a 'thought ex periment,' let us im agine w hat might have taken pl ace";
the coupl e " probably worked out a strategy"; a nd so on . In all of this, D av is
is ca reful to tell us w hat the ev idence is fo r th e cl aims she mak es and the
possibiliti es she proposes. Sh e neve r dumps this ev id ence on us. She tells
us why she thinks the ev idence in questi on leads to the conclusion she has
reached. She aigues.
Rece ntl y, howeve r, some historians sho w a tendency to lose sight of th e
kind of ca re in ev id ence and argument th at D av is exemplifies. There is no
doubt that Davi s w rote with the concern s of Ame ri ca n fem inism of the sec-
ond half of the twe nti eth ce ntury in min d. As a res ult, she as ks questi o ns
2 + INTR O D UC T I ON
about the consc iousness of a sixtee nth -centu ry Fre nch peasan t woma n that
historians p rev ious ly had not asked . One can in fer from The Return of Mar-
tin Guerre a fem ini st com mitment on Davis's pa rt. But she is never ca reless
of ev idence and neve r murky in her cla im s and arguments. Nor does one
eve r hav e the impress ion that she puts a thumb on the scale. To be sure,
there is a fin e narrative in te lligence at wo rk in The Return of Martin Guerre.
Let's face it: it is a great story, o ne that has bee n told and retold seve ral times,
most notably in a 1982 mov ie sta rring French acto r Gera rd Depardi eu. But
alth o ug h Nata li e Dav is shows rea l delight in the sto ry, she is always clear
about how the sto ry relates to the ev idence . She shows, in short, a n episte-
mological care, akin to th e ca re that th e cofou nder of Western hi stori ogra-
phy, Thucydid es, recommends at the beginning of The Peloponnesian War.
lo doubt she had a persona l age nda, but he r history is not subordinate to
the age nd a. There a re lesso ns fo r the present in th e book, but they ca nnot
be given one exclu sive fo rm: one cannot exactly say w hat they a re. In sum,
Martin Guerre is a hi sto ry, and not someth ing else. It is an atte mpt to ge t
at histo ri ca l truth. It is an imaginative const ruction or reconstructi on th at
Davis und ertakes in the hope of gettin g us to engage with a reality d iffere nt
from our own (a lthough also simil a r to it). She ca rri es out her wo rk w ith
an attentiveness to th e rules-sometimes tacit a nd sometim es ex plicit-of
what I ca ll hi storica l epistemology. 2
To think cl ea rl y about hi storica l epistemology, o ne needs to have some
sense of w hat is d istinctive abo ut the historian's approac h to th e past. Here
th e tradition of hi storica l w ritin g that goes back to Thucydid es and to his
fe llow, fifth -ce ntury BCE G reek, Herodotus, can give us so me help. In The
Peloponnesian Wai~ as well as in The H isto1y of H e rodotus, o ne finds som e-
thing that also runs, like a red thread, throug h th e subseque nt historical
tradition , d isting ui shin g it from the traditions of philosophy a nd sc ience.
One can call this "something" by various nam es. T prefe r to call it a n un-
resolving dialectic or unresolving tension. I mea n to suggest by these terms
that a true hi storian-o ne w ho is fa ithful to the tradition of hi story- is
happy to leave her mind suspe nded between conAi cting attitud es o r claims.
It is not the historian's task to a rticul ate a single unequ ivocal position, let
alone a single consistent th eory, concerning the wo rld as it is. We can leave
such a tas k to those philosophers , natural and soc ial sc ientists, and othe r
theo ri sts w ho w ish to take it up.
This is not the place to run va ri ations on the notion of an unresol vin g
dialectic. But exa mpl es are in order, and so is a statement as to the relevance
of this notion to historical epistemology. One ca n ha rd ly do bette r than to
THE 1'EED F O R H I S T O RI CAL EPI S TEMOLOGY :j: J
begin at the beginning: with the first "father of history," Herodotus. 3 Ac-
co rding to tradition, Herodotus t raveled through the easte rn Med iterra nean
world gathering mate ri al fo r his g reat accou nt of the wa rs that the Pe rsian
Empire car ri ed out aga in st the Gree ks-wars that led to th e defeat of Pe rsia
and to th e prese rvation of w hat we lik e to think of as "Weste rn culture." The
people Herodotus inte rviewed told him many sto ri es. Some sto ries H erodo-
tus coul d chec k , others not. H e was w illin g to go a long way with sto ri es of
whose t ruth he was uncertain. Hi s proced ure in such in sta nces might well
appea r epistemologically irresponsible. Bu t it is not, fo r in recounting uncer-
ta in sto ries he anno un ces his ow n un ce rtainty: " I must tell w hat is said, but I
am not at all bound to believe it, a nd this comme nt of mine holds abo ut my
whole History ."' H e is interested in th e sto ri es themselves apa rt from their
fac tual truth, a nd he hopes that we will be too. Yet he is also inte rested in
what really happened and w ill co ntrad ict a story w hen he thinks it wrong:
"B ut they li e; . . . it 'was o ne of the D elphians w ho put th at insc ripti on o n
it ... . I know hi s nam e but will not m enti on it" (r.51). To state th e m atter
in present-d ay term s, H e rodotus rejected the notion that histo ry should be
identified w ith w hat people today sometimes call "memory." But he also re-
jected the notion that hi sto ry should exclude "memory." Rather - a nd some-
what paradoxically - hi story shou ld be both hi sto ry and memory.
A different tension appea rs in H erodotus' successo r a nd competitor
Thucyd id es. To be su re, Thucydides rejected H erodotus's love of stori es:
nea r th e sta rt of The Peloponnesian Wai~ he decl a res that he wa nts to avoid
muthodes-a wo rd related to myth. 5 In stead, Thucydid es atte mpted to find
out fo r him self what had happe ned, a nd to report o nl y w hat he could be sure
of. (H e could co nce ive of proceed ing in this way because the Peloponnesia n
War occ urred d uring hi s adu lt li fetim e and was still going o n as he was
w riting . Moreove r, he himself had bee n a gene ral in it until th e Athe ni ans
held him res ponsible fo r a defeat at th e hands of the Sparta ns a nd ex iled
him .) Thucydides is not unresolved as to the factua l truth of hi s accou nt: o n
the contrary, he is solidl y persuaded that he has the sto ry rig ht . The tensio n
in Thucyd id es's wo rk appea rs, rather, in hi s w illing ness- ind eed, eage r-
ness- to report at leng th the conflicting views a nd policies of the different
pa rties involved in the war. Thucydides' own views, on th e other hand , are
k ept modestl y o r cunningly in th e backgrou nd. H e is not a propaga ndist,
althoug h he cl ea rl y had com mitm ents of hi s ow n. He is not a political sci-
enti st tr ying to give us a theory of wa rfa re o r of inte rn ational relations. H e
is a histo ri a n, trying to tell a tru e sto ry, and the refore a complex one. This
is w hy, as the classica l schola r Daniel Mendelsohn points o ut, present-day
.) t IKTR ODU C TION
w riters who try to turn Thucydid es into th e purveyor of direct lesso ns fo r
the present are wro ng to do so. For exampl e, acco rdin g to Mend elsohn, the
Yal e classicist Donald Kaga n gives us a reading of Thucydides that could
be taken to suppo rt "a very twe nty-fi rst-ce ntury proj ect .. . a unil ateral -
ist policy of pree mptive wa r." Mendelsohn suggests th at by offe ring such a
read ing, Kaga n fl attens out Thucydides's account of the war - "stripping
away th e m a ny voices and points of view that he wo rked so ha rd to include."
Thucydides is not tr ying to g ive us a policy prescription; Kaga n is.6
Th e unresolvin g dial ectic th at characteri zes histo ri ca l thinking is cl osely
related to historica l epistemology; for one aspect of this attitude-v ery dif-
fe rent from that of th e th eorist o r scientist-is that it preserves a breach or
gap betwee n th e past reality that the historia n describes a nd th e world of th e
present. (It is not that past a nd present are totally disconn ected-only that
they are different.) The true histori an is not a propagandist o r cheerleader,
not someon e who wa nts her history to be " useful. " Rather, he r rulin g pas-
sion is to explo re th e unvisitabl e foreign countr y that is the past. This passion
is connected with historical epistemology, because the histo rian can o nl y be
true to it if she takes se ri o usly the relatio n between hi sto rical ev id ence a nd
the wo rds she is w ritin g . Atte ntiveness to hi sto ri ca l evid ence helps keep
the histori an honest, a nd he nce less likely to impose he r ow n prejudices
a nd good w ish es o n th e past. Conve rsely, too g reat an interest in the uses of
histo ry in th e present is lik ely to make th e would-be hi sto ria n inattentive to
hi sto ri ca l ev id ence. Davis, in The Return of Martin Guerre, is exquisitely at-
te ntive to the need to w rite a n account that con nects w ith the ev id ence that
is the re. This does not mean th at he r book is beyond criti cism, no r does it
mean th at hers is the o nl y possible histo rica l story that could be told abo ut
sixteenth-century peasa nts, o r eve n about the st range case of Martin Gue rre
a nd Be rtra nd e de Rois. In fact, the tru e hi sto ri an cannot claim exclusivity
fo r her account: this is H erodotus' in sig ht. (C laims that "a nything goes" a nd
that what really happened does not matte r are equall y faulty: this is Thucy-
dides' insig ht.) The cl aim to know the past with certainty violates th e prin-
cipl e of hi sto ri ca l irresoluti on . It turns the hi sto rian into some othe r so rt of
knowe r outside the trad iti on of histo ry-w riting. O r, worse, it might turn
him into a purveyor of error and even of immo rality (fo r example, by foster-
ing smugness, a rroga nce, a nd pride with rega rd to th e past, th e prese nt, and
the relatio ns between them). An excl usivity-claim would also sin against
histori ca l epistemology, fo r singul ar even ts o r "existe nts" in the past a re not
susceptibl e to the kind of justifi cati on that wou ld su ppo rt a hi sto ri a n's claim
that he r ow n account is true a nd all other accounts a re fa lse.
THE NEED F O R HISTORI C AL EPISTEMO L O G Y t 5
The claims th at I am making a re already know n to all true hi sto ri ans, al-
though pe rh aps not quite in the form offered here. I wr ite the present book
agai nst a d ifferent view, one that has come to center stage in recent yea rs -
the view that th e true function of histo ry is to support the good cau:;e in the
present. In this view, hi story is politics - a nd eve n war-by othe r m ea ns. Of
cou rse, it is not su rprising th at people with an axe to g rind and th e capac-
ity to impose th eir ow n w ill o r preference should hold to this view. Those
who have the money to pay th e bills will naturall y expect histo rians to ea rn
their kee p. What is d isturbing is that such views have rece ntly attained some
fo ll owing among professional histori ans, w ho ought to know better. And a
rema rkable in attentiv eness to qu esti ons of ev id ence often accom pani es the
notion that hi story oug ht to serve the good cause.
Consider an "electronic a rticl e" by William G . Thomas III a nd Ed-
wa rd L. Ayers , "The Differences Slavery Made: A C lose Ana lysis of T wo
A merican Commun'ities," that appeared in the American Historical R eview
and on an associated Web site in December 2003. Th e a rticl e purports to
g ive readers "full access to a scholarl y argument" concerning the relati on
between slave ry and the United States C ivil War. 7 In brief, the autho rs m ai n-
tain that slave ry was "m ore central to the C ivil War than we have thoug ht,"
because it exe rted a "determining influence" eve n in parts of the South
whe re the re we re no cotton plantations o r African-Ame ri ca n majoriti es. 8
In support of this claim they point to a "dig ital a rchive" that th ey have
assembl ed, "The Va ll ey of the Shadow: Two Comm unities in the Ame ri-
ca n C ivil War" (http:// va ll ey.vcdh.virginia.ed u), which co ntain s a co nsid -
e rable a mount of in fo rm ation abo ut two counties in ro ug hl y compa rable
geographical settings, one north of the Mason-D ixo n lin e (Fra nklin County,
Pennsy lva ni a} and one south of that lin e (Aug usta Cou nty, Virgini a) . O n the
bas is of this two-county data set, supplemented by va rious othe r "st rands
of hi storica l a rg ument a nd ev id e nce," Thomas a nd Aye rs make a nothe r
cla im, which is mo re emp hati c a nd specific than the claim to "centrality"
a nd "determining influence": "The experiences of our two counties show that
slavery drove all the conflict that brought on the Civil War but not in a simple
way based o n modernity, not in the way many impl y when they speak of
"economics" causing the war o r of the "industrial" North aga inst the "agri-
cultural" South [emphasis added]" (A HR 1302). The question th at we need
to as k here is, What is the ev ide ntial basis fo r this claim ?
We should note th at th e ini tial coll ecting and digitizing of a large part
of Thomas and Aye rs's data preceded th e w riting of th eir a rticl e by a num -
ber of yea rs. O riginally, Aye rs a nd hi s ass istants coll ected data concern-
6 t INTR ODU C TION
ing Augusta County, V irg ini a, o nl y, m a kin g it ava il able o n the " Va ll ey of
the Shadow" Web site.'1 Thomas a nd Aye rs then cast abo ut fo r a no rth e rn
county to compa re w ith Aug usta Cou nty. Deciding o n Franklin County,
they en te red data conce rning Franklin into the data coll ection. Th e n, rec-
ogni z ing that o ne ca nn o t proceed d irectl y from data, howeve r fe tching ly
o rga ni zed, to more ge ne ral h isto ri ca l claim s, th e autho rs crafted their In -
ternet artic le-we in fe r - as a way getting from o ne to the o the r. T he In -
ternet a rti cle tries to m ed iate between "a rchi ve" a nd claims, purporting to
offe r the "sc ho la rl y a rg um ent" (A HR 1299) suppo rting the above cl a im s as
to the ce ntrality of slave ry in the coming of th e C ivil W a r. (Mo re accu rately,
the Web site offe rs a "Summ a ry of A rg um ent" [TAS 1 /. ) The mate rial in
the "Vall ey of th e Shadow" Web site a nd in th e Internet a rticl e (in th e sec-
tio n entitl ed "Ev ide nce" /citatio n keys beginning w ith EJ) w ill be inte rest-
ing to a n yo ne w ith a d esu lto ry curiosity abo ut wealth, econo mic activities,
population, relig ious in stituti ons, politi ca l and social views, a nd so o n in
t wo relatively simil a r co mmuniti es no rth a nd south of th e Mason-Dixon
line in th e pe riod just before, dur ing, a nd just a fte r the civi l wa r. In sh o rt, it
see ms clear that the data in th e "Va ll ey of the Shadow" Web site and in the
Internet a rti cle have a k incl of clescri ptive inte rest that is cl isti net from a ny
atte mpt to infe r broad e r conclusi o ns fr om these data.
H oweve r, th e autho rs neve r act uall y mal(e the a rgume nt to which they
purport to offe r "fu ll access." In fact, they do not make a n a rgume nt at all :
their "S umm a ry of A rg um e nt" is all we h ave. A lth ough the wo rd aigument
appea rs freq ue ntl y in their pi ce, they have th e habit of using it as a sy no nym
fo r claim o r assertion . But i fa1gument m ea ns claim, t he n no claim needs a n a r-
gu m ent fo r it. It is a n odd fo res ho rte ning, and it leads to th e sch ola r's equ iv-
a lent of the love rs' all eged Iice nse to neve r hav e to say one is so rr y. Of course,
a la rge amo unt of w h at t he auth o rs call ev idence is prese nt in the Inte rn et
articl e and in "The Va ll ey of th e S hadow" data coll ecti o n. The aut ho rs say
that th ey g ive "the ev idence fo r" the ir "sc hola rl y a rg um e nt," by wh ich th ey
m ean the ev ide nce for their claim, o r cl aims, about slave ry and the C ivil War
(A HR 1299), but they fai l to und e rsta nd w hat is req uired for something to
be "ev idence " fo r something else . It is strange, a nd deeply unsuppo rta bl e, to
imag in e th at o ne presents "the ev iden ce for" a "schol a rl y a rgument." This is
to imagin e that ev id e nce is o ne thing a nd a scholarly a rg um e nt somethin g
else. But this is not so: w hen we make an argum ent, w heth e r in histo ry, law,
physics, o r any o th e r fie ld, th e supporting ev ide nce appea rs as a seam less
part of th e "a rg um e nt." To put it a no th e r way, th e re is no such thing as un -
modifi ed ev id ence: ev ide nce is always ev ide nce for or aga in st a particu la r
THE NEED FOR HISTORI C AL EP I STEMOLOGY t /
claim, a nd it becomes ev id e nce fo r o r aga in st that claim by virtu e of th e a r-
gument th at th e historian, atto rney, or physicist co nstructs .
The authors also fai l to und e rstand the require ments fo r making a n a rg u-
ment that goes beyo nd just describi ng a past hi storical rea li ty (see chapters 4
a nd 7). Th ey w rite of"the determ ining inAu e nce" of slave ry a nd of"the d if-
fe re nces slave ry m ade"; th ey also say that slavery "drove all t he conAi ct th at
brought o n t he C ivil War ." These a re ex planatory a nd not just desc ri ptive
cla im s: the autho rs a re say ing that slave ry played a n im porta nt causal ro le in
Ame ri ca n soci ety a nd poli tics at the tim e. It seems highl y probable that slav-
e ry did affect A m e ri ca n socie ty in importa nt ways . But to go beyo nd w hat
has now become a truism a nd make "a sc hola rl y a rg ume nt," the authors
must prov ide ev id e nce a nd a rg um ents to suppo rt th e claim. O ne c ru cial
point is that a schola r is obligated to prese nt not just the ev idence " for" a
g ive n causa l claim, but also th e ev id e nce aga inst it. For instance, in o rde r to
assess w he th e r X h ad a ny "de te rmining inAu e nce" on Y, and w hat sort of
influence that was, we must a lso conside r th e possible impact of W, V, U, T,
a nd so o n, o n Y. Causatio n does not occur in a vac uum: he nce it is always a
matter of assessing the relative stre ngths of va ri ous d ifferent po.;»ible causes.
(Do ing so always in volves e ngaging in counte r factua l reaso ning, as I sug-
ges t in chapte r 4.) Sc hola rs must also be precise abo ut te rm s, but Thomas
a nd Aye rs are re markably im p recise. Fo r exa mple, they coul d have e ntitl ed
t heir Inte rn et a rticl e, "A Comparison of th e Character istics of Two Ame ri -
can Counties in t he C ivil War Period, w it h a Supporting Data Coll ection."
This would have bee n a legitimate histo ri ographic pro ject. In stead, they
cl aim to add ress "the diffe re nces slave ry made" w ithout showing any un der-
standing of how a hi stori ca l in vestigatio n of slavery's d ifferent iating impact
might actual ly be ca rri ed o ut. They choose to rega rd as "determinative" one
element in th e compl ex rea li ty of the time, a nd t he n (vaguely) purport to lay
out "the diffe re nces" it brought about. The resul t is confusio n. Th e auth o rs
ha ve not see n w hat fo rm o f reaso nin g is required fo r th e cla ims th ey mak e.
The fo rm of reasoning in question ca n o nl y be a nalytical. Thomas and
Aye rs do appear to unde rstand this at the level of lip-se rvice, sin ce in the
"fu ll electronic ve rsio n" of t he articl e they lay o ut what they ca ll "points of
ana lysis" th at a re supposed ly relevant to their a rg ument (TAF 1-47). But it
turns o ut that their "points of a nalysis" are not "points of a na lysis" at all.
Rathe r, they a re cla im s of va ri o us sorts. Th e cla im s in questio n always have
some thing to do with th e histo rical rea lity of Augusta o r Franklin County
in the ninetee nth ce ntury, stating a fact o r set of facts about o ne o r both
of t he t wo cou nties . For exa mpl e, one such "point of a nalysis," set off in
8 t INTROD UCT I ON
bold type in the Internet article, reads as fo ll ows: "Jn Augusta, alm ost eve ry
group of w hite people ow ned property and homes worth more than their
counte rpa rts in Franklin, most of it tied inextr icably to slave ry" rTAF05 ]. In
principle, this claim oug ht to be easy to confi rm: afte r all , it appea rs to be a
simpl e descriptive claim, not a claim about causatio n. 10 But the paragraph
that imm ed iately fo ll ows the above sen tence stops us short: "The difference
was m ost pronounced for personal property. Sin ce slaves constitu ted an en-
tire catego ry of wealth prohibited in the North , th e ave rage fa rm er in Au-
gus ta ow ned three tim es as much personal property as th e ave rage farmer
in Franklin. Slav ery seemed responsible, at least in the eyes of w hites, for a
sta ndard of living that benefited all w hites" (TAF05).
What is wrong in this paragraph? Co nside r, first, th e asse rti on that "the
average farm e r in Augusta owned three times as much personal property as
th e ave rage farmer in Franklin." Thomas a nd Aye rs expand on this claim as
follows: "In Franklin, personal property amounted to less than a third of the
va lue of rea l estate. In Augusta, by co ntrast, personal property, mostly held
in slaves, added up to $10.1 million , nea rl y three quarters of the $ 13.8 mil-
li o n of farmland, town lots, a nd hotels in the prosperous county" (TAF05) .
Thomas a nd Aye rs ove rl oo k an impo rtant co nceptua l problem hiding be-
hind th e comparisons they m ake here between personal property in F ra nk-
lin and Augusta counti es, and between personal property and rea l property
in eac h county. Since the problem is obv ious to a ny intelli gent, active reader,
one wo nd ers w hy they fail to add ress it. The question th at a rises in the in-
telli gent reade r's mind is this: give n that North and South we re und e r two
different property regim es-o ne that all owed some human beings to be
the pe rso nal property of othe rs and one that d id not all ow this-how ca n
we compa re th e two regio ns with respec t to persona l-prope rty va luation
with out taking into account the d iffe rence in regim es?
Their d irect compa ri son is deeply misleading because the slave com-
ponent of th e personal property held by som e people in Augusta County
had no direct eq uivalent, as property, in Franklin County. Slave-owners in
Aug usta County ow ned the labor rep rese nted by th eir ensl aved workers,
w hereas employe rs in Franklin o nly rented labo r, by paying wages to un-
ensl aved wo rk ers. The inclusion of th e value of slaves in the fi g ure for the
va lue of personal property in Aug usta County ge ne rates, Thomas and Aye rs
repo rt, a figure for average holdings in personal property th at is hig he r than
the figure for Fra nklin County. But the d iffere nce between the two figures
does not de m o nstrate that, w ith res pect to personal property, "the average
farm er" in Augusta was better off than "the average fa rmer" in Franklin.
Rather, the difference between the valu e of slaves in Augusta (substantial)
THE NEED FOR HI STOR I CA L EP I STEMOLOGY t 9
and the value of slaves in Franklin (zero) is a marker of the d ifference be-
tween the two property regimes.
In o rd e r to establi sh the different values of personal property en joyed by
"the ave rage fa rme r" in the two co unti es, Thomas and Aye rs wou ld have
had to e ngage in a real wor k of a nalysis. In stead, all they do is offe r us lists of
figures desc ribing va rious economic att ributes of each county. To compa re
in a mea nin gful way the wea lth of"the ave rage fa rme r" in the two counti es,
they wou ld need to derive compa rabl e figures from data that, in a raw fo rm ,
a re not compa rabl e. In sum, the auth o rs would have had to ca lcul ate the
va lue of the labo r provided by both enslaved a nd un enslaved wo rke rs-fo r
slaves and hired workers we re pres umably purchased o r hired for th e valu e
of the labo r they provided. Such a comparison would necessa ril y involve
much ana lysis and infe renti al reason ing. But it is the onl y way of rendering
com parable the raw incomparabl es th at Thomas a nd Ayers nonetheless at-
tempt to compare. 11 •
I eventua ll y found my way to th e "Chambersburg and Staunton C ity Tax
Records" in the "Va lley of the Shadow" database . T ax-assessm ent records
offe r a good deal of informati on not fo und in the ce nsus data. But here as
elsew here, Thomas an d Aye rs's use of th e data seems more decorative than
ev identiary. Thus they asse rt th at "whil e th e tax coll ecto r visited eve ry home
in the county, we have chosen to include only the records from the two county
;·eats lemphasis added]" (http://va ll ey.vcd h. virginia. ed u / Reference/citytax I
citytax.intro.html). But why? A rbitra ry selectio n makes the data useless fo r
supporting Thomas and Aye rs's claim s abo ut th e two co unties in general.
I the refo re infer that the data a re includ ed because they provide interesting
decoration, not because th ey all ow justifi ed gene rali zations abo ut the two
counties.
It has lo ng been understood, as an elementa ry point of socia l science
method, that in ord er to make compar isons, we must compa re things that
are compa rabl e. Why do Thomas and Aye rs fail to engage in th e ana lytic
wo rk needed to derive com parabl es from fig ures that in a raw fo rm are
incomparable? One possible ex planati on eme rges from their state m en t that
"slave ry seemed responsibl e, at least in the eyes of whites [emphasis added],
fo r a standard ofliving that benefited all whites." The words I have em pha-
sized are puzzling, for Thomas and Aye rs sta rt off in this "poi nt of analysis"
(TAF01) by making a claim about the ob jective situation in Augusta in the
C ivil War period . In oth er words, they begin by sounding like Thucydides,
w ho wanted to write an account of the Peloponnes ian wa r as it rea ll y was.
But in the sentence just quoted, they shift gea rs a nd refer to what people at
the time believed was th e case-as Herodotus d id in recounting the stori es
IO :f: I NTRODUCT I ON
of the Persians, Greeks, and so on, whether they were true o r not. T o their
cred it, both of the G reek fo und e rs of history were cl ea r abo ut th e difference
betwee n what was the case in the past and what people in th e past beli eved
was the case. Th ey focused o n eith er one o r th e oth er, a nd when th ey shifted
between them, they signaled the shift. Thom as and Aye rs seem intent on
blurring this salutary and impo rta nt distinction. It is unfortunate that this
should happe n w ithin th e framework of professional hi sto riograp hy: it is a
decided step bac kwa rd.
Of course, as noted, the auth o rs provid e a g reat deal of "evidence."
(P rinted o ut, the "Evidence" section of the Inte rnet a rticl e [Eo r- E156]
amounts to 386 pages in PDF fo rm at- a nd thi s leaves aside the links in
that section to "The Valley of th e Shadow" data collection.) But the article's
so-call ed ev idence often seems m o re lik e decoration o r (pe rha ps better) like
heavy furniture designed to impress by its size and weight. Thomas and
Ayers tell us that they want to "fuse the electronic article's form with its
arg ument, to use the medium as effectively as possible to make the pre-
sentation of our work and its navigation express and fulfill our argument"
(A HR 1299). Perhaps what they a re doin g will be "effective" for audiences
loo king fo r e nte rtainment a nd for a ce rtain quantum of edifi cati on. Af-
te r all, th eir work gives us a chance to lam ent again the role that slavery
played in the history of th e United States. But in ma king effectiv e presen-
tation the fundamental desideratum of their wo rk - a nd it seems cl ea r
that this is indeed w hat they are doing-the autho rs a re giving us histo ry-
as- propaga nd a without straight-out telling us so.
Sti ll, they come close to telling us. Consid er th e fo llow in g claim, w hich
appea rs in the Intern et a rticl e's introd ucti o n, at TI 3, just befo re Tl 4. H ere
Th omas a nd Aye rs provide some suggestio ns as to w hat future "digital
schola rship in hi sto ry," building o n their ow n pioneering wo rk , "m ig ht
co nce ntrate on":
how to present narrative mo re effec tively
how to represent eve nt a nd change
how to analyze lang uage m o re precisely
how to create visualizations as compelling and complete as narrative
In the first , second, and fourth of these suggestions, Thomas and Ayers a re
rea ll y talking about how to produce maximall y effective propaga nda. As
fo r the third suggestion, their a rticl e is not a good m odel of precise analysis.
They do insi st that their a rticle "takes advantage of the [digital! medium's
T H E N EED FOR HI S TORI CAL EPI S T EMO L OGY :f: II
possibi lities fo r preCisto n" (A HR r 302). If this is precisio n, one wonders
what imprecision is.
Since, as any histori cal epistemologist knows, "ev id ence" does not ex-
ist indepe nd entl y, we must avo id the solecism of eq uating information with
evidence . In fo rmation becom es ev id ence onl y w hen used in the service of an
argument that seeks to show that the information in question supports o r
underm in es some cl aim. The ideologica ll y o ri ented hi storian avoid s asking
the q uestio n, "H ow can th e cl aim s I am m aking be suppo rted or und er-
mined?" Rather, she assumes that her cl aims a re true, or at least socially
usefu l, and then attempts to present them as "effectively" and in as "com-
pelling" a form as possible. The histo rian who is concerned with histori -
ca l knowledge and with the retrenching of e rror proceeds differently. This
historian assumes that her cl aims are legitimately in question. Thi s histo-
rian knows that she needs to offer arguments (not just summaries of argu-
ments) for holding •her claims to be true. This historian is always asking
what ev id ence supports each claim that she makes. Such inquiry imposes
an intellectual discipline that encourages precision. But Thomas and Ayers
delibe ratel y se parate the cl aims they ma ke fr om the histo rical data, prev ious
historiography, and anal ysis that wo uld be needed to suppo rt th emY It is
hard ly surprisin g that, hav in g unburd ened themselves of the discipline of
a rguing with rea l or imagined critics, they should fall into imprecisio n.
In recent yea rs it has becom e fashionable to insi st that history is narra -
tive- that it is just a m atter of telling a story. It is ce rtainly true that by
far the g reater part of hi sto ri cal writing is prim a ril y na rrative in cha rac-
ter. Ind eed, in a broad se nse (to be expli cated in chapter 4), almost all hi s-
tory- not just th e g reate r part-is na rrative . But hi sto ry is not on ly na r-
rative. Th e French classical histo ria n a nd histo ri cal theorist Paul Vey ne has
suggested that histo ry is "a truthful na rrative." 13 Let us insi st he re o n the
word truthful, which does not m ea n "true" in a ny absolute se nse, but does
mea n " justifi ed," by a mode of justifi catio n approp riate to histo ry. The al-
ternative to the view that history is truthful narrative is one form o r another
of history-as-propaganda.
I am not asserting that the broad claims of Thomas and Aye rs in their
American Historical Review article are false . Rather, I am asserting that the
autho rs fail to justify th ose claims. Instead, in their journey through "The
Vall ey of the Shadow," they ask us to accept their broad claims on fa ith.
(By "broad claims," I mean, for example, th e claims that slavery was "more
ce ntral than we thought" and that it had a "determining influ ence" o n the
w hole of the South. As for th e specific factual in fo rmatio n that they or-
I2 :j: I NTRODUCT I ON
ga ni ze and reproduce, I have no rea son to do ubt that the r 860 ce nsus, fo r
example, actuall y repo rts w hat T homas an d Aye rs say that it reports.) T he
cr itica l histo ri an is a bit hand icapped by the im precision of these broad
cla ims: w hat exactl y do Th o mas and Aye rs mean w he n they say that slave ry
was "more central than we have thoug ht" and w hen they say that it had
a "determining influe nce"? It is also unclea r w hat they have added to the
ex istin g hi stori ca l li te ratures on nineteenth-century U ni ted States hi sto ry.
(A likely reacti on am ong specia li sts is that, beyo nd their desc ri ptio ns of Au-
gusta a nd F ra nklin co unties, they have added nothing - that their broad
claims are already accepted by m ost hi stori ans in thei r fie ld.) T homas and
Ayers asse rt in onl y a muted way th at th eir wo rk o n th e coming of the C ivil
Wa r is origin al: by their ow n account, they a re say ing onl y that slave ry was
"mo re central" to the C ivil Wa r tha n prev ious hi storian s thoug ht (thus th ese
prev ious historians must have seen slave ry as somewhat central). C lea rl y,
Thomas and Ayers do not think that their work m ak es its contribu tion at
thi s substantive level. Instead, and ve ry em phatica ll y, they cla im that they
have pioneered a wonde rful new way of doing hi storica l sc holarshi p.
Does this cl aim sta nd u p? If the histo ria n has an obligation to offer arg u-
m ents a nd justi ficatio ns fo r the cla ims she wishes to ma ke, it does not. If,
on the othe r hand, the hi sto ria n is obligated onl y to w rite interesting a nd
soc iall y useful na rratives, one mi g ht reach a di ffe re nt co ncl usio n. But wo ul d
it be good to do so? L et us im itate Natali e Dav is a nd engage in a tho ug ht ex-
pe rim ent. T ho mas and Aye rs's centra l substantive cla im is that, w ith rega rd
to the U ni ted States C ivil Wa r, slave ry " made the d iffe rences," to evoke t he
titl e of their work . Imagine, now, Nazi Ge rmany in 1935, but w ith a com-
puter tech nology like ours. Propaga nd ists fo r the regime wou ld be assig ned
the task of demo nstrati ng that "t he Jews a re the source of our m isfortune
[die j uden sind unser Ungfuck]." Vast reams of data would show how Jews
dom inate large secto rs of th e economy and cu ltu re fa r in dispropo rtion to
their nu mbe rs. Such cla ims would be very pers uasively made, w ith a huge
d igital a rchive putting all the wea lth of Ge rm an Jew ry on d isplay. A nd thus
the case woul d be "proved." H ow, on a n epistem ological level, woul d t hi s
hypothetical exe rcise in d igital hi story d ive rge fro m th e m ode of scholar-
shi p now being recom mended by the American Historical Review? My claim
is that, fun da m entall y, th ere is no d ifference. Of course, we m ig ht ob ject
that these T hird Reich propagand ists we re immo ral and self-deceived. But
w hat we wa nt and need is a histo riography that will sta nd u p independentl y
of the m orality, good will , sense of politi ca l responsibility, and so on of the
hi sto rian a nd scholar. We ca n have thi s ki nd of hi story onl y if we pay se ri -
THE NEED FOR HI STORI C AL EP I S T EMOLOGY t 13
ous attention to issues of historica l episte mology. The alte rn ative is to bring
in tests for mora li ty, benevolence, co rrect politica l o ri entation, a nd so on
for histo ri ans or woul d- be histo rians. Were such tests to become ge neral,
historical schola rshi p wou ld be fin ished .
My premise in thi s book is that hi sto ria ns have an obligatio n to argue in a
clear way. C lea r a rg um ent includes pu tting the ev ide nce w he re it belongs,
engagin g in conceptual and counterfac tu al a rg um en t w here it is req uired,
and always atte m ptin g to match the st reng th of o ne's cla ims to the strength
of the ev ide nce suppo rtin g them . H ypothes is and specu lati o n a re acceptable
in a wo rk of hi sto ry- in deed , th ey a re unavoida bl e (as seve ral chapters in
this book attem pt to show). But hypoth esis a nd specul ation m u st be so ide n-
tified, and we need good intel lectual reaso ns fo r their presen ce. Anythin g
else is hype.
True histo rians have ad he red to my view fo r a long ti me: I claim no orig-
inality here. It was the view of H erodotu s, th e teller of competing stories
whose truth he held in suspense. It was the view of T hucyd ides, th e pa ra-
gon of fac tu al resea rch. (Schola rs trad itionall y bel ieve th at afte r hi s fel low
Athen ia ns ex iled him in 424 BCE, he spe nt a good dea l of time t ravel ing,
in orde r to co nsult w hat doc ume nts there we re and to interview wa r vet-
e rans.) The profess ionalizatio n of histo rica l w riting that bega n in the ea rl y
nineteenth cen tury emphasized rul es of hi sto ri ca l meth od-both fo rm al-
ized rul es and rul es of th um b. In ma ny areas of the p rofess io n these rul es
still hold sway. To be sure, hi sto ri ans a re among the m ost unt heoreti ca l of
scholars, a nd so the rul es a re ofte n not art icul ated in a n ex pli cit way. But
they are lived by any hi sto ri an or grou p of hi sto ri ans w ho sub ject their d raft
manusc ri pts to the meth odologica l cri ticism that professional coll eagues -
at their best-ca n prov ide .
All this is k nown-at least, it is know n to ma ny. It was know n to those
olde r ge ne ratio ns of hi sto rians w ho ga ined their se nse of hi sto rical meth od
fro m trad itional hi sto rical sem in ars, o r w ho lea rned rul es of m ethod from
social scien ce. (Social science method is not quite histo ri cal m eth od, but it
can teach historians much.) The present book is not addressed to such d i-
nosaurs, but to a younge r generation , a generation th at, if it obtained any
epistemologica l g ui dance at all , obta ined it by default fro m Michel Fou-
cault - a hi sto rian-p hil osopher w hose brillia nce and o rigina lity are u n-
den iabl e, but w hose ins istence that k nowledge is nothi ng but a man ifesta-
tio n of powe r is a simpli fy ing a nd ul timately ve ry da ngerous cla im . To those
I4 t I N TR ODU C TI O N

w ho a re persuaded by Foucault's ve rsion of a nti -epistemology, o r who, in-

dependently of Foucau lt, believe that history is a nd ought to be a mode of
propaganda a nd chee rl ead ing, I can say little. In short, I add ress this book
not to those w ho already kn ow th e tru e hi sto ri a n's devo tio n to letting th e
chips fa ll w he re th ey m ay, nor to those who see themselves as cheerleaders.
Rath e r, I intend it for the as yet uniniti ated, as a n introductio n to the issues
th at a re at stake.

P A RT I ---

Memory
 History with Memory, History without Memory
C H A PTER ONE

M any peo ple just naturall y assume th at history ought to be a fo rm of

memory. They assume that a central task of history-w riting - maybe
even the task-is to•preserve and carry forward memory. The assumption
has anc ient precedent. In the first sentence of his Hist01y, Herodotus tell s us
that he wrote his work so that "time may not draw the color from what man
has brought into being, nor those great a nd wonde rful deeds, manifested by
both G reek s and ba rba ria ns, fail of their repo rt." 1
The assu mpti on th at history equates to m em ory persists today, in va ri ous
and confli cted ways. Co nside r two examples a kin to that of H erodotus, in
that both are concerned with th e memory of wa r. In 1994-95 a controve rs y
exploded ove r a n ex hibit proposed by th e Smithsonian In stituti on com-
memorating the dropping of th e atomic bomb on Japa n fifty yea rs ea rli er.
The original ex hibit, scheduled to ope n in May 1995, was cance led when
veterans' groups, political and cultural commentato rs, and politicians ob-
jected to th e inte rpretation that it offe red of th e wa r a nd its endi ng. Th e
question at issue in the public debate was whether President Truman was
justified in using atom ic bombs aga in st Japa n. C ritics of th e planned exhibit
cha rged that it foiled to emphasize that Japa n had bee n the aggressor in
the wa r, that it failed to make cl ea r the reaso ns fo r using th e bomb, and
that it emphasized Japa nese suffering over the suffering of those whom the
Japanese had attacked . O n another leve l, th e controve rsy between vete r-
ans' groups and their defenders on the one hand and the Smithsonian on
the othe r had to do with issu es of m emory. Whose m emori es were to be
valued in this exhibit - those of American vete rans or th ose of Japa nese
bomb victims ? Relatedl y, should m em ory give way to the later constructions
of historians and museum professionals? 2 Powe rful forces in the culture
held that it should not. A similar demand fo r the ri ght kind of memo ry
arose fr om the Vietnam War and led in the ea rl y 1980s to confli cts ove r the
18 :j: PART I: MEMORY
National Vietnam Veterans Memorial. At the tim e, Maya Lin's proposed
design fo r the memorial fa il ed to sati sfy the sensibiliti es of many vete rans
and vete ra ns' o rga ni zati ons, some of whom condemned it as a "bl ack gash
of shame." 3 Similar complaints and demands have a ri sen a nd w ill no doubt
continu e to a rise out of th e attack on the World Trade Cente r a nd out of the
"wa r aga in st terrorism" that followed.
A com m on, current question is, Wh o ow ns histo ry ?4 It is an asto und -
ingly in adeq uate questi on. In ma ny instances, w hat is really being asked
is, Who has the ri g ht to co ntrol what "we" rem ember abo ut the past ? O r,
to put this a noth er way, Whose "politica l, social, and cultural imperatives"
will have predominance at any given mo me nt in th e rep resentatio n of the
past? 5 The demand that the past should be rem embered in the right way
is an insistent o ne, and histo rians a re expected to do their pa rt, by those
who pay th em and by th ose who feel th at th eir own political, social, and
cultural "imperativ es" are the deserving ones. T o shift our focus now from
a past that has allegedly bee n wrongly remembe red to one supposedly for-
gotten, some peopl e say that the Germans in the first generation or two
after Wo rld Wa r II, and th e Japanese eve n today, suppressed and continue
to suppress the memo ry of the atrocities that th eir nations carried o ut in th e
course of that war. 6 Th ey also say that what the Germans needed, a nd w hat
the Japanese still need, was a nd is m em o ry-the more, th e better. Some
suggest, further, that histo ria ns should be engaged in the tas k of ma king up
the "deficit of m emo ry" that ex ists in such situations. So conceiv ed, histo ry
would be primarily a continu atio n of mem ory-i n thi s case, the continua-
tion of mem ori es that, for o ne o r a nother reason, have bee n cast as id e.
MEMORY VERSUS HISTORY
Something lik e the opposite of these cl aim s is closer to being true: that is, far
from being a continu ation of memory, true hi story sta nd s almost in opposi-
tion to memory. In oth er words, it is a mistake to hold, as many peopl e do
these days, th at the central functi o n of history is to preserve and carry fo r-
ward memo ry. T o be sure, histo ry and m emory have been linked together
for a long time, as we see from Herodotus. But H erodotus's memo ry is not
the same as memory in the modern dispensatio n. With Herodotus, and
with histori ans ope rating in a similar mode in late r times, th e "m em ory"
that is in play is subsequent people's m em o ries of deeds done in the past. We
ga in these "mem ori es" throug h engageme nt with th e works of histori a ns ,
who offe r accounts of the way things we re. But in the modern dispensation
a new kind of" memo ry" has come dramatically into play. (Som e mi ght ca ll
HI STOR Y W I TH MEMORY, HIST ORY W I THOUT MEMORY + 19
it a "postmode rn" kind of memory, althoug h the te rm postmodern, because
it is vague, protean, and lik ely to become entangled in polemics, must be
used with caution.) In this new view, memo ry is an obj ect of valu e in its ow n
right, not simpl y a way to ga in o r kee p a g reate r knowledge of the past th an
we wou ld have with out it.
The new, memory-valuing dispensation has an affinity with something
we do see in H erodotus, nam ely, his tend ency to becom e fascinated by th e
sense-ma king stories th at hi s interlocuto rs in different cultures told him.
Herodotus loved to repeat these stories. H e found th em inte resting in them-
selves and also fo r the li g ht they shed o n how the people who told th em
saw the wo rld and how they behaved in it. But he was not inte rested in
memory as such. H e was inte rested in und erstanding how other peoples
saw the wo rl d and in how th e world actuall y was. H e wanted to recove r
and to tell us about th e "ma rvellous d eeds" carried out by both the Greeks
and the Persians duri-ng the conflict between them . H e was interested in the
deeds themselves-not in th e mode of their rem embe ring. Second, as he
also says at the beginning of his History, he wanted to show "the reason why
they fo ug ht one anothe r." In short, his focus was on the rea lity of the deeds
and on the real bac kground to the wa r th at ca ll ed those deeds forth.
Much of the preoccu pati on with memory as a n obj ect of value - indeed,
as an ob ject of reve rence- in the recent past em erged as a response to th e
events that we now ca ll the H olocaust, o r Shoah. A preoccupation with
memory arose in this context in th e wake of the recognition, which became
intense by the 1970s, that soon all survivors of th e H olocaust would be dead.
Acco rd in gly, if victim s' recoll ectio ns of th eir ow n expe ri ences of being vic-
tim ized by the machinery of the Hol ocaust were to be preserved, they had
to be prese r ved soo n. A rchives of audi o- a nd (late r) vid eotapes were set up
for this purpose by Yad Vas hem in Israel, by Yale University, a nd (m ost fa-
mously, if belated ly) by th e filmmaker Steven Spielberg. 7 The coll ectio n of
the testimonies of"witnesses" a nd "su rvi vo rs" went fa r beyond w hat would
be needed for historia ns' reco nstructions of past events. It is not simpl y that
there a re so many testimonies (m ore tha n fift y tho usa nd in the Spielberg
arc hive alone) that each add itional testimony is unlikely to contribute any-
thing to histo rical unde rstanding. After all, there is always the chance that,
beyond all expectation, th e next piece of ev id ence mig ht provide a surprising
insight into what hap pened . The problem is rathe r that the testimony gives
a far fro m adequate account of what happened. The events were deeply
traumati c a nd often glimpsed in circum stances w here ca reful obse rvatio n
was impossibl e. Mo reove r, m a ny of the testimo nies we re coll ected decades
after the eve nts being described, so that th e memo ri es could both fade and
20 :j: PART J: MEMORY
undergo modification by d int of reth inking a nd retelling. It is wel l known
that eve n testimony collected rig ht afte r the events being recoll ected has to
be treated with g reat caution .8 When time is added, th e situation usually
becomes worse. Peopl e becom e unable to d isting ui sh betwee n w hat they
actually saw and what they on ly hea rd abo ut. They also in co rpo rate into
what they think were th eir own memori es in fo rm atio n that onl y became
ava il able late r. To tak e on ly one in sta nce, th e su rvivo r testimony prese nted
in Israel in 1986 in the trial of the fo rmer co nce ntration camp g ua rd John
Demjanjuk turned out to be wrong on many points. It is a ll but certa in
that Demjanjuk was not, as the prosecution claimed, the cruel a nd demo nic
"I va n th e T e rrible" of th e Treblinka camp. The witnesses who were ce rtain
that he was were wrong. 9
In fact, the massive coll ecting of Holocaust testimo nies has littl e if any-
thing to do w ith establi shing a more accurate record of the Holocaust.
Rathe r, the testimonies a re coll ected because they have come to be seen
as havi ng something of th e characte r of sacred relics. In The Holocaust in
American Life, histo ri an Peter Nov ick has w ritten tellingly of the "sac rali za-
tion" of the H olocaust that occu rred afte r th e mid-1 96os. 10 The sacredness
of what is being recounted justifies the m assive numbe r of testimoni es that
have been coll ected. The sac ral characte r of the testimonies also mak es th eir
unreliabil ity as ev id ence irreleva nt. From such a perspective it does not mat-
ter that a videotaped testimony offered half a centu ry afte r the end of World
War II , in res ponse to questions posed by an interviewe r w ho most likel y
knows li ttl e of th e place a nd tim e about w hi ch the w itness speaks (possibl y
not eve n kno w ing the language or la nguages in w hi ch the events un fo lded),
ca n hard ly be sa id to cont ribute to hi sto ri ca l kn owledge. The ritu al of the
gatherin g, p rese rving, and receptio n of th e testim ony, not its ev id ential con-
tent, is th e important th ing.
Thi s kind of testimony-collecting is fa r from the Western (or pe rh aps
any) tradition of hi story-w riting. It is fa r from H erodotus, w ho was ce r-
tainl y interested in how a number of peoples culturally distant from the
G reeks perceived the world. It is even fa rther from H erodotus's successo r,
counter part, and competitor, Thucydides. Thucydid es insisted th at he was
concerned w ith recou nting w hat really happened in the past, and he made
a special point of hi s desire to avoid "the unreliabl e streams of mythology."
(Th ucyd ides used the word muthodes, wh ich means "legenda ry" o r "fabu-
lous"; it is de ri ved from rnuthos, w hi ch va ri ously mea ns "speec h," " repo rt,"
"plot," and "story" and, as already noted, is related to our word myth. 11 )
Ea rl y in his book Thucydides complains that peopl e a re inclined to accept
HI S T ORY WITH MEMORY, HI STORY \VITHOUT MEMORY :t: 21
the first story that they hea r. Determ in ed to get at the actual truth , he "made
it a principle not to write down the fi rst story that cam e my way, and not
even to be g uid ed by my ow n gene ral impress ions." Rathe r, he resolved
to write on ly abo ut eve nts in which he himself had participated, o r about
those of which he had kn ow ledge "from eye-w itnesses whose repo rts I have
checked with as much thoroughn ess as possibl e"-fo r he was deeply awa re
of th e fact that "d ifferent eye-w itn esses give diffe rent accounts of the same
events, speaking o ut of partiali ty fo r one side or th e other or else from im -
perfect memo ries." 12
In other words, memory was not something that Thucyd ides found
interesting for its own sa ke. Rather, it fun cti oned as his m ost impo rta nt
source of ev idence. He inte rviewed eyew itn esses, gather in g th eir memories
of the eve nts of the war, and then, if we ca n trust his account, he attempted
to check those recollections aga in st each other, aga inst what he himself had
seen, and presumabiy against whatever other sources he cou ld find. For
Thucydides, in sho rt, it was not a matter of prese rving m emory at all. If
a nything, it was a matter of correcting memo ry, including his own, by using
the defective memories of all as a check aga inst the defective memories of
each. Thus the historian uses memory in order to ge t beyond it. Thi s was
not on ly Thucydides's view- until recently, it was also unquestioned in the
m ain st rea m of professiona l hi sto ri ca l scholars hi p. 13
In contrast, the new, memo ry-oriented dispensation promotes what I ca ll
a "double positive" focus on m emo ry. I label it "double positive" because it
va lues m emory in two ways. F irst, it va lues the recoll ections of past histo ri -
ca l acto rs and sufferers "for their ow n sake"-that is, qu ite in dependently
of th eir accuracy. Second, it va lues our knowl edge of these recoll ections, a
know ledge viewed not as cold and distant, but as itself a fo rm of memory,
one that links past, present, and future in a commo n framework of recol-
lection.Memory-oriented historiography is a special case of a more ge ne ral
category that we ca n think of as affirmative historiography -affi rmative
because its fundam ental aim is to praise th e pa rticul ar tradition or group
w hose history a nd ex periences it is recounting. It seems clear that we must
have an affi rmative relatio n to a pa rticul ar tradition-a wish to support that
trad ition, to be its fri end and promoter - in order to fee l justified in unde r-
tak ing the cons iderable effort of coll ecting th e memori es of participants in
past events simply for the purpose of preserving them for the present and
futu re. Note that I am not claiming that such an activity is illegitimate . I a m
o nly cla iming that it is deceptive, even dishonest, not to present it for what
it is, nam ely, an exe rcise in piety. Both producers and consume rs of hi story
22 t P ART I: MEMORY
need to be aware that the cogn itive va lue (or lac k of va lue) of such recoll ec-
tion is an issue th at is entirely sepa rate from the em oti onal a nd ex istential
impac t that it may wel l have o n us.
Memo ry-o ri ented , affi rmative hi sto ri ography is a versio n of the "o rd i-
nary" or "v ul ga r" und ersta nding of hi sto ry that H eidegge r identifies and
d iscusses in a late section o f Being and Time. 14 We need not wo rry he re about
the technica liti es of H eid egge r's view of hi sto ry, for my basic point is sim-
pl e. Affi rmative hi storiogra phy subord inates the past to the projects that
hum a n bein gs a re e ngaged in now. It lac k s a critica l stance o n the m emories
it coll ects and o n th e trad iti on it suppo rts. Indeed, it not on ly lacks a cri tical
stance on its favored m emori es a nd traditions but actually tends toward a
mythificati on of them. (H e re H eidegge r's "falling" fo r National Socialism
offers a negative lesson of consid e rabl e importance.) To focus on past hi s-
to ri ca l actors' m emories "for their own sake" (th at is, to see the memories as
valuable in themselves), and to think of historical resea rch and writing as
offe ring a co ntinuation of such memories, is to put in abeyance the kind of
critical procedure of w hi ch Thucydides was perhaps the first practitioner.
Should a central task of history-w riting be the prese rving a nd carrying
fo rwa rd of memory? We might think so, fro m the way the task of hi sto ry
is presented by politi cians, school authorities, th e popular m edia, a nd som e
historians. But my a rg um ent here is th at hi sto ry oug ht rathe r to cou nter th e
ha rmful effects of a n excess ive preoccupati on with m emory. Th e fa ilure o n
th e part of so me people in some count ries to come to te rms with aspects of
th eir own pasts is not best thoug ht of as a mounting to a "defi cit of m em ory"
th at oug ht to be co rrected by th e addition of mo re m emo ry. Th e first prob-
lem w ith such a view is epistem ological. H oweve r we d efin e memory-and
it has a conside rabl e ra nge of com monl y accepted m ea nings- it does seem
to have, as Collingwood has suggested, th e cha racter of being "imm ediate."
In other wo rds, if a person sin ce rely asse rts "I remembe r that P," we have
no adequate groun ds for chall enging the asse rti o n: we pretty much have to
accept that thi s is ind eed w hat th e person remembers. History is d iffe rent,
fo r here we must bring ev idence into play. As Collin gwood m emorably puts
it, to say that I rem ember w riting a letter to So-and-so is "a stateme nt of
memory" and not a "historical statem ent": w hereas ifl can add, "I am rig ht,
for here is his repl y," I am talking hi story. 15 Adm itted ly, we mig ht wa nt to
attenuate in some deg ree Collingwood 's sha rp distinction between history
and m em o ry as being too in sens itive to the emotional fo rce of memory in
human li fe. But th e und eniabl e im portance of m em o ry fo r our individual
a nd coll ective lives as they a re actuall y lived does not justify th e claim that
histo ry shou ld be eq uated with mem o ry.
HI STO RY WI TH MEMORY, HI S TORY WITHOU T MEM O RY t 23
This leads us to a seco nd problem, w hi ch is both ex iste ntial and practi-
cal. This second problem is, in add ition, a m a nifestation in rea l li fe of the
epistemologica l distin cti o n between hi story and m em o ry. It is cl ea r that in
many situations peopl e suffer not fr om a defi cit of so-ca ll ed memory but
from too much of it. Most notably, the "memory" of a ll eged ly a nci ent con-
flicts often feeds into a nd intensifi es violent con fli ct in th e prese nt. Consid er
the role of" m emory" in th e Israe li -Pal estini a n co nflict, in the Ba lka ns, and
in no rth ern Ireland , to ta k e o nl y three exa mples. W hen "memo ry" comes
up aga in st "m emory" in suc h situations, peopl e are all too often stuck in a
contest of m emo ri es that is w ith out issue a nd that cannot be adjud icated
in any cl ear way. It is impo rta nt fo r hi sto ri a ns not to join in such contests
of "memo ry." Tn most cases, the contests a re unresolvabl e: one group " re-
membe rs" in thi s way, anothe r in that way. But w hat is m o re im portant is
that these contests are, or oug ht to be, irrelevant to whatever real issues li e
at hand. T he rea l issues almost always pertain not to an cestral confli cts, real
o r imagined, but to diffe rences in th e present and in th e recent past. Th e
emphasis o n memory in these fields of conflict is som ething th at histo rian s
shou ld ce rtainly take note of, but it is not som ething that th ey oug ht to
em ulate. For m emory both abets such confli cts and is a sy mptom of fai lure
o n the pa rt of th e peo pl e in volved to dea l w ith the causes of confli ct in the
actual situation within wh ich they live.
We ca n, of course, find situ ations whe re a deficit of histo ri ca l knowledge
has prev ailed and has discouraged a co nfrontatio n w ith the rea l issues of the
prese nt. O ne of those issues is how to dea l w ith the res id ue of past crim es.
In the yea r 2000 I spent six months living in Austria, a nd I could not fa il
to notice the case of D r. H einri ch Gross, a Vienn ese physi cia n w ho was
res ponsibl e for euth ani zing a large number of ha ndi ca pped children d ur-
ing Wo rld War II. After the wa r he had a long and lucrative career as a
professo r at th e Un iversity of Vienna and as a well -pa id psychiatric ex pert
witness in the Vienna court system. 16 Althoug h his background was kn ow n
to peo pl e in positions of autho rity, this d id not harm his caree r. A ser io us
atte mpt to bring him to justice came about on ly in th e late 1990s. Was th e
fa ilure of th e courts to d eal w ith th e Gross case in a timely and effectiv e
way, and the failure of Austrian historians to notice this or oth er insta nces of
Austrian coll aborati on in Naz i crimes, the result of a "deficit of m emory"?
No. These linked fa ilures do not in any sense result from a lack of memory.
Tn th e Gross case, there was a good dea l of m emory present, both on the side
of Cross's protecto rs a nd on th e side of sur viving relatives of the murd ered
children. Rathe r, the essential problem was a critical fa ilure-p rim a rily a
critica l fa ilure o n the part of the Austria n histo rical profession.
2-f t P ART I: MEMORY
No doubt this fai lure resulted in part from dec isio ns made outside the his-
to ri cal profession, concerning fundin g a nd a ppointments to professorships
(hi sto ri ca l resea rch requires financial unde rpinning if it is to be car ried out
well , or eve n at all ). But these dec isions we re cl ea rl y not mad e entirely out-
sid e the hi storica l profess io n, w hich in Austria as in other coun tri es tends
to be closely-sometim es too closely- intertwin ed with eve ryday politics.
O ne functi o n of th e histori ca l professi on is to resist th e political common-
places of th e day whereve r they come from and to in vestigate the past with
ri gorous ca re and accu racy, letting the chips fa ll whe re they may. O bvi -
ously, this does not always happen. In any case, th e fa ilure of eith er th e Aus-
trian lega l system o r historia ns of Austri a to add ress adequately th e case of
Dr. H einri ch Gross was not th e result of a lack of m em ory. Influential peo ple
in Vienna had all too much memo ry concerning the outlines (althoug h not,
perhaps, the details) of w hat had happen ed . Man y people in Aust ri a we re
eager to maintain the myth that Austria was innocent of the crimes of the
Third Reich. 11 The re was a dee p disinclination to delve too dee ply - or at
all - into w hat had actuall y been don e in Austria and by Austrians during
World Wa r II. H ad th e rea l past been broug ht out and co nfronted, it wou ld
have bee n possibl e much ea rli er to see w hat so rt of judicia l and political action
was needed in o rde r to put Aust ri a's lazi crimes defin itively into the past.
To be sure, witho ut th e facult y of memo ry the re wo uld be no hi story.
This is m anifest in at least two ways. First, historical investi gatio n and writ-
in g a re cl osely tied up with th e ex perie nce of tempo rality, a point th at Paul
Ricoe ur has mad e emphatically. Without the human ex peri ence of tim e -
witho ut th e sense, at the m ost elementa ry leve l, of a d istin ctio n betwee n
w hat happened befo re, w hat is happenin g now, and w hat will happen after-
ward-there co uld be no histo ri ca l writing. A nd it is also cl ea r that th e hu -
man expe rience of tim e could not exist without m em o ry. Ind eed, we mi g ht
say that m emo ry is one mode of our expe rience of tim e - th e m ode of our
expe rience of tim e that is focused o n the past. Thus memo ry m a kes a ba-
sic conceptual precond ition of hi story-writing possible fo r us, since without
memory we wou ld have no expe ri ence of time , and without the ex pe ri ence
of tim e, we cou ld not situate events and "ex istents" in the past, as distin-
guished from an actual or eternal present. 18 Second , history and m em ory a re
related at th e level of content. Among other things, hi stor y deals with his-
torical fa cts . (History also deals w ith perspectives o r interpretatio ns, but we
can leave this matter, which I address late r, aside here.) The registering of
facts in hi sto ri ca l reco rds, and the registering of th e facts co nveyed by th e re-
co rd s within th e minds of hi storians, would be imposs ibl e withou t m em o ry.
H I S T ORY WITH MEMORY, HI S T ORY W I THOUT MEMORY ~ 25
Howeve r, to say th at mem o ry is hi story's conditio sine qua non is not to say
that memo ry is a foundation of history, let alone th at it is the fo undati o n. It is
deceptively easy to leap fro m the first kind of cl aim to the second. Thus it is
commo n to see memo ry as th e source o r root of histo ry, and to rega rd history
as starting out from memo ry a nd in some se nse neve r leav ing the terrain of
what mem o ry offe rs it. This is the position that Jacques Le Goff a ppea rs
to take in his book History and Memo1y, w hen he cha racte ri zes memo ry as
"the raw material" of histo ry and suggests that "mental, ora l, o r wr itten,
it is the li vin g sou rce from wh ich hi sto ri ans draw." 1'1 To this, we must say
"yes, but," for it is pote ntially ve ry dangero us to ta ke memo ry as th e sole
source of histo ri ca l facts. Co nside r th e foll owing: It is we ll kn ow n that th e
"memories" (that is, th e testim onies) of H olocaust su rvivors are marked by
inaccuracies - some trivia l, so me not so trivial. As noted already, students
of ev ide nce have long bee n awa re of the unreli ability even of imm ediate
eyew itness accounts of events . It is also well know n that memories change
as time passes a nd as rememberers beco me more d istant from the events
they recount and more influenced by things they hea rd o r read later. It is
easy for rem embere rs to be wrong about deta il s, fo r exa mpl e, abo ut the pre-
cise location o r numbe r of gas chambers o r cre m ato ry ovens. Remembere rs
also have a tend ency to integrate into their m emo ri es of eve nts facts o r inte r-
pretatio ns that o nl y beca me ava il able afte r th e events themselves occurred .
If we ove rvalue m emo ry, we open the door to bad -fa ith attempts to use
the errors of recoll ecti o n that in ev itably go along with m emory to discred it
completely what th e rememberers a re saying. This has bee n a favor ite tacti c
of H olocaust de ni e rs. Acco rd ingly, th ere a re pragmatic grounds for avoid -
ing a n ove remphasi s on m em o ry.
There is also a well -developed th eo retical argum ent aga inst relying too
heav il y o n memo ry - o r, mo re accurately, o n the testimoni es by w hich
memori es are a rticulated and mad e kn ow n to others. The modern histo ri cal
trad iti on di stin g uish es two basic types of histo rical ev ide nce. Alth oug h th ey
ex ist o n a continuum, th ey a re readil y d isting uishabl e from each othe r o n
a co nceptual level. Th e conce ptual distinction is one that no self-respecting
h isto ri an can avoid making: there are historical traces and historical ,·ources.
A trace is anything remaining from the past that was not made with the in-
tention of revea ling th e past to us, but simply eme rged as part of normal life.
A source, on th e other hand, is anything that was intend ed by its creato r to
sta nd as an accou nt of events. This second catego ry of ev id ence, wh ich we
might a lso call "testimony," cl ea rly reli es mo re heav il y o n m em ory than d o
traces.' 0
1~:v1
26 t PART 1: MEMORY
It is easy fo r perso ns unacc ustomed to thinking cl ea rl y about th eo ry a nd
meth od to unde restimate th e role that no nintentional ev idence plays in his-
torical resea rch and w riting. An exa mpl e of a trace in its pure fo rm wou ld
be the wea r visibl e on two sets of steps lead in g to different d oo rwa ys, wh ich
wou ld a llow us to make inferences as to th e relati ve number of people us-
ing each entrance ( just such a n in ference plays a role in one of the She rl ock
H olmes stori es). 11 Th e tra in sched ul es produced by th e direc ting office of
a ra il way system a re a nother, less obvious, exa mpl e of no nintentional ev i-
d ence. Un lik e the write rs of, say, m edieval an nals, th e people who work up
th ese sched ul es do not d o so w ith the in tentio n ofl eavi ng a histo ri ca l reco rd.
Th ey do so, rather, because schedu les are necessa ry in o rd e r to move trains
aro und effici entl y and w ith out hav ing them cras h into each othe r. A lth ough
such reco rds were not constructed with the intenti on of all owin g subse-
quent historians to reconstruct the operations of the railway, historians ca n
in fact do this. Thus central European train schedul es during World War II
count as ev id ence of the Holocaust, even though the makers of these sched-
ules certainly did not intend them to serve this purpose. A late r historian,
reading a schedule from September 1942, can see that a train vvas sent full
to an obscure siding in Poland and that it was empty w hen it left the sid ing.
The hi stori an can then make inferences from these facts .2' The infe rences
have nothing to do w ith anyone's testimony. H e re it is not memory but th e
in adve rtent remn a nts of th e past that stand as th e "raw material " of history.
No rmall y, both kinds of ev id ence - inadv erte nt a nd intenti onal - e nte r
into the co nst ruction of a histo rica l account. A lthough the point may seem
counterintuitive, the re is a sense in w hich inadve rtent evide nce is a fa r m o re
soli d foundation for histo ri ca l knowl edge th an is th e ev idence th at peopl e
in the past have intend ed to stand as evid ence. Th e reason is that a source
is in ev itably mi xed up w ith past peo ple's conce pti o ns a nd mi sconce ptio ns
as to what was happening, whereas a trace, at least in its pure form, is de-
void of such adm ixture . Sources a re always already interpretati o ns of eve nts,
w he rea s traces are not. To be sure, "traces" do not offe r us facts in a pure
state - nothin g does. But by vi rtue of being on ly inad ve rtently ev id ence,
traces a re insulated from people's conscious or un conscious wishes to remem-
ber and testify in a particular way. Memo ry lacks this kind of objectivity.
HISTORY AND THE PRESENT
Yet it wou ld be too simple to stop o ur reAecti o ns at this point, for history
in volves w id er matters than sim ply establishing histo rical facts accurately.
F acts are important, but they a re onl y o ne aspect of a good historica l ac-
HI S T O RY W I TH MEMORY, HI STOR Y WIT H OU T MEMOR Y :f: 27
count. A ce ntral feature of any historical account worthy of th e name is its
attempt to situate facts within a larger fr am ework . To put this anothe r way :
historical accounts dea l in pa1't-whole relations . A fact may be consid ered a
"pa rt," a nd th e part is m ea ningless unl ess it is situated within la rge r fram e-
works that give it mea ning. Such fram ewo rks a re partially rooted in the
historia n's present world. O ne questio n that we must as k wh en trying to
arti cu late a noti on of histo rical thinking is, In what specific ways can hi stori-
ca l acco unts be related to the present wo rld ? H e re I want to a rg ue th at it is
best to think of hi story-writing as something that can be o ri ented in three
possible ways to the prese nt wo rld. Two of th ese a re cl ose to bein g polar op-
posites; the th ird is something of a sy nth esis betwee n the two.
O ne polar position sees histo ry-writing as hav ing the function of binding
togeth e r a nd a ffirming th e comm unity, group, Vo lk, state , nation , religion,
politi ca l co mmitment, and so on out of wh ich it arises. The opposing posi-
tion sees history as having a primaril y critical and negating function w ith
rega rd to th e commun ity out of wh ich it a rises and the past that it stud ies.
Between a historiography that affi rms and a historiog raphy that engages in
critique, th e re is a third , didactic position that seeks to g uide th e Volk, o r the
Aock, in th e directi on of a bette r future. It mig ht be ex pected that I wou ld
choose th e middl e, didactic position as m y own, because of its attempt to
med iate betwee n th e othe r two positions, those of affi rm ation and critique.
But in view of th e weight of the prese nt (and of th e past that is attac hed to
it), hi story oug ht in fact to chart out a criti ca l rol e fo r itself. Did actic histo ri -
ography is an honorable but und erjustifi ed attempt to mak e hi sto ry do what
it does not have th e autho rity to do, that is, be precepto r as well as critic.
My optin g fo r a critical over an affirmativ e or didactic histori og rap hy
in pa rt acco unts for the we ig ht that I g iv e to va ri ous d istin ctio ns th at bring
a ce rtain clarity and d irectness to the matter of understandin g th e past (in
co ntrast, affirmative a nd did actic a pproac hes are inclined to leave in dark-
ness, eve n to d elibe rately hid e, th e fra mewo rk of assumptio ns a nd just ifi ca-
tio ns by which they operate) . Most importa nt, if we opt for a critical histo-
riog raphy, we must distinguish histo ry from mem ory. Obv iously, m emory
is not simply the reprod ucti on of the past - far from it. So we cannot claim
that memory is passive-on the contrary, it is an active faculty, as we know
fro m the forcefully creative way in w hich it o rients itself toward known facts
of the past. But it is not a critical or reAective faculty, as becom es gla ring ly
obv io us w hen diffe rent " memori es" come into conA ict w ith each oth er (as
te nds to ha ppen w hen ever, fo r exa mpl e, different ethnic groups - Israelis
a nd Palestinians, Serbs and C roats, Bosnian Serbs and Bosni a n Muslims,
a nd so o n - manufacture d iffere nt "histori cal" justifications for th eir own
26 t PART I: MEMORY
It is ea sy for pe rso ns un accusto med to thinking cl ea rl y about th eo ry and
m ethod to und e restimate the role that no nintentional ev ide nce plays in his-
torical resea rch and writing. A n exa mpl e of a trace in its pure fo rm wo uld
be th e wea r visibl e on two sets of steps lead in g to diffe rent doo r ways, w hi ch
would all ow us to m a ke in fe rences as to the relative number of people us-
ing each entrance ( just such a n infere nce pl ay s a role in one of th e Sh e rl ock
H olmes sto ri es). 21 Th e train schedu les prod uced by th e direc ting offic e of
a railway syste m a re another, less obv io us, exa mpl e of no nintenti o na l evi-
d ence. Unlike th e w riters of, say, m ed ieva l a nn als, the people w ho work up
th ese sc hedul es d o not do so w ith the inte nti o n of leav ing a historica l reco rd.
Th ey do so, rather, because schedul es a re necessa ry in o rd e r to move trains
around efficiently a nd w ithout having them cras h into each othe r. A lth oug h
such reco rds we re not constructed w ith th e intention of allow ing subse-
quent histo ri a ns to reconstruct the ope rations of th e rail way, hi sto rians ca n
in fact do this. Thus central European train schedules during World War II
count as ev id ence of the H olocaust, even tho ugh the makers of th ese sch ed-
ules certa inl y did not inte nd them to se r ve this purpose. A later histo ria n,
reading a schedule fro m September 1942, ca n see that a train was sent full
to an obscu re sid ing in Poland and th at it was empty when it le ft the sid ing .
Th e hi sto rian can then mak e in fe rences from these fac ts.22 Th e in fe rences
have nothin g to do w ith a nyo ne's testimon y. H e re it is not mem o ry but th e
in adve rtent remn a nts of th e past that sta nd as th e " raw materia l" of hi sto ry.
Normally, both kind s of ev id ence- inad ve rte nt and intenti ona l- ente r
into the co nstruction of a histo ri ca l accou nt. Alth ough the point may seem
counterintuitive, th ere is a sense in w hi ch in adv e rtent ev id ence is a fa r m o re
solid fo und ation fo r hi sto ri ca l know ledge than is the ev id ence th at people
in th e past have intended to sta nd as ev idence. The reaso n is th at a source
is inev itably mi xed up w ith past people's conce ptio ns and misconceptions
as to w hat was happe ning, w hereas a trace, at lea st in its pure fo rm , is de-
void of such adm ixture. Sources a re always al ready interpretati o ns of eve nts,
w he reas traces a re not. T o be sure, "traces" do not offe r us facts in a pure
state - noth in g does. But by vi rtu e of being o nl y inadve rtentl y ev id ence,
traces are in sul ated from peopl e's conscious or unconscio us w ish es to remem-
ber and testify in a particular way. Memory lacks this kind of objectivity.
HISTORY AND THE PRESE N T
Yet it wo ul d be too simpl e to stop o ur reAectio ns at this point, for hi story
in volves wid er m atters th a n simpl y esta bli shin g histori cal facts accurately.
Facts are importa nt, but th ey a re onl y one aspect of a good hi storica l ac-
HI S T O RY W I TH !vI EMORY, H I STOR Y WIT H OU T MEMORY :f: 27
count. A ce ntral feature of a ny hi sto rica l acco unt worthy of the name is its
attempt to situate fac ts w ithin a la rge r fram ewo rk. To put thi s a nother way:
historical acco unts dea l in part-whole relations. A fact m ay be conside red a
"pa rt," a nd the pa rt is m ea ningless unl ess it is situ ated w ithin la rge r fram e-
wo rks th at give it mea ning. Such framewo rks a re partiall y rooted in the
histori a n's prese nt wo rld . One question th at we mu st as k w hen trying to
a rticul ate a noti o n of histo ri ca l thinking is, I n w hat specifi c ways ca n hi sto ri -
ca l acco unts be related to th e prese nt world? H ere I wa nt to argue that it is
best to think of hi sto ry-w riting as som ething that ca n be o ri ented in three
possibl e ways to the prese nt wo rld. Two of th ese a re cl ose to being pola r op-
posites; the third is some thing of a sy nth es is betwee n the two.
O ne pola r position sees histo ry-w riting as hav ing the function of binding
together a nd affirmin g the community, group, Volk, state, nation , reli gion,
political comm itm ent, and so on out of w hich it ar ises. Th e oppos ing posi-
tion sees history as hav ing a prima rily critical and negating function with
regard to the comm unity out of w hich it a ri ses and th e past that it stud ies.
Between a histo ri ogra ph y that affi rms and a histo ri ograph y that engages in
critique, the re is a third, didactic positio n th at seek s to g uide the Volk, o r th e
Rock, in th e d irection of a better future. It mi g ht be ex pected th at I wo uld
choose th e middl e, d idac tic position as my ow n, because of its attempt to
mediate betwee n the oth er two positi ons, those of a ffirm ation and critique.
But in view of th e we ig ht of the present (a nd of th e past that is attac hed to
it), history oug ht in fact to chart out a critica l role fo r itself. Didactic hi sto ri -
ograp hy is an hono rable but und erju stifi ed attempt to m ake histo ry do what
it does not have the autho rity to do, that is, be preceptor as wel l as cr itic.
My opting fo r a criti ca l ove r a n affirmative o r d id acti c histo riograp hy
in pa rt acco unts for th e weig ht that I give to va rio us di stin ct io ns th at brin g
a certa in clarity a nd d irectness to the m atte r of und ersta ndin g the past (in
co ntrast, a ffirmati ve a nd didactic approaches are inclin ed to leave in dar k-
ness, eve n to delibe rately hid e, th e fram ewo rk of ass umpti o ns a nd justifi ca-
tio ns by w hich they ope rate). Most impo rta nt, if we opt fo r a criti ca l histo-
riog raph y, we mu,·t disting uish histo ry from m emory. O bviousl y, m em o ry
is not simpl y th e reprod ucti o n of the past - far from it. So we ca nnot claim
that memory is passive-on the contrary, it is a n active fac ulty, as we know
from the forcefu ll y creative way in w hich it o rients itself towa rd known facts
of the past. But it is not a critica l or reAective facu lty, as becom es glaringly
obv ious w hen different "memo ri es" come into conA ict w ith each other (as
te nd s to happe n w he neve r, fo r exa mple, d iffe re nt ethnic gro ups -Israel is
a nd Palestin ia ns, Se rbs a nd C roats, Bosnian Serbs a nd Bos nian Musl ims,
a nd so on - m a nu facture different "historica l" justificati ons fo r their ow n
28 :f: P ART I: M EM 0 RY
domin ance). At the level of memo ry itself, th e co nAi ct of different m em ori es
ca nn ot be adjudicated.!.! The criti ca l resoluti o n between conAicting m emo-
ri es ca n onl y come at a different leve l, where criteri a other than mnem onic
o nes a re de pl oyed . T o put this a nothe r way: m emo ry ca nn ot be its ow n criti-
cal test. Th e criti cism mu st come fro m outside mem o ry. The criti cism of
"mem ories," insofar as it m akes cl aims about hi sto ry and about th e relati o n
of thi s supposed histo ry to th e prese nt, ca n o nl y co me from m eth odologi-
call y sound hi stori cal resea rch , and from a thinking th at is sensitive to th e
rel eva nce---and il'l'elevance-o f that resea rch fo r present issues.
But we mu st d isting ui sh not onl y betwee n history and m emo ry. We must
di sting ui sh also between diffe rent conce pts that in recent discu ssi on have
been promiscuo usl y blurred togethe r unde r th e single rubric, " m em ory"
(whi ch ex pl ain s w hy I have at tim es encl osed memory in quotation ma rk s).
The basi c sense of mem ory is what we ca n call the "experiential " sense. In
its experiential sense, "historical m em o ry" denotes the ex pe rience of peopl e
who actuall y we nt throug h th e historical eve nts und er discussi on. Mo re ac-
curatel y, historical m em o ry denotes the recovery a nd conversion into narrative
of th at ex peri ence. (Thus, onl y people wh o we re actu all y affected , in th e
pe riod 1933-45, by th e m ac hin ery o f the H olocaust ca n be sa id to have a
"m emo ry" of th e H olocaust in the ex perienti al sen se of th e te rm memory .)
O bviously, som e of th e inte rest in histo ri ca l m em o ry that has eme rged ove r
th e last qu a rter ce ntury treats m emo ry in this sense. T he vid eota ping of
inte rviews with H olocaust sur vivo rs am ounts in m a jo r pa rt to prese rving
th e m emo ry of th e ex peri e nce of bein g caug ht up in the H olocaust. As al-
read y noted, thi s m assive vid eota pin g has alm ost nothin g to do with th e
project of coll ecting m o re ev iden ce about the wo rkings of th e H olocaust.
It is th e ex peri ence itself that is th e focu s of atte nti o n.24 Lest a nyo ne think
th at th e H olocaust is a n entirely special case, we sho uld note th at a conce rn
w ith memo ry, a nd with ex peri ence as memo ry's ultim ate obj ect, also ente rs
sig nifi ca ntl y into othe r current ge nres of hi sto ry, including " hi sto ry fro m
belo w," histo ry of everyday life, and the domin a nt ve rsions of cultural hi s-
to ry, w herein the focus is o n the process of culture far mo re tha n o n its
content.
Use of the term memory to desi g nate accounts offered by participants of
their ex pe ri ence of the past is e ntirely legitimate. So also, in its proper con-
text, is anoth er term w idely used in current histo rical discussion -coLLective
m emory . Properl y spea king, a collecti ve m em o ry is wh at a rises w hen a num -
ber of peo pl e ex peri ence th e sa me set of hi sto rica l eve nts. Th ese peo pl e ca n
then be said to have a "coll ective" m emo ry of those events, not in th e se nse of
H ISTORY W ITH MEMO R Y, HI S T ORY W ITH OU T M E MORY t 29
a m em ory th at ex ists supra-individuall y- for th ere is no such thing as mem-
ory apa rt from ind ividuals - but in th e se nse that each pe rso n has, within
hi s or her ow n mind and within her own repo rts, a n ima ge, o r gestalt, of an
expe rience th at oth er people also und erwe nt. Mo reove r, th ese images, o r ge-
stalten , ove rl a p in large deg ree-otherwise the memo ry would not be "col-
lective ." Sur vivo rs of th e H olocaust can thus be said to have had a coll ectiv e
mem o ry of th eir ex perie nce of wh at onl y late r - during th e r96os- cam e
to be know n as th e H olocaust. E ach of th eir accounts of that expe ri ence was
diffe rent, but most acco unts na rrativi zed the sam e general set of eve nts in
q uite sim il a r ways . The sa me will no doubt be true of the many peopl e who
expe ri enced, in o ne way o r anoth er, th e events of Septembe r 11, 2 00 1.] 5
The questio n that co ncerns us here is not whether we can justify a n in -
terest in how peopl e ex peri enced the histo ri cal past or in how th ey hav e
preser ved th eir ex perie nce in memories and testimoni es. The answer to
that questi on is obvious. Rather, the questio n is what th e historian's attitude
towa rd these historical m emories should be. H e re we find an interesting
distinctio n am ong four different attitud es toward historical memory, or -
pe rh aps m o re accurately-a mong four diffe rent ways of using histo rical
me mo ry. Three of th ese fit in sid e th e fi eld of hi sto rical research and writ-
ing; the fo urth goes beyo nd histo rical research a nd writing into different
terri to ry.
F irst, hi sto rica l memo ry-o r, m o re accurately, the na rrations of th e past
that reme mberers have produced - can se rve the histo ri a n as ev idence for
w hat obj ectively happened in th e past - that is, fo r what ha ppe ned in the
fo rm of externall y observa bl e eve nts. Afte r all , histori a ns use both "tra ces"
and "sources" in th eir co nstru ctions or reconstructions of th e past. "Mem-
ory," in the fo rm of pa rti cipa nts' recoll ecti o ns, is o ne kind of source fo r the
histori an's building of a n account of th e past. Som etim es memo ry is impo r-
ta nt in prov iding hi storical ev id ence th at would o the rwise be unava il abl e.
T hus, witn esses' accounts mig ht be virtually the o nl y ev id ence we have of an
uprising in a VernichtungsLager (exte rminati on camp). Still , it is better wh en
th is kind of ev id ence ca n be ch ecked against no n intentio nal evid ence.
Seco nd, histo rical memory can serve th e histori an as evid ence for how
the past was expe ri enced by the people who later recorded their memories.
In othe r wo rds, the historia n might shift he r attention from what happened
in the past in th e fo rm of externall y visibl e events to what went on in th e
m inds and feelings of the peo pl e who we re in volved. In short, the histo-
rian would attempt to co nstru ct o r reconstru ct the experience of historical
participants (in such and such a set of hi stori ca l eve nts). Id ea lly, this sort
30 t PART J: MEMORY
of historical in vestigation, focused on participants' expe rien ce, needs to be
brought into d ialogue w ith other fo rms of historical in vestigation focused
on such things as stru ctural and mate ri al conditio ns a nd dete rminants, phil-
osoph ica l a nd religious assumptions a nd comm itm ents, sc ientifi c theo ri es,
techni cal practices, views as to the best way of o rga ni z ing politi ca l and social
li fe, a nd so on.
Third, hi storical mem o ry ca n serve the hi sto ria n as a n ob ject of hi sto-
riograp hi c attenti on in its ow n ri g ht. That is, the hi sto ri an ca n focus , not
on the exte rnall y visibl e eve nts of th e past, a nd not on the expe ri ence of
participants, but instead o n participants' ways of reme mbering their ex pe ri -
ences late r -for w hich , of course, the reco rd ed memories themselves a re th e
ev idence. C lea rl y, how people have remembered the past is also a legitim ate
obj ect of histo ri cal in vestigation , a nd this is so independently of the ques-
tion as to w hethe r their remembrances are accurate.
Fourth, there is a way of approaching the recorded m emori es of past
events that takes us beyond the ambit of the hi sto rian. H ere, the reco rd ed
memories of past events - o r, m ore accurately, the narratives based on
those memories-become something akin to ob jects of religious ve ne ra-
tion. They become va lued ob jects in their ow n rig ht. We see thi s develop-
ment above all in relation to memori es of the Holocaust, but something of
the same so rt has ce rtainl y happened in other contexts as wel l.
When ve neration comes in , memory in its basic, ex periential se nse tips
ove r into something different: memory becomes commemoration. I take
memo ry ge ne rall y to be a matter of the ca rr ying fo rwa rd into the future of
the personal exper ience eithe r of in d ividua ls or of groups of in d ividuals w ho
un de r we nt a common expe rience of some sort. Memory begin s in a more
or less sponta neo us rem embering of lived ex perience. W hil e memory and
commemo ration a re closely akin , they a re also sharpl y d iffe rent. Whereas
memo ry is a by-product of past expe ri ence, comme m oration is something
wiLLed in the present. Commemoration a ri ses in the desire of a community,
ex isting now, to affi rm its comm unality and com monality, strengthening
its bon ds th ro ug h a shared o rientati on to past eve nts, or, more accurately,
th roug h a sha red o rientation to a representation of past eve nts.
The events in question may o r may not have actually occurred. It is no
accident that comm emorati on is a n impo rta nt element in some religio ns:
consid er Passover in the Jew ish tradition and Ch ri stmas and Easter in the
C hristi an trad iti on . Commemo ration is abo ut holding together a comm u-
ni ty, the comm unity of the commemorators. Some com mentato rs, taking
se riously the etymologica l link between reLigio a nd reLigare (to bind), see
H I S T ORY W ITH MEMORY, HI STORY WITHOUT MEMORY :f: 31
religio n's funct ion as the preservation of community. In thi s view, com-
memoration has close affin iti es with reli gio n.
CONFLICTING ATTITUDES TOWARD THE PAST
Should histor ica l research and w riting have this same binding function?
That is, shou ld historical resea rch and w ri ting have as an importan t func-
tion the bin d ing together of a hum an community by th e affi rm ation of its
(possibl y mythi c) common ex periences? Should history, in other words, be
fundamenta ll y affi rmative of the comm unity from w hich it a rises? This is
an importa nt q uestio n, and one that appea rs in a diffe rent lig ht in different
times and places . It is tempting to say that, yes, of course hi story should have
an affi rming function. It is tempting to say this because, as a matter offact,
the historical discipline has gene rall y affirmed the political o rd er that pays its
bills. Affi rmation of the community out of w hich it emerges seems to be a
permanent concom ita nt of orga ni zed histori cal w riting . The only thing that
appea rs to change is the particular emphasis and direction of the affi rmation.
The d iscipline of histo ry in the nineteenth ce ntury was closely co nn ected
with the exte nsion of the power of the Europea n nation-state. In Ge rm a ny,
France, and England, as wel l as in the U nited States, the newly profession-
alized d iscipline of hi sto ry tend ed to serve as a n ideological support fo r the
state: in the Ge rm a n-speaking lands, fo r th e Prussian state a nd its exte n-
sion (o r, alternatively, fo r its competito rs); fo r the secu la rl y-based French
republic, with its mission civdisatrice, that em erged afte r Fra nce's defeat by
Prussia in 1871; for England a nd its Empire in the same pe riod; and for
the nationa l and then imperia l pretensions of the U nited States as well. In
each case th ere was a "master nar rative" that was see n as running th rough
th e nation's history-the maste r narrative of th e nation's movement from
its ea rly beginnings, through th e rise of national self-consciousness, to its
cur rent st ruggle fo r recognition and success. Beh in d th e master narratives,
there lay a larger "grand narrative"-a secul arized ve rsion of the C hristian
narrative of pristine o rigin , struggle, and ultim ate salvation.' 6
The relative solidity of these master and g ra nd narratives gave hi sto rical
writing a pa rticular shape and feel. Except for those histo rians w ho stood
outsid e the disciplinary fram ewo rk (one thinks especially of the Swiss cul-
tural histor ian and art connoisseur Jacob Burckhardt), the foc us was ove r-
whelmingl y o n political history of a particular kind. Th e domi n ant sto ry
was the story of th e increasing actual ization of freedom. Sometimes the
sto ry was told in a liberal register, with emphasis placed o n the in creasing
32 :j: PART I: MEM O RY HI S T O RY W I TH MEM O RY, HI S T O RY W I TH OU T MEM O RY + 33
freedom of the individual to pursue his private interests and to have a voice
in the running of th e state; sometimes it was told in a co nse rvati ve o r au- HI S T O RI CA L N ES C I EN C E. Ignora nce TH E AES THE S I S O F HI S T O RY.

thoritari an register, w ith emphasis placed on cultura l cultivatio n (Bi/dung) or rejectio n of histo ry. Hi story, if Hi story is id entifi ed with beauti fu l (or
and o n the freedom and powe r of the state itse lf. Wh at is obv ious today is tho ught abo ut at all , is see n as the subli m e) aes th eti c obj ects. Co ntex t is
that these va ri a nt maste r na rratives, a nd the g rand na rrati ve that und erpins need less stud y of th e "dead and gone." re ndered as , at most, an afte rth o ught.

them , are lack ing in esse ntial authority. Ind eed, they have bee n lacking in
esse nti al auth o rity from rough ly the tim e th at it bega n to daw n o n people
that the war of 19 14 was turning into a vast slaug hte rh ouse. To be sure, we
cannot say that nobody beli eves in th e old g rand and maste r narratives any
m o re. Fo r exa mpl e, I am often struck by the ex te nt to which many A m eri -
ca ns sti ll believe in the g reat American narrative of the "city upo n a hill"
that stands as th e "las t best hope of mankind "-"th e hope of th e wo rld," as
Pres id ent Nixon o nce put itY But for m ost people who think about such
matte rs - and eve n for many people w ho do not - neither the old nati onal
master narratives nor the g rand na rrative of freedom and Bi/dung is pe rsua-
sive a n y more. Instead th ere prevails what Jea n-Fran c;:ois Lyotard has ca lled
an "incredu lity" toward such overarching na rratives. 28
In the absence of beli ef in an authoritative na rrati ve of human advance,
o ne finds a number of attitudes towa rd the past circul ating in contempo rary
culture, espec iall y in contem po rary American culture (see fig. 1.1 ). Each of
th ese attitudes is a way of d enying or evad in g hi sto ry. Promin ent is a n at-
titud e of histo rica l nesc ience, o r unkn ow ing ness, w hi ch mig ht be defined
as simply the absence of a ny expli cit, o r eve n impli cit, o rientati on towa rd
hi sto ry. O ne mi g ht thin k of hi stor ica l unknow ing ness, in tempo ral terms,
as am ounting to th e coll apse of the ho ri zon of histo ry into th e o ne mo-
m ent of th e prese nt. O r, in cognitive te rm s, o ne mig ht think of it as a g reat
d iscarding, w he re all fo rms of know ledge of the pas t a re eith er ig no red o r
deliberately cast asid e as irreleva nt. To be sure, o ne needs to m a ke a distinc-
tion he re betwee n know ledge a/the past a nd knowled ge.fi'om the past-fo r
kn ow leclgefi'Oln the past is not discard ed at all , as long as it is seen as use ful
for acti on in the present. But know ledge.fi'om the past rea dil y coexists w ith
a compl ete ig norance as to the contexts with in which knowledge tak en.fi'om
the pas t was prev iousl y situated.
Althoug h it w ill perhaps sound condescending to refl ect on historical
unknowing ness, I do not intend to be condescend ing but onl y factual and
desc riptive . Th e use of the term History in popular parlance in English
to mea n "dead a nd go ne, irreleva nt, passe"-as in the classic line from a
"cool" r98os tel ev isio n series, Miami Vice, "Drop th at g un o r yo u're hi s-
tory! " - is indicative of a wide r mind-set. This mind -set is pe rhaps m o re
distinctively A me ri ca n th an no n-A m eri ca n, and perhaps more prevalent in
H I S TORY AS TR A DIT I ON . Th e fun c- HI S T O RY 11s : (A) MEMORY . Th e
ti on of hi sto ry is tu car ry fo rward from fun cti on of hi story is to p rom ote th e
the past into th e futur e th e trad itions "memori es" of specifi c g roups, espe-
of spec ific g roups, es peciall y ours. ciall y o u rs.
( B) C O MM EMO RAT I ON : Th e
fun ction of hi sto ry is to ass ist us in
hono rin g o ur d ead (the "g reatest
generati on ," etc.).
FI GU RE 1.1 Four waysofevad ing histo ry
ce rta in Ame ri cas tha n in others. O ne associates it w ith the America of the
suburbs a nd housi ng deve lopments; w ith the A m eri ca th at is addicted to
tel evis ion; w ith the resolutely optimistic A m eri ca of "have a nice clay, now"
and of entrepreneurial get up and go. It is a n old story, o ne of the true m yths
of Amer ica, the m yt h of pulling up o ne's sta kes a nd m ov ing westward into
th e wi lderness that is to be conque red, leav ing the old behind. And th en
leav ing the old behind aga in , and aga in. Th e departures in qu esti on a re
not eve n necessa ril y geogra phi ca l o r even ph ys ica l. They ca n be co nceptu al,
technological, economi c, politica l, sc ientifi c. Wh at th ey have in commo n is
a failure to think of hi sto ri cal ex pe ri ence at a ll , o r, if th ere is th ought of
hi sto rica l expe ri ence, a fa ilure to attend to the co ntextua l differences th at
se pa rate past from prese nt and that rad icall y cha nge the m ea nin g of th e his-
to rica l particul a rs that a re the m ost immed iately visibl e aspect of th e past.
Historica l unknow ing ness is not specifically A m e rica n o r specifically
new. Kn ow ledge of histo ry has surely always bee n, in th e main , o ne of
two things: a cultural lu xur y good having something of the status of an ac-
qu ired taste (with some ove rsimplificatio n, think H erodotus here), or else a
wou ld-be instrument fo r fo rward ing the interests and ass isting in the wo rk
of ac tu al o r prospective rul ers (think Thucyd id es a nd hi s intell ectual heirs).
People not in a pos iti o n eithe r to purchase such a lu xur y good or else to
part icipate in the wo rkings of power w ill have nesc ie nce and indiffe rence
towa rd hi story as their no rmal sta nce, at least in th e abse nce of a g rand na r-
rative of prog ress or som e functional eq ui va lent to such a narrative. G rand
34 :j: P A RT I : MEMORY
na rrati ve ca n g ive a justificatio n to kn owledge of th e past by all ow ing his-
torical pa rti cul a rs that oth e rwise would seem irreleva nt to find their pl ace
in a broade r story, a nd it ca n also se rv e as a suppo rt for the master narratives
attac hed to particular ethnic, natio nal, religious, a nd oth er gro ups. In the
abse nce of a g ra nd n3rrative able to g ive space a nd meaning to hi sto ri ca l
particulars, hi sto rica l unknowing ness becomes something lik e the normal
hum a n position. 19
A seco nd attitude tow3rd th e pas t th at is present in co ntempo rar y culture
(a nd that figures in th e unde rmining of master and g ra nd na rrative in recent
times) is o ne that we c3n designate 3S the aesthesis ofhistory. In the re3 ] wo rld
th e aesth esis of histo ry is often cl osely inte rt w in ed with oth er, related atti-
tud es towa rd history. But at the theo retica l level o ne can define th e aesthesis
of histo ry quite precisely. The aesth esis of hi sto ry amounts to a n 3esthetic
o rientation toward ob jects that a re left ove r from th e past, or that appea r
as if th ey a re left ove r from th e past. These obj ects a re seen as in some way
standing in fo r the past. The fund ame ntal o ri e ntati on towa rd th ese obj ects
is one of delight or admiration. In th e aesthes is of histo ry th e focus is on the
se nsual aspect of th e obj ects being co ntempl ated . Th e aesthesis of histo ry
is not primarily a n ope ratio n of intell ectual o r ethica l judg m ent. It fosters
no inte rest in the broad er co ntexts w ithin which the obj ects in qu estion a re
situated - unl ess th ose co ntexts, too, ca n be aesthetical ly contemplated.
Examples a re in o rde r. The o nes that I am m ost fam ili a r with a re cl ose to
the place where I li ve, Ivy, Virginia. I think of the a rchitecture of the central
co re of th e Un ive rsity of V irgini a, th e "Academ ical Vill age,'' with its Ro-
tunda, pavilions, a nd stud ent rooms all desig ned as a n ense mbl e by Thomas
Jefferso n. I think also of Jeffe rso n's house, Monticell o. These m o numents -
but especially Monticell o-sta nd o ut 311 th e more because th ey we re ori gi-
nally set w ithin a largely natu ral environme nt a nd still bea r m a rk s of that
environ m ent today. These monuments prompt a se nsuous appreciatio n, but
one that is differe nt from a pure, Ka nti an app reciation because it is tied up
with th e histo ri city that the monum ents possess and that the natura l en vi-
ronment, to all manifest appea ra nce, does not.
In sum, the "aesthesis of hi story" shows itself in a positive, app reciati ve,
orientati on towa rd histo ri cal m o numents. Such an aesth esis is to be found
in th e "prese rvation movement," which strives to prese rve old buildin gs
a nd to protect them from cha nges that a re not in the spirit of th eir ea rli er
use. It is to be fou nd in th e marking, throughout the United States, of such
remnants from the past as old battl efi eld s, nati ve Ame ri can ruins, a nd so o n.
Perh aps paradoxically, it is to be fo und in its purest fo rm where the obj ect of
aesthetic- hi sto ri cal contempl atio n is a completel y invented obj ec t. A pa ra-
HI STORY W I TH lvlEMORY, HI STOR'li' W I THOUT MEMORY :j: 35
digm case wou ld be the reprodu ction of th e ship "The Titanic," centerpiece
of the popular movie Titanic ( 1997). H e re an imm e nse a m ount of effort was
reportedly ex pe nded to e nsure th at the pl ates a nd sil ve rwa re o n th e set were
exact repli cas of the tableware o n the o riginal "Titan ic." A nothe r example
of the aesth es is of histo ry wo uld surely have bee n "Disney's A meri ca," th e
them e pa rk that in 1994 the Walt Disn ey Compa ny proposed to build fo ur
mil es away from Manassas atio nal Battlefi eld Pa rk in no rth ern Virginia,
in the vicinity of Washington, D.C. H ere an a rtifi cial, constru cted pas t,
which no doubt would have bee n much prettier and m o re upbeat than the
o riginal , was see n as co nfli cting too bl ata ntl y w ith th e rea l hi sto ri ca l eve nts
that had taken place in th e vicinity-a nd th e proj ect was neve r built. 30
A third attitude that has a risen in the wake of th e collapse of the author-
ity of g rand narrative in volves an identi fica ti o n of history w ith memory a nd
w ith commemo ration. Histo rical unkn owingness negates history by declar-
ing historical knowledge to be irreleva nt to the life of the present and future.
The aesthes is of history negates history by turning the physi cal furniture of
the past into beautiful objects existing on a "set" that fundam entall y has
noth ing to do with histo ry. In both cases, th e re is a n attempt to reduce o ur
consc iousness to the ho ri zo n of the prese nt: in th e first case, by the decl a red
irreleva nce of a nything th at is not of the present, and in the second, by the
decla red irreleva nce of a nything that ca nnot be prese nted beautifu ll y in the
present. Th e same processes a re at work in the id entifi cati o n of history w ith
memo ry a nd commemorati on. When histo ry becomes simpl y what peopl e
remember o r commem o rate, thi s amounts to a red ucti o n of hi sto ry to th e
fr3mewo rk of present tho ug ht a nd actio n. Memory tells us as much abo ut
th e present consciousness of the re membe rer as it does about the past. Mem-
ory is an im age of the past co nstructed by a subj ectivity in th e present. It is
th us itself subj ecti ve; it may a lso be irrati onal, inconsi stent, deceptive, and
self-se rving . It has long bee n clear that, without ind epe nd ent co r roboration,
memo ry cannot serve as a reli abl e marker of the histo ri cal past.
A fourt h attitude to wa rd th e past, lik ew ise amounting to an evasio n of
histo ry, also deserves to be co nside red: trad ition. To a striking extent, much
cur rent talk of "m emory" is really talk about tradition (w ith commem o ra-
tio n standing as a kind of middle point between the two). It is a mista ke to
bl ur togeth er m emory and tradition: a fundamental lack of clarity a rises
from doing so. Memory is subj ective and personal; it is deeply experi enti al.
Trad iti o n certainly needs to be expe rienced in order to be possessed, but it is
mo re th an subj ective and personal. It is suprasubjective ; it is supra personal.
Trad ition implies, not the passing on of personal ex pe rience in its suppos-
ed ly unique cha racte r and subjectiv ity, but something that is much m o re
36 t PAR T I: MEMOR Y
di sta nced from the individu al, something that has a coll ective we ig ht and
ex istence over ind ividuals. We mu st be edu cated into trad itio n. Each pe rson
a nd ge neratio n mu st actively a pp ro pri ate t rad itio n. It thus has a kind of dis-
tance, a nd a connectio n w ith a process of lea rning, not fo un d in th e noti on
of mem ory.
Hi sto ry is cl ose r to trad itio n than it is to memo ry a nd commemo rati o n.
W ith hi sto rica l kn ow ledge, m atte rs proceed in som ew hat the way they do
w ith trad itio n. In o ne of its as pects, hi sto ri ograp hy is a ship sa iling o n th e
da rk seas of tim e a nd oblivio n. It is in pa rt an ac tive effo rt to resi st time
a nd obli vio n. In thi s respect hi sto ry cl osely resem bles the wo rkings of th ose
kin ds of religious schools in w hi ch stud ents are taug ht, a nd come to mak e
their ow n, the texts of a pa rticul a r rel ig ious trad iti on. A nd yet histo ry, in
m ode rn un de rstand ings, is not trad iti on. O n th e contra ry, the mode rn E u-
ro pea n trad iti on of historiograph y arose, in th e late eig hteenth and ea rly
nineteenth centuri es, out of a breaking up of tradition. When the g ra nd
na rrative offe red by religious traditi o n lost a large element of its autho rity,
a space was opened fo r the em ergence of a discipline of hi sto ry, w hich stood
in co ntinuity w ith the reli gious trad iti on , but w hi ch no netheless se pa rated
itself fro m that trad iti on a nd from trad iti o n ge ne rall y. Obv iously, the cl aims
to a kin d of absolute obj ec tivity th at th e ninetee nth- a nd ea rl y twe ntieth-
ce ntury d iscipline of hi sto ry m ade can not be su stain ed today. Thi s is o ne
reason w hy the boun da ri es between hi sto ry on th e one hand a nd memory
a nd com mem o rati on o n the oth er have bee n obscured and w hy in som e
in sta nces th e latter have a ri se n alm ost as substitutes fo r hi sto ry.
H I S T O R Y'S L EG ITI MA T E R OLES
It is da ngerous when hi sto ry takes its pri ma ry cues eithe r fr om the idea
of prese r ving pe rso nal memo ry o r from the idea of fu nctio ning as a m ode
of com m emo ration. A nd we oug ht not to view hi story as a fo rm of tra-
d ition eith er, in spite of the affiniti es betwee n histo ry a nd traditi on. The
subm ergence of histo ry into m emory, commemo rati on, a nd traditi on tend s
to wipe out histo ry's criti ca l fun ction . For exampl e, w hat reasonabl e and
se nsitive person could stan d at the Vietnam War Mem ori al in Washing ton
on Memo ri al Day and delive r a sustain ed criti ca l account of A m eri can in-
volvement in that ill- fated wa r ? It woul d not suit th e occasion. Me m ory and
commem oration have their pl ace, but m erg ing hi sto ry with m emo ry a nd
com m em o rati on subo rd inates hi sto ry to the m nemoni c and comm emo ra-
tive fu nctio ns. History-w ri ting oug ht to be mo re cri tica l of th e present o rd e r
th an affi rm ative of it, a nd fo r a simple reason: most of w hat appea rs in the
H I STORY W I TH MEMORY, HI STO RY W I THOUT MEMORY t 37
culture of the prese nt already affi rms that cu lture. We need a n o rientation
toward the past that stands apart from the present because so m uch of our
orientation toward the past does not. To say that hi sto riography oug ht to
be critical of the o rde r that funds it is not, in the w ider picture, to pri vil ege
criticism over affi r mation. It is sim ply to recogni ze that affi rmation thrives
in the norma l course of things, a nd cri ticism does not. T he matte r is all the
more d iffi cu lt in that cri ticism must also be cri tica l of the received criti cal
(or so-ca ll ed cri tica l) ideas of the present time.
In short, the blurring togethe r of hi sto ry a nd memo ry is deeply probl em -
atic. If the histo ri a n ente rs into the se rvice of memo ry, the co nscio usly o r
unconsc iously self-i nte rested a nd self-se r ving mem ori es of in d ivid uals and
groups become th e fin al a rbite r of hi sto ri cal knowledge. T hi s is da ngerous.
The task of the hi sto ria n oug ht to be less to prese rve m emo ry tha n to ove r-
come it or at least to keep it co nfi ned. O ne ca n of course imagine histo rians
including in th eir wo rks testimoni al accounts of the past by histori cal ac-
tors-for exam ple, by A m erican sold iers in Worl d War II o r in Vietn am,
to take two cases w here entire books fi lled w ith such testimoni als have been
published .31 But clea rl y, hi sto rians need to proceed beyond thi s genre.
Should h isto riograp hy be d idactic? That is, sho uld histo ry-w ri ting at-
tempt to offe r lessons from the past fo r the ed ifica ti o n of the present? Some
philosophe rs of hi sto ry do recomme nd a d idactic fun ctio n fo r hi sto ry. In
Germany in pa rti cul ar-for reasons con nected with the t ro ubling rea lity
of the Th ird Reich - q ui te a lot has been w ritte n un de r the ge neral head ing
of "histo ri ca l d idactics." 32 T he d ifficu lty wit h the notio n of a d idactic fu nc-
tion for histo ry is that hi sto ri ans qua histor ians do not appea r to have the au-
thority to p resc ri be fo r the present a nd the fut ure. T heir experti se has to do
with the co nstruction and reco nstruction of the past. In sofar as they do thi s
work well , they a re remarkably well equ ipped to cri ticize poli ticians, a nd
citize ns genera ll y, w ho m isrepresent the past in an attempt to suppo rt such
and suc h a line of legislation or poli cy. For example, a histo ri an w ho has
written a book abo ut the internm ent of Japa nese-Ame ri ca ns d urin g Wo rld
War II woul d be rema rkabl y well equi pped to spea k out again st a politi cia n
using a d isto rted account of that sad policy in sup port of a simil arl y cavalier
approach to civil liberties now.33 But the historian would be ill-ad vised to
proceed as if her ow n no rm ative poli tica l prefe ren ces in the present have
any grou nding in the h isto rical record . H isto ry ca n prov ide cautiona ry tales
aga inst political a r roga nce in the present. But it cannot su pport such and
such a proposed poli cy. It ca n on ly show how such a nd such past poli cies
pu rsued by a va ri ety of hi storical acto rs played out ove r the cou rse of his-
to ri cal ti me.
38 t P A RT I: • I EMO RY
Rel eva nt here is Kant's Conflict ofthe Faculties (1798).34 In thi s wo rk K a nt
distingui shes betwee n th e "l owe r," philoso phi ca l fac ulty, w hi ch he says
ought to be devoted to the pure search fo r truth , a nd th e hi g her faculti es of
law, m ed icin e, a nd th eology, w hi ch are intend ed to se rve the inte rests of th e
state a nd community. Acco rdingly, the hig he r fac ulti es a re not all owed the
pure fr eedom of resea rch a nd teaching g ra nted to the philosophical fac ulty.
H oweve r, th e adva ntage is by no m ea ns all to th e phil oso phical fac ulty. The
professo r of th eology is co nstra in ed to foll ow th e dogma of th e established
state church: in this respect his freedom is restricted, w hereas th e freedom
of th e professo r of philosophy is not restri cted. But the professo r of th eology
has behind him th e power a nd authority of the established dog ma . O n the
one hand , th e professor of th eology is restri cted in w hat he ca n say; on the
oth er, his presc riptive wo rd s have an authority th at th e w ord s of th e profes-
sor of philosophy lac k .
The histori a n belongs m ore properly to Kant's phil oso phical faculty than
to his rh eological facult y. T o be sure, I wou ld not say that engagem ent in a
didactic ente rprise, an e nte rprise of edification , is entirely beyond the pale
for the histo ri a n. But such a n enterpri se presupposes dogmatic commit-
m ents that mu st be kept expli citl y in mind , that should be an noun ced up
fro nt, a nd th at should not be confused w ith histori cal kn owled ge . More-
ove r, in Ge rm any hi storical didacti cs has bee n part of an attempt to root
o ut th e remnants of Nati onal Soc ia li sm . It is thus oriented criti ca ll y towa rd
Ge rman y's past. In the United States a did actic hi sto ry is ve ry lik ely to be
affi rm ative in th e course of its bein g d idactic.
H e nce- I co ntend - th e histo ri an oug ht ge nerall y to be critical in ori-
entati on. In this rega rd the French hi sto ri a n and phil oso ph er of history Mi-
chel de Ce rteau offe rs a n exem pla ry m odel. D e Ce rteau a rg ues that m ode rn
Weste rn hi sto ri ograp hy is built on th e notion of a breach or brea k between
past a nd present. Th e hi sto rian ca nn ot directl y access th e ex pe ri e nce (o r
memori es) of the past; this is a n "othe r" to hi story that rem ain s beyo nd com-
prehensi on . De Ce rteau also in sists on a breach betwee n the histo rian and
hi s o r her present. In a brill iant paper, he ex pl o res th e compl exities of "the
histo riograp hical ope rati on ," an ope ration whose practitioners kn ow that
their wo rk deals w ith marg ins, discontinuities, and differences far more
th a n it deals w ith co ntinuiti es a nd sim il a riti es.35 In thi s sense hi sto ry is un-
like "memory," w hi ch in both its expe ri ential a nd its comm em o rative se nses
fosters th e com fo rtin g illusion of a com m onality and continuity between
past a nd prese nt .
Ad mitted ly, som e objection could be raised to the view of hi sto ry that
I offe r here. When l del ive red th e first ve rsion of this pa pe r as a lecture, a
HI S T OR Y W ITH MEMORY, H I S T O RY W ITH OU T MEMO RY + 39
Czech ph ilosoph e r ob jected that there a re ce rta in situati ons-suc h as w hen
the need e me rges to bu il d a new, o r newly democ ratic, state - in w hi ch af-
firm ativ e hi sto ry-w ri ting is not onl y permi ssibl e but necessary. But I am not
pe rsuaded that in th e long term the affirmative role is a good role for history
to play. It is in th e first pl ace a usurpatio n of a nd co nfusio n w ith th e role of
traditi o n (a nd perhaps a lso of a nd with th e role of reli gio n). Second, w hat
is esse ntia l to trad iti on is onl y loosely conn ected to, and not at all justified
by, the historica l past at all (the same app li es to reli gio n). Durin g m y ea rl y
chi ldhood yea rs, the Ca nada in w hi ch I g rew up (w hi ch was emphati ca ll y
Engli sh Ca nada rath e r than the ve ry d istant French Ca nada ) justified its ex-
istence in part on the basis of a traditi onal connectio n to the Briti sh Crow n
a nd to the British system of gove rnm ent. In retrospect, I think that w hat
was va lu able abo ut this trad itio n w e re thin gs th at could have bee n, a nd of-
ten we re, stated in the fo rm of specifi c principl es or claims (most often de-
fined by con trast w ith the U nited States). O ne claim was that parliam enta ry
gove rnm e nt is superi o r to presiden ti al govern m ent; another, that individ ual
rig hts o ug ht to be subj ected to th e test of th e common good, "peace, o rd er,
and good gove rnment" offe ring a better gu ide than "li fe, libert y, and th e
pursuit of happiness ."
If we view the trad iti on to w hi ch I a m refe rrin g as amou nting to a set of
impli cit a nd expli cit claims, it acq uires th e sh ape of a vag uely stated po liti ca l
theo ry. It was a politi cal theo ry w rapped in the cl othing of a n apparently hi s-
tor ica l narrative . This Briti sh-ce nte red narrative coul d hard ly sta nd up to
se ri ous exam in ati o n, espec iall y given th e ethni c compositi o n of th e coun t ry
eve n the n, and it end ed up promptin g a back las h in th e form of a sepa ratist
movement in Qu ebec. But th e narrative was ultim ately dispensabl e. W hat
was rea ll y impo rtant, and could actuall y be di sc ussed in a rea sonably intel-
lige nt man ner, was the va li d ity (o r not) of the cl a im s a nd principl es. Th ese
claims a nd prin ciples were not na rratives co nce rning th e past. Rath er, they
\Ne re g uid elines o r frameworks for o rga ni z ing th e present and future.
Su rely, we ought not to look for the basis of th e state in hi storica l nar-
ratives. Th e probl em is not just that such narratives violate the "se paration"
princi pl e, namely, the principl e that hi sto ry wo rthy of th e name ca refull y
d istinguish es between past and present. More com pelling is that such nar-
ratives a re quite likely to be defective as the basis for politi cal systems. For
example, if th e real basis of the French pol ity is French histo ry-no» andtres
le» gaulois- thi s may well end up excluding from th e present and future
Fra nce peo pl e w ho do not ha ppen to look like inh abita nts of ancient Gaul.
In a broad sense, such a trad iti on m ig ht be consid e red a "cultural mem o ry."
But even if it we re a true m emo ry-eve n if it we re tru e th at the F rench
.fO :j: PART I : ·'I EM 0 RY
state goes back in a co ntinu ous lin e to th e Gaul s-thi s wo uld be a pe rh aps
interestin g and surprising fact, but it woul d be noth ing o n w hi ch one cou ld
legitim ately base th e Fre nch state now. And the same surely appl ies to all at-
tempts to provid e " hi sto ri ca l" justification for the current o rder. Eithe r the
na rrati ve w ill be a defective fo und ation fo r the p rese nt a nd futur e o rd e r, or
it wi ll be so void of legitim ate histori ca l co nte nt as to be no longe r a legiti-
mate hi storica l narrati ve at all.
A criti ca l hi stor iograp h y has to stand at a d istance from memory in a ll its
senses, a nd by th e same token it must be both con nected to and estranged
from th e present. A criti ca l hi sto ri ograph y does not prescribe for th e pres-
ent. It onl y shows what is d ifferent and sur pr ising-astoun d ing, even - in
the past. If hi story-w riting lacks the quality of surp ri se, it lac ks sc hola rl y,
scientific justification as we ll. Such a histo ry ca n rein ven t itself as m emo ry,
o r commemo ration, or trad iti o n. None of these is a bad thing in itself, but
none is distinctive of hi storiog raphy's project. A lternati vely, such histo ry-
w riting can turn into a parad ig m -subse rvient, time-se rving, uno riginal, un -
stimul ating fo rm of professional hi sto ri ograp hy-someth in g to be avoided
lik e the plague. When, to the co ntrary, history brings to the fo re a hi therto
unkn ow n past, it causes people to see how th e horizo n of th e prese nt is not
the ho ri zon of a ll that is. In short, hi sto ry both needs m emory and needs to
go beyond mem o ry. If we w ish to set o ut to w rite hi sto ry, we must hope to
find things that commo n und e rsta nd in g w ill see as surp ri sin g . When th e
hi sto ria n stays w ith in th e fram ewo rk of m emory, confi rm ation rather than
surpri se is the lik ely result.
History, Memory, Identity
CHAP TER TW O
T he terms identity a nd memory a re in w ide and co ntentious circul ation
at the present m om ent. Identity has been turned in to a site of comm it-
ment and also of dispute a nd uncertainty. Not un conn ected ly, memory has
been seen as a privi leged d iscourse having peculiar cla im s to authenti city
and truth. W hat ca n the unce rtainti es th at sur round memory and ide ntity
teach us abo ut the project of historical understand ing? Con ve rsely, w hat
can history teach us abo ut memory and identity ?
Histo rica l resea rch a nd writing a re caught between co mmitment to the
universal a nd the claims made by particu la r identiti es. Th is seems to be
one manifestation of the unresolving tension or d ialectic that characte ri zes
all truthfu l history. 1 Th e unive rsa l d imension of hi sto ri ca l research a nd
writing is rooted in th e comm itm ent of hi sto ri ans to a set of procedures
des ig ned to maximize the chances of a rri vin g at justifi ed histo ri cal claim s
and to min imi ze the chances of e rror. The particularistic d imens ion, w hich
has ga in ed some outspoken advocates in th e wake of Michel Foucault a nd
othe r theo ri sts w ho equate knowl edge w ith cu ltural powe r, attaches itself
to the good cause in the present (we a re expected to know at each moment
ll'hich cause that is). Since historical part icul ar ism is often articu lated in the
language of memory, a tensio n is set up between hi sto ry and memory. On
the o ne hand, " history" ap pea rs as a pseud o-obj ective d iscou rse that rid es
roughshod ove r particu la r memories a nd id entities, which claim to have an
expe riential rea lity and authe nticity that history lacks. O n the other hand ,
memory appears as an unmeasured d iscourse that, in the service of desire,
makes claims fo r its ow n va li dity that can not be justifi ed.
How ca n we sq ua re thi s circl e? We ca nn ot: the dialectic does not resolve.
But we ca n a rri ve at some clarity co nce rning the hi sto ry- m emo ry tension
and conce rning th e re latio n of both to id entity. This chapte r exam ines ce r-
tain sa lient features of the hi story-mem o ry-ide nti ty relatio n. My a im is
.p :j: PART I'. MEMORY
less to be d efi nitive about the m atte r -fo r no single theo ry ca n sati sfacto rily
embrace eve rything that is in conAi ct here-than it is to show w he re th e
crosscuts lie. It is not a question of a simpl e o ppositio n: history vs. mem-
ory. No r it is a question of a nother simpl e oppositi on: disciplin e vs . des ire.
Rat her, it is a matter of both writing and living in a situati o n in which so me
certa in ty can be achieved, but in w hi ch, fin a ll y, a background of un ce rtainty
pers ists. Let us now explo re these points in a m a nn er th at is more concrete
and specifi c, a nd hence more capa bl e of bein g g rasped and retain ed .
ID ENT ITY AN D TH E MEMORY WAVE
A m em o ry wave has svve pt throug h much of contemporary culture. Its m ost
important site, althoug h far from th e onl y o ne, has been the United States.
Appearing in the 1980s and reaching som ething of a pea k in the mid-1 99os,
m emory invaded a w ide va riety of fields , often in the company of its ev il
tw in , amn es ia. By the end of the 1990s some of the more extrem e fo rms of
m em ory preoccupatio n had retreated, but in m any respects m emory contin-
ues as a maj or preoccupati on in contempo ra ry culture. So pe rvasi ve is the
conce rn w ith m em o ry that it see ms need lessly rest rictive to limit th e list of
exa mpl es. But limit it we must, if th ere is to be any cha nce of m akin g co n-
ce ptual prog ress. Among a multitude of possible exa mpl es, the fol lowing
w ill g ive some concrete sense of w hat " m emory" in volves.
r. Jn man y th e rape uti c circles in the United States, therapists have placed
g reat emphasis o n the need fo r psychologically t ro ubl ed persons to re-
cove r the "repressed mem o ries" of the childhood abuse that allegedly led
to their problems: several groups believe strongly that the reca ll , through
memory, of past ev il is (as Ian H ac king has put it) "a criti ca l source of
empowe rment." 2
2. Memo ry th e rapies have ente red into th e Ame ri can judi cial system as el-
em ents in divorce proceedings, in civil lawsu its of other kinds, a nd in
criminal prosecutions for child abuse (and in o ne celebrated case, for
murder), sometimes on the basis of no physical o r oth e r ev id ence co n-
tempo raneous to th e all eged crimes. 3 By the mid-to-late 1990s a growing
sense of skepticism about cases of this so rt had becom e ev ident. Nonethe-
less, hys te ria, a n ig no rance o r willful ig no ring of epistem ologica l stan-
dards, and, above all , th e trul y appalling failure of th e Roman Catholic
C hurch to co nfro nt rea l child abuse o n a la rge sca le m ea nt that there still
remained people willing to believe every accusati on, even those " recov-
ered" from a rep ression so dee p as to have kept the alleged m em o ri es
completely blank ed out.
HI STORY, r\'tEMORY, IDENTITY :f: 43
3. Going beyond th e U nited States, we note the ethni c conAi cts that em e rged
in the wa ke o f the fa ll of th e Sov iet Union in 199 1. Th e cases th at a re of
interest here a re th ose w here conAi ct had littl e o r no bas is in outwa rdl y
visibl e d iffere nces betwee n ethnic groups and much to do w ith so-ca ll ed
"coll ective m emo ry." The fo rm er Yugoslavia is a good case in point. 4
4. We note, in the U nited States a nd elsewhere, a preoccupation w ith the
memo ry of th e H olocaust. A lm ost all people w ho we re in volved in the
Hol ocaust, whether as victims, pe rpetrato rs , bystand ers, o r m ere co n-
tempo ra ri es, a re now dead; soo n no o ne will be left. Because th e H olo-
caust has becom e impo rta nt fo r Jew ish identity, the q uestion of w hat
wo ul d hap pen to the "mem o ry" of the Hol ocaust - of how that " m em -
ory" wo uld be preserved-became and rem ain s a m atte r of conce rn to
many people. 5 Th e H olocaust also figures in rema ppings o f Ge rm an his-
tory, although what is at issue in Germany is fa r less th e preservation of
Holocaust m enio ry than the embarrassm ent of the H olocaust's hav ing
happened .6
Obviously, eac h of th ese exa mples is situated w ithin specific m ateri al,
institutio nal, and cultural contexts a nd has its ow n parti cular set of causes.
Yet th e exa mples seem to have a ge neri c simila rity. Wh y, in such rad icall y
differe nt co ntex ts, do "memory" a nd its op pos ite come up ? Why is A lz-
heimer's disease perhaps our g reatest health ho rror? Why do legal pro-
ceed ings get recast as exe rcises in remembering? Why do popular m ov ies
dea l so mu ch with m atte rs of mem o ry and fo rgetting-to mention on ly
a few, Blade Runner (1982), Total Recall (1990), Primal Fear ( 1996), Men
in Black (1997), Memen to (200 1), and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
(2004) . Why do we need to possess aga in the hurts of childh ood? A nd w hy
must the Holocaust be so desperately a nd deliberately remembered? The
commo n fea ture und erpinning most co ntempora ry manifestations of the
memo ry craze seems to be a n insec urity abo ut ide ntity. In a world in w hich
opposing ce rtainties constantly com e into conAict with each other a nd in
wh ich a multitud e of possibl e id entiti es are put o n display, insecu rity about
identity m ay be a n inev itable by-product. Such a situation provides ample
reason for " memory" to com e to the fore. We mig ht postulate a rule: when
ide ntity becom es un ce rtain, m em ory rises in va lu e.
We ca n add ress identity on both a philosophical and a n eve ryday level.
The two levels seem to have some affin ity: perhaps th ere is eve n a causal
re lati on between th em . In An Essay Concerning H uman Undei-standing, John
Locke posed the classic philosophical problem of ide ntity. For Locke, the
problem was to figure out how anyt hing th at we might call personal id en-
tity ca n pe rsist ove r tim e: as is well know n, L oc ke conclud ed that personal
44 t PART t: MEMORY
ide ntity is susta ined by a pe rsisti ng consciousness. Noteworth y is the un-
tro ubled th inness of Locke's account. Strikingly, w hen H ume, in A Treatise
ofH uman Na ture, concluded that one ca nn ot fi nd the self-co nsc iousness that
Locke held to be th e sole co nstitutive prope rty of perso nal ide ntity, a nd that
pe rsonal ide ntity is a fi ction , he d id not co nside r the concl usion tro ubling .7
In ge neral, until th e twenti eth century, ide nt ity itself was not see n as prob-
lematic. O nl y with the eme rge nce of a n ex iste nti al t rad itio n in phil oso ph y
d id the deep consti t uti o n of th e self a ri se as a ce ntral probl em.
C harl es Tay lo r has a rg ued at leng th that the re treat wit hin mode rnity
of ge nerall y agreed-upo n theologica l a nd reli gious ass um ptio ns has had
an effect on "the m ode rn id entity": thi s retreat, he contends, has de prived
identity of a la rge r fram ewo rk in term s of w hi ch it coul d defi ne itself. 8
Ce rtainl y, in the existenti al trad ition a nd elsewhere, refl ectio n o n the self is
m ani fes tl y related to the declin e of th e no tion th at m an wa s created imago
dei. It is related also to th e d ecline of subsequ ent equiva lents to that notion,
above all the conception of a human nature that defin es the ind ividual. We
can postulate that w hen such external supports a re absent, individu als and
comm unities have the opportunity to fas hio n their ow n iden ti ties. In the
ideology of hig h mode rnity this "se lf-fas hi oning" was to be ca rri ed out in a
spirit of creative se lf-confide nce.9 N ietzsche, w ho was perhaps th e fo rem ost
theo ri st of mode rni ty, evo ked the self-confide nce of Goe th e, w ho "d isci-
plined him se lf in to w holeness ... created h imself. .. . Such a spirit w ho has
become free stands amid the cosmos w ith a joyous a nd t rusting fa tali sm." 10
Still spea kin g specu lati vely, we can posit that, m o re typica ll y, such self-
fas hi onin g woul d be ringed by a nxiety and he nce woul d req uire some fo rm
of justifica ti on. W he n Goeth ea n o r N ietzschea n self-co nfide nce is lac king,
there wo ul d be a motive to appea l to the past- o r rather, to a ce rta in image
of the past, w hich we mi g ht ca ll mem o ry.
Such a lin e of thinking is not merely a matte r of abstract specul ation.
O n the contrary, o ne ca n fi nd a nalogues to it in rea l li fe . In sig ni fica nt pa rts
of th e co ntempo ra ry world (those pa rts w he re there is relative econo mic
suffi ciency and w here th e m edia a re ubiquitous and influ enti al), id entity has
in fact been p robl em ati zed. Th at is, ide ntity has been rende red va ri abl e a nd
in that deg ree also unce rtain: it has becom e a m atter of various and som etimes
confli cting roles that people ca n choose. U nd er such circumstances, identity
is not necessa ril y a matter of empiri ca ll y ve ri fiable statements that ca n be
seen to be unequivoca lly eithe r true o r fa lse. Ad mittedl y, som e ide ntity-
related statem ents are eith er true o r fa lse: thu s it is true or fa lse that 1 am
5 1 911 ta ll o r that I have fo ur chil d ren. But ma ny identity-related statements
that people ma ke a re not, o r at least a re not unam bi guously, of this type.
H I STORY, MEMO R Y , I DEN TI TY :j: 45
We m ight call ide ntity statem ents th at a re not una mbi guousl y true or fa lse
"self-designati ons." Self-desig nations a re not physica l o r statistical fac ts.
Self-des ignatio n is how "we" choose to nam e ourselves, how "we" des ig nate
ou rselves in la ng uage.
Thus the U ni ted States is a countr y of three hundred milli o n people a nd
"Ame rica ns" (as th e term is usuall y em ployed) a re citi ze ns of th at country.
But the Un ited States is also "th e la nd of the fr ee a nd th e ho me of th e brave,"
the "city u pon a hill ," "the hope of the wo rld ," a nd so on. Simil a rl y, as in-
dividuals we defin e ourselves by self-d es ig nati on. Th ere a re limits to th e
reception of such self-desig nati o ns - limits of a m ate ri al a nd in stitutional
sort. At least am ong pe rso ns inclined to ask fo r ev id ence, we could not suc-
ceed for lo ng in claiming to have physica l cha racteristi cs, institutio nal affili-
ations, or pe rso nal attainments th at we do not in fac t have . But it is also cl ea r
that ma ny milieus of contempo ra ry society offer much leeway regarding
what one can claim 'to be. It is ha rd to know how such statem ents as "I am
a sea rcher fo r truth a nd justi ce," "I am a C hristian ," and so on could be em-
pirically tested in any definiti ve way. Consequently, we often find oursel ves
acceptin g such id entity statem ents with out sig nificantl y qu estioning them .
Ide ntity is co nstrain ed in some ways but not in othe rs. It is m a rked by an
element of a rbitra rin ess or contin ge ncy, a ce rtain freedom o r at least a "free-
dom effect." The putting o n a nd taking off of id entiti es is a commo n ex peri -
ence in the contem po ra ry world - unde rpinned by th e mobility of a ca pi -
tal ist econom y and by the m yriad exa mpl es of poss ibl e ide ntities p rese nted
in the med ia (cl ea rl y, thi s is not a un iversal ex pe rience: its preconditi on is a
certain deg ree of freed om from the most co m pe lling demands of material
need). But in a rel atively prosperous, media-saturated social context, people
hav e ava il able to them a sur fe it of mod els of sel f-desig nati on, w hich they
are able to, a nd are eve n in vited to, conside r as possibiliti es fo r them selves. 11
The re is an im po rta nt relati on between the process of self-desig nati on
and images of the past. "Me m ory" a ri ses as a special preoccupation in situa-
tions w here peopl e find th em selves engaged in self-d esignati o n, fo r it se rves
to stabili ze and justi fy th e sel f-desig nations that a re cl aim ed Y The char-
acte ristic m ove of self-d es ignati on is a state ment of th e type, "I am an X ,"
with "X " being an y so rt of d esig nation of identity. While som eone would
have d ifficulty cl aiming, in any literal sense, "I am a si x-foote r" w hen he is
not close to six fee t tall , oth er kind s of self-des ig nation can ind eed be "tak en
on ." Th at is, a person ca n ado pt a self-d es ig nati on that is signifi ca ntl y diffe r-
ent fro m the way th at he has see n him self o r bee n see n by othe rs up to now.
Of course, sel f-d esig nation ca n be conceptu ali zed as a complete break from
the old desig nati o n: Paul 's co nve rsio n on the road to D am ascu s is pa rad ig-
46 :j: PART I: MEMORY
m atic. In the prese nce of th e convicti o n that the new id entity is autho ri zed
by God, the re is pe rhaps no need to suppo rt the new id entity with the claim
that it already impli citl y existed befo re th e turn: in a ny case, the old id entity
is seen as unredee m ed, tied to a world dominated by sin. H oweve r, in con-
tem po rary culture a d iffe rent ling uistic a nd conceptua l m ove see ms more
prevalent. Th e statement "I am an X" is ofte n suppl em ented a nd extended
in the fo ll ow in g m a nn er: " I am a n X, and I have always been an X." Fo r ex-
a mpl e, people und e rta king ge nd e r reass ig nm ent often m a ke such a cl aim.
H ere th e m em o ry of hav ing always bee n an X suppo rts a n id enti ty that
mig ht oth er w ise seem in suffi cientl y justified . Wh en such a m ove is made,
issues of "m emory " and "hi sto ry" com e directl y into play.
A sense of weak or threatened id entity seems to be a common feature
uniting evocations of "memory" in ethni c co nfli ct, in the recall of deeply
troubling communal eve nts, a nd in the recove ry of traumatic o r suppos-
ed ly traumatic events of pe rsonal life. In short, there seems to be a fact here,
and there also seems to be prima facie justification fo r rega rding th e fac t as
significant. Th e ph enom enon of self-designation is in no way incompatible
w ith the sense th at ide ntity is weak o r threatened: on the contrary, an iden-
tity that has been broug ht into visibility by means of self-des ignation wo uld
be all the m ore likel y to need justification of the sort that "memo ry" can
b ring . The m em o ry wave a nd unce rta inty co nce rning id entity go together.
IDENTITY, MEMORY, AN D HISTORIC A L
UNDERSTANDING
The questio n now a ri ses of th e relation betwee n cu rrent concerns w ith
id entity a nd mem o ry a nd the project of histo ri ca l und ersta nding. There ex -
ists a la rge literature on hi sto ry and memory, one that has burgeo ned sin ce
its beginnings in th e late 197os. 13 But wh il e the lite rature has cast much lig ht
on the hi sto ry- identity- m emory relatio n, it has la rgely fa il ed to ex pl ore
the relation of histo ri ca l understanding to the problematizing of id entity.
The lite rature has focused much m o re o n how hi sto ry a nd m emory have
functioned to consolidate and car ry forwa rd identities already assumed to
exist. It has not much considered the possibl e volatility of these identities.
We must begin w ith the French sociologist Maurice H albwachs (1877-
1945). H albwachs was the first schola r to discuss systematicall y the rela-
tion between history and mem o ry, devoting seve ral works to the sub ject:
The Social Frameworks of Memory ( 1925); Th e Legenda1y Topography of the
Gospels in the Holy L and (194 1); a nd the posthum ousl y published sy nthesis
Th e Collective Memory (1950). For a long tim e H a lbwachs's work on m em-
HI S T O RY, MEM O RY, IDENTITY :j: 47
ory went all but unnoti ced in the w ider intellectual wo rl d; on ly in th e late
1970s did it begin to attain some fame. 14 It is a matter, here, of the articul a-
tion of a set of ideas w ithin one contex t a nd their reception w ithin a nothe r,
sharply d iffe rent co ntext.
A major represe ntative in France of th e nasce nt d isc iplin e of socio l-
ogy, Halbwachs w ished to show that m em o ry is a soc ial a nd not m erely
an indiv idua l phenom eno n, a nd hence is prope rl y th e object of sociologi-
ca l investigation. His centra l cl aim was that th e m em o ry of individua ls is
heavi ly d ete rmined by catego ri es of unde rsta nding coming fro m society. In
The Legendary Topography of the Gospels in the H oly L and he appli ed thi s
sociologica l conce pti on of mem o ry to a specific case, namely, interpretatio ns
offered, from the ea rl y Ch ri stia n peri od o nwa rd , of the relation between the
physical and human geography of th e H oly L a nd and eve nts desc ribed in
the New Testament. Thus he also suggested that historical interpretations
in pa rticula r a re sub0rdinate to the consciousnesses of the g roups produc-
ing them.
Crucially, the H albwachsian model holds that m emory is determined
by an identity (collective o r in d ividual ) that is already well established. Halb-
wachs's work o n m em o ry - both his acco unt of memory in general and
his acco unt of historical m em o ry - is prima rily about the construction of
m emo ry by such id entiti es. His account of historical m emory deals with
how an ide ntity, whose integrity at a ce rtain m o ment is ass umed , goes
about inventing a past congruent w ith that id entity. Tim e a nd aga in Halb-
wachs undersco red this assumpti o n: for exa mpl e, "in eac h epoch" mem o ry
"reconst ruct[sJ a n image of the past that is in accord ... w ith th e predom i-
nant tho ug hts of th e society," and "the various groups that compose society
a re capa bl e at eve ry moment of reconstructing their past." 15 H e also insisted
that the groups in questi on a re "delimited in space a nd tim e." 16 Th e es-
sential point here is that, for H albwachs, the social id entities in questio n al-
ready have a determ inate existence before the coll ectiv e memori es that th ey
construct. T o be sure, ove r time an identity w ill undoubtedly be reshaped by
the collectiv e m emori es that it has constructed, but fundamentally id entity
precedes memory.
In contrast, the m ost cha racteristic feature of the contempora ry scene is
a lack of fixity at the level of id entity, lead ing to the project of construct-
ing memory with a view to constructing id entity itself. The appropriate
model fo r unde rstanding such a context is less Halbwachs's than Bened ict
Anderso n's. In A nderson's evocative phrase, it is a m atte r of" imagined com-
mu nities"; we mig ht think of imagined communities as imagined id enti-
ti es.1 7 O f course, eve ry community beyo nd a very small g roup is in some
48 :j: PAR T I: M E MO R Y
strong se nse "imagined." The more a community is imagined, th e m ore it
fi nds th at "mem ory" is necessa ry to it - and so is "fo rgetting ." 18 Con ve rsely,
the less roo ted th e community is in extant and well -fun ctioning practi ces -
that is, the more problematic its ide nti ty- the m ore constitutive fo r it is its
" rem embered" past.
It is importa nt to note what th e "m em ory" in question is not. First, it is
not nostalgia. F or purposes of th e present analysis, let us defin e nostalgia as
attractio n to-a homes ickn ess fo r- a real or im agin ed past. But one finds
in m a ny of th e a ppea ls to m em ory in contemporary culture a lack of attrac-
ti on to th e past at issue. Think , fo r exampl e, of H olocaust mem ory and the
m em ory of child abuse. Th e diffe rence betwee n nostalg ia and memo ry, as
here defin ed , is that w hereas nostalgia is oriented outwa rd fi ·om th e subj ect
(th e individual person; the group), foc using attenti on on a rea l or im agined
past, mem ory is oriented toward the subj ect and is conce rned w ith a real or
imag ined past onl y because that past is perceived as crucial fo r the subj ect,
even constitutive of it. Whereas m em ory, as understood here, is connected
w ith insecurities concerning the present-day identity constructing those
m em ori es, nostalgia is conn ected with a sense of compl acency about the
prese nt-day ide ntity bearing the nostalgia. M uch of the hi stori ca l nostalg ia
that exists in th e U nited States (nostalgia fo r old battlefield s, for the houses
of fo rm e r presidents, indeed for hi sto rical rel ics of any kind) is untou ched
by a ny dee p in security about id entity. As fo r the French lieux de memoire,
expl ored by Pierre No ra a nd his coll aborators during th e 1980s, man y of
these "pl aces of memory" a re as mu ch pl aces of nostalgia. The hi storia ns'
treatm ent of" places of memory" is often m ost interes ting w hen it hi ghlights
the compl ex di alectic betwee n memory a nd nostalgia th at these "pl aces of
m em ory" revea l. 19
Second, mem ory as und erstood here is also not quite trad ition. Let us
here defin e tradition as an obj ectively ex isting se t of cultural a rti fa cts or ar-
ti cul ations. Ad here nts of a trad iti on that is confide nt of its ow n va lid ity a re
unlikely to m ake a n a ppeal to m emory: instead , when required to defend
the tradition, they characteristically a ppeal to nonsubj ective factors-to
a ca non, to a set of philosophical or religious truths, to alleged histori cal
events, to an existing institutional structure . An identity that solidly exists
has little need for a n explicit, th emati zed appeal to mem ory. When m em-
o ry a pproximates to tradition, it app roxim ates to weak trad iti on. In othe r
wo rds, a n appeal to mem ory- that is, a n a ppea l to what is subj ective and
personal- is likely to a ri se onl y w hen obj ective ly existing supports a re felt
to be inadequate. Fo r exampl e, it is ha rd to im agin e a ny pope w ho m aintains
a stro ng belief in th e solidity of th e trad itions and in stituti ons of the Roma n
HI S T ORY, MEMORY, I DEN TIT Y :j: 49
Catholic C hurch a ppealing to "m em ory" as he defe nd s and prom otes that
church.
Adm itted ly, on a n empiri ca l level, mem ory often ove rl aps w ith nostalg ia
and with trad ition. But m emory on th e one hand a nd nostalgia or traditi on
on the othe r remain significa ntl y d ifferent phenom ena. Consequentl y, on
a conceptua l level , we mu st retain the di stin ction between them . T o fa il to
distinguish these d iffe rent ph enomena is to ri sk obscurin g the importa nt
relations betwee n mem ory and ide ntity, a nd the importa nt tensions ex isting
between me mory a nd hi story.
The problem th at is raised fo r the hi stori a n a nd fo r the phil osoph er of
history has to do w ith the ch a racte r of the cl aims made in the nam e of m em-
ory. T hese a re often ti ed up w ith the deepest convicti ons of prese nt identi-
ties. Two exa mpl es will illu strate this abstrac t point.
FIRST EXAM PL E . In May 1995, I judged history papers w ritten by upper-
elementa ry and junior-high-school students who we re fi nalists in th e Vir-
ginia "National History D ay" competition. I was thus obliged to read the
Nationa l History D ay competition rule book, which I ta ke to exemplify
widely sha red views conce rning the cha racte r of hi storica l understand ing.
The ru les req uired students to di stinguish in the bibliographies of their pa-
pers betwee n prim a ry a nd seconda ry sources. The rules defin ed a primary
source as "m aterial d irectl y related to a topic by tim e or pa rti cipation. These
materia ls include letters, speeches, di a ries, newspa per a rticl es from th e tim e,
oral histo ry interviews, documents, photog raphs, a rti fac ts, or a nything else
that prov ides fir st- hand accounts about a pe rson or eve nt." ' 0
Any historia n w ho has thought about issues of ev id ence w ill recogni ze
that the defini tion of a prima ry source offe red he re is entirely un sati sfacto ry.
Although hi stori ans a re not always ex plicit in their thinking about such
issues, there is nonetheless a traditi onal consensus that all ows them to d is-
tingu ish the two types of sources in pa rticul a r cases. T he basic point is that
a pr ima ry source should be contemporaneous to the event that it desc ribes. 21
But the National History Day rul es allow a source to be designated as pri-
mary on the basi s of its being "m aterial directl y related to a topi c" by time
"or" pa rticipation, and the rules include, w ithout qualification, "oral history
interv iews" in the category of primary source. As a result, the rules widen
the bound a ries of a pri ma ry source far beyond w hat a pro perl y trained pro-
fess ional historian can accept. For example, the rules allow one to rega rd as
prima ry an "o ral history interview" with a H olocaust survivo r ca rried out
many yea rs after th e eve nts themselves . W hil e [ do not wa nt to a bsoluti ze
or in a ny way glori fy the noti on of a prim ary source, the long-standing hi s-
50 :j: PART I: MEM O RY
torians ' consensus th at excludes a testimony offe red fifty o r sixty yea rs after
the fact from being co nside red "prima ry" is justifi ed by eve ryt hing that we
know about th e selective a nd discriminative cha racte r of m emo ry.22 Two
points are impo rta nt with respect to the distinction between prim a ry a nd
secondary sources: (r ) The distinction is relati ve rather than absolute. For
exa mple, while a testim ony offered in r994 about events that occurred in
1944 is not "prim a ry," it could be co nsidered primary if the object of inves-
tigation was not eve nts in 1944 but consci ousness in r994. (2) O n a theoretical
leve l it is hard to justify th e distinction, for alt testim ony is in some degree
subsequent to the histo ri ca l rea lity being repo rted upo n, a nd thu s ca nn ot in
any complete sense be "primary." But whatever the th eo retica l difficulty, as
a methodological rule of thumb th e distinction is indi spensa bl e.
What ground s can th e re be for exte nding th e noti o n of a prim a ry source
in such a way that the m emo ries of a H olocaust survivor told to a g rand-
child in 1994 would count as a primary source? Two connected assump-
tion s would ce rtainly justify such a positi on. One assumption is that per-
sonal expe rience of histo rical eve nts has a validity in itself, quite a part from
any extern al sta nd ard , because it is "authentic." 23 The rel ated ass umption
is th at m emo ry likew ise has "auth enticity," and he nce validity, ove rriding
any problems of acc ura cy a rising from an o ri g inal mispe rceptio n o r from
distortions introduced in th e lapse of tim e. H oweve r, the auth enticity in
question here is cl ea rl y not th e kind of authenti city that one attributes to
a document from the past whose provenance one has ve rifi ed. It is rather
authenticity in a n existential sense, deri ving its force from the alleged fact
that it eme rges directly and immed iately from th e subject's encounter with
the wo rld.
SE C OND EXAMPLE. My second example, unlike the first, can lay no cl aim
to typicality, but it is no neth eless reve lato ry. It mani fes ts a cast of mind that,
although usuall y exp ressed in less extrem e ways, has had a sig nifi ca nt hold
o n parts of the th erape uti c community in th e United States, and has a lso
had some impact on A m erican culture gene rally. Th e exampl e in qu estion
is a book, Ritual Abuse: What It Is, Why ft H appens, and How to H elp, by the
pseudo nym ous "Ma rga ret Smith." 24 Smith contends that ritualized child
abuse-involving bla ck masses, the murder of children, th e eating of chil-
dren, sex ual ab use of children , fo rced ingestio n of urin e a nd feces, mutila-
tion of co rpses, being fo rced to have sex with dead bodies, and other similar
activiti es - is widespread in the United States. Smith herself cl aim s to be a
sur vivo r of such ab use.
Smith repo rts that "a child 's first reactio n to this sort of ab use is to deny
what is happe ning" (34). The ab use is so traumatic that the psyche does not
HIST O RY, MEMORY , IDE N TITY t 51
remember it. But th e body does, for the truth is preserved in the fo rm of
"body m emories" : "After the trauma has ceased, the physical se nsatio ns w ill
recur in the body as body memories . ... The body remembers exactly w hat
happened" (35) . Smith contends that seve re abuse g ives rise to multipl e per-
sonality diso rde r. "During seve re physical traum a, there is a point whe re
the mind and the body split" (34). "Alter personalities" develop to reli eve
the contradictory feelings that ritual abuse survivors expe ri ence. Smith lists
seve ral types of alter personalities: the inte rnali zed perpetrator/ persecu-
to r; protecto rs; kill e r/ to rturers; child m oleste r/ rapist; the intell ectual (who
find s words to stop th e pain); a nd g uardian angels, helpe rs, comforters, and
nurture rs (36- 42). C lea rl y, Smith here describes a seve re dissociation of th e
perso nality.
Smith's evocatio n of multiple personality disorder (MPD) is extremely
impo rtan t a nd releva nt, for it g ives a specific content to my claim that mem-
ory has become cl osdy tied up w ith id entity and that mem o ry is particularly
importa nt in situations where id entity is threatened or unce rta in. Could the
wea kness of an identity be m ore vividly rende red th an by patients' insis-
tence that they have not o ne, but m a ny personalities (selves, parts, alters)?
It is ofte n sa id that persons suffering from multipl e personality disorder d o
not have more tha n one personality, but less tha n o ne.25 In viewing vid eo-
ta pes of a multipl e personality individu al being interviewed by a clini ca l
psychologist co nducting a forensic eva luatio n, I ca m e to think of th e perso n
in precisely that way. 26 The all eged possession by th e interviewed subject of
a multitud e of perso nalities seemed to serve as a m ea ns of avoidin g respon-
sibility for the actions that this person had carried out. Secu re possessio n of
one personality would have mad e possession of multiple personalities un-
necessa ry. The clear impressio n in this case was that th e different personali-
ti es we re ca rdboa rd boxes w ithin which the individu al could hide. When
one hiding place was threate ned, there would be a leap to a nother.
Precisely because possession of the self is insecure, the subj ect in sists that
th e claims being m ade are not simply ex post facto interpretati ons that mak e
se nse of a difficult personal history by giving an ide ntifiabl e face to poo rly
unde rstood terrors, but a re literall y and fac tuall y true. It is a questio n of
self-va lidation: to va lidate the sel f in its current self-presentation, the sub-
ject insists o n a particular story about how th e self got that way. Th e author
puts the m atte r well w hen she laments that "ma ny people do not believe
ritua l ab use survivors. People a re more conce rned w ith ev id ence or proof of
abuse than with the fee lings of th e victim s. Many people think survivors a re
crazy, othe rs bl ame survivors fo r their ow n pain" (33). Smith rejects such
res po nses; in he r view, "Sur vivo rs need supporti ve people in their lives w ho
bel ieve them and who do not blame them for the ab use" (179).
52 t PART I: MEMORY
T o return to th e sphere of modernist theory: such insistence on the au-
thenticity and validity of mem ory is fa r from the model of the relation be-
t wee n id entity a nd memory that one archetypa l mode rnist, N ietzsche, en-
visaged. N ietzsche's m ost important discussion of this relati on occ urs at the
beginning of th e second treatise of On the Genealogy of Morality, entitl ed
'"Guilt,' 'Bad Conscience,' and Related Matters." In the first two sections of
th e essay, he add resses the creation of a particular kind of subject, namely,
a subject th at is capable of keeping promises.27 H e discusses memory not,
as one might imagine, because promises must be remembered to be kept,
but because memo ry e nte rs into the creation of the subj ect. Tn these sections
Nietzsche writes not just about m emo ry but also, a nd with equal inte nsity,
about fo rgetting. C lea rl y, forgetting has no positive relati on to th e keeping
of promises; on the contra ry, on a manifest level its relation to the keeping
of promises is negative-a forgotten promise ca nnot be kept. Nietzsche
discusses forgetting because, along with remembering, it is essential to the
creation of the subject (in particular, Nietzsche is interested in th e creation
of a ce rtain kind of subject, n am ely, one that ta kes as its responsibility the
keeping of promises). Forgetfulness is what allows a subjectivity to em erge,
in the face of the consta nt fl ow of impressions into the soul.
As ietzsche puts it, "fo rgetfulness ... is a n active and in the strictest
sense positive fac ulty of suppression (H emmungsvermogen)" th at all ows
our consciousness to be disturbed as little as possible by our expe ri ence as
it is being absorbed. The res ult is "a little stillness, a little tabula rasa of
consciousness so th at there is aga in space fo r new things, above all for the
nobl er fun ctions and functionari es, for ruling, foreseeing, predetermin-
ing." This "active fo rgetfulness" is "a doorkeeper as it were, an upholder
of psychic o rd er, of rest, of etiq uette." With the aid of memory, "forget-
fulness is disconnected fo r certa in cases - namely, fo r those cases where
a promise is to be made." Further, N ietzsche hold s that m em ory, lik e fo r-
getfu ln ess, is "active." Memory is "by no means simply a passive no-longe r-
being-able-to-get-rid-of the impression once it has been inscribed , " but
rathe r "a n active no-longe r- wa nting-to-get-rid -of, a willing on and on of
something one has once willed, a true memory of the will: so that a world
of new strange things, circumstances, even acts of the will may be placed
without rese rvation betwee n the original "T want," "I will do," and the ac-
tual discharge of the w ill, its act, without thi s long chain of the will break-
ing" (35-36) .
Tt is clear from N ietzsche's account that he d id not put a high va lue on
mem ory as such. Indeed, his reflections suggest a n almost oppositional rela-
tion between memory a nd sub jectivity. He is far from being the onl y thinker
H I STORY, MEMORY, I DENTITY t 53
on subjectiv ity to come to such a conclusion: one thinks imm ed iately of
Freud's harsh dictum that "hysterics suffer mainly from reminiscences." ' 8
But many th e rapists, and oth ers influ enced by psychoanalysis, currently
take a d iffere nt view: while ac kn owledging that memories may be trau-
matic, they also see memory as a mark er of the lived experi ence through
which the self's identity has come into being, and hence as possessing an
authenticity of its own , howeve r distressing its co ntents. Hacking goes so fa r
as to suggest that m emory has come to serve as "a surrogate for the soul." 2 ~
Why wou ld this be so? In a n ea rli er dispensation th at included widespread
adherence to a n authoritatively ground ed teleology or beli ef st ru cture, the
id entity of the indi vidu al was see n as deriving its cohe rence a nd meaning
from a large r framework of relations, as Droysen suggested (seen . 8, above) .
But in a disencha nted wo rl d the "soul" has no such definition or sup port. It
is reduced to mundane experience, a nd the continuity of th at expe rience is
defined by, and dependent on, memo ry. It is a return to John Lock e, but in
a differe nt, more desperate key.
Conseq uen tl y, at a deep, experiential level, memory is crucial to us. As
noted above, we a re terrified by Alzheimer's d isease. We are morbidly fasci-
nated by me mory d iso rde rs of the so rt th at th e psychiatrist O li ve r Sacks has
described .3° We treasure fam il y photographs. No ne of this has much to do
with "science," but it has a lot to do with our sense of ourselves. A high va lu-
ation of memory tends to enter into historiograph y (a nd into public interest
in history) at those points where histori ca l eve nts a nd circumstances inter-
sect w ith personal a nd fam ilial expe rience. O ur pe rso nal expe ri ence w ith
history is a matter of" m emory." Familial experi ence with history-say, th e
expe ri ence of g randpa rents who esca ped th e H olocaust, now na rrated to
and passed on by their desce ndants - is often designated as "me m ory," al-
though in a stri ct se nse it is not. The lite ra ry criti c Geoffrey H a rtm an has
w ritten of the desirability of cha ngi ng history into memory. The point here
is not whethe r one ag rees or d isagrees w ith Hartman , but that, in ca lling
for suc h a cha nge, he ac kn owledges a nd participates in the hig h va luing of
memory (a nd likewise the focus on id entity) in contempora ry culture. 31
HISTORY, MEMORY, AN D THE UNKNOWN
In the face of memory 's high va luation, what shoul d be the attitu de of the
historian? Mo re importa nt, what shoul d be the attitude of any intellige nt
person? At the prese nt moment the re is a pathetic a nd sometimes tragic
conflict betwee n w hat "me mory" exp resses and confirms, namely, the de-
mands made by subjectivities, a nd the demand for proof that is esse nti al to
54 :j: P A RT I: MEMO R Y
a ny scientific discipline. Th ere is an impul se today w ithin the w ide r cul-
ture and even w ithin the acade m y to "de-emphas ize the epistem ology of
evid ence and instead stress its eroti cs," to cite a noth er literary critic, Eve
K oso fsk y Sedgwick. 32 Obv iousl y, ev idence neve r spea ks fo r itself, ob jec-
tively: it al ways spea ks fimn a subj ect position, to subjectiviti es, in an ar-
gumentative context established by subj ectivities. In short, the re is no such
thing as " pure" ev idence. Mo reove r, th e "erotics" of ev idence is ce rtainl y a
necessary m om ent w ithin a la rger structure because w ithout d esire (which
I take to be th e co re of"erotics") there would be no impul se to construct (or
reco nst ru ct) the past at all -as Ra nk e, Mi chelet, Burckh a rdt, a nd ma ny
othe rs have und erstood . But unless th ere a re chec ks on desire, th e past en-
visaged becom es m erely a proj ection of the subj ecti vity im agining it. In a
fund am enta l sense, nothing is lea rned fro m the exe rcise: onl y if subj ectivi ty
is chec ked ca n it lea rn to engage itself w ith opposing subjectivities a nd with
the socia l a nd m ateri al wo rlds within wh ich those subj ecti vities ope rate.
T o put this a noth er way: it is easy to im agin e that we oug ht to remember
the past. But w e do not remembe r the past. It is th e present that we re-
m ember: th at is , we " rem ember" w hat rema ins li vin g within our situations
now. 33 We think th e past: th at is, we constru ct o r reconstruct it on th e basis
of ce rta in criti ca l procedures. The rel eva nt m otto is: " Remember the pres-
ent, th in k the pas t." "Je m e sou viens" (" I remember," the m otto of Quebec)
relates to a subj ectivity that is prese nt, not to a past that is thought. A lmost
in va ri ably, w hen historica l und erstanding is described as " rem embering,"
we can in fe r th at we a re co nfronting a n attem pt to promote some p resum-
ably des irable coll ective identity in the present.34
It would be easy- but also completely mistaken-to dismiss o ut of
ha nd th e subj ecti ve, rem embe rin g side of this d ialectic. C laim s to possess
the perspective o f absolute obj ecti vity-to offer a "God's-eye view"- a re
unsu sta in able (see cha pter 5, below). But it is also a mistak e to turn histo ry
into m erely a n offshoot of struggles fo r id enti ty in th e prese nt. Rece nt wo rk
in the ph il osophy of history offe rs much se rio us reRection on hi sto ri ca l un-
d ersta nding. Th is work does not resolve th e conRi ct betwee n the d emands
of subj ectivity that a re link ed to particu lar id entiti es (of race, class, ge nde r,
natio n) a nd the d em and fo r proof, but it does situate the conflict. With re-
spect to th e problems of valuati on and kn owledge raised here, th ere are two
co nflicting tendenci es in th e li terature. O ne tend ency is best represe nted
by R. G . Collingwood and Paul Ri coe ur ; the othe r, by H ayde n White and
M ichel de Ce rteau.
The first tend ency sees the past as fund am entall y knowable. Such a ten-
d ency is p resent in Ri coeur's co nception o f hi sto rica l na rrative as something
H I STORY, MEMOR Y , IDE N TIT Y :f: 55
that embraces hete roge neous ph eno m ena w ithin a sy nthes is-a "sy nthesis
of the heterogeneous," as Ricoe ur puts it.31 But it is m a ni fested fa r m o re
emphaticall y in Collingwood's The Idea of H istory, m ost obv iousl y in the
chapter entitl ed " Hi sto ri ca l Ev id ence," almost ha! f of w hi ch is d evoted
to examining the questio n "W ho Kill ed John Doe?" 36 H e re Collingwood
recounts , in de tecti ve-novel fashion, D etective Inspector Jenkins's in vesti-
gation of th e murde r of John D oe, the next-doo r neig hbo r of an Angli ca n
clergyma n. {It is a purely fictiona l sto ry, but I shall take th e libert y of treat-
ing it as if it we re about a n actual murder. ) Th e in vestigatio n culminates
in the d iscove ry th at the murd erer was the cle rgy m a n himself. Fo r years
John Doe had been sec retl y bl ac kmailin g the rector by threatening to revea l
publicly an affa ir th at th e recto r's w ife, now d ea d , had had yea rs befo re,
just befo re her marriage. D oe's blackma iling had abso rbed the w hole of the
rector's p rivate fo rtune, a nd now Doe was d emanding an install m ent of th e
late w ife's fo rtune, which had been left to the rector in trust fo r th e daug hter
of the marria ge. Wh en th e rector saw that the d etective in spector was cl os-
ing in on him , he took cya ni d e a nd thus cheated the hang man.
Collingwood's acco unt of the solving of the John Doe murd er case
(which he p rese nts as parad ig matic of hi sto ri ca l in ves ti gation in general) is
m ark ed by a g la rin g abse nce. H e passes ove r in complete sil ence th e traum a
that must have wrack ed the rector a nd hi s fam il y. It is clea r that pain a nd
concea lment we re endem ic in it. Du ring a ll th e tim e that the rec to r was
paying blac km a il , he d id not kn ow that the m an w ho had sed uced his w ife
was tl:ie blac kmail e r himself. Th e recto r's w ife presumabl y d id n ot kn ow
that her husband was pay ing blackmail to protect her name. Likewise, the
rector's daughte r, bo rn six m o nth s afte r he r parents' wedd ing, d id not kno w
that she had been fat hered not by the rector but by John Doe. Collingwood
is simply not interested in w hat must have been th e deeply troubled relati o ns
betwee n the rector a nd his late w ife, betwee n th e recto r a nd hi s d aug hte r,
between the late wife a nd the neig hbo r, a nd so on. In sho rt, he leaves out
th e entire cultural histo ry of the family. It is as if th e trauma and repression
that must have shadowed these people did not ex ist. In e ffect, Collingwood
defi nes trauma as not part of hi sto ry: he excludes it entirely from the
histo rical field.
Collingwood co nceived of th e hi storical pas t as something co nstructed
by the hi sto ri an, fo ll owing th e rules of hi sto ri ca l in vestigation. In Colling-
wood's view, hi sto ri ca l in vestigation yields one true and obj ecti ve conclu -
sion. Ind eed, quite wro ng ly, Collingwood cla ims that a histo ri ca l a rg um ent
ought to "follow inev itably from the ev id ence" a nd that it proves its point
"as conclus ive ly as a d em o nstration in math ematics" (262, 268).3; Simil a rl y,
56 t PART I: MEMORY
fo r the detective inspector, onl y one sto ry accepta bl y ex pla ins the murde r,
a nd once he discove rs th e sto ry, he is utterl y confide nt in maintaining its
t ruth. But the hi sto ria n-detective is abl e to ar ri ve at such ce rtitud e on ly by
excl uding all engagement w ith traum a.
The seco nd tendency in th e ph il osoph y of history sees an unknowability
in th e past. In Th e Writing of History, de Ce rteau insists that a confronta-
ti on with death and with the O ther is cruci al fo r the eme rge nce of mod-
ern Western histo ri ograp hy ; that there must be a brea k between past and
prese nt fo r history to be w ritten; and that hi sto ry as a disciplin e has a n ob-
ligati on to recogni ze that there are thin gs it ca nn ot g rasp- irrem ed iable
gaps a nd absences, an othe rn ess that it non etheless stri ves to represent. 38
H ayden White, for hi s part, sees truthful hi sto ry as irrevocably mark ed by
th e sublime - that is, by that wh ich is too terrible to be known. In sharp
contrast to Collingwood, who maintained that th e hi storian reenacts the
past in hi s mind, White leaves room fo r w hat in the past is too ho rrifying
to be reconstituted . As White puts it, m isguid ed attempts to "beauti fy" the
past "depri ve history of th e level of meaninglessness that alone ca n goad
living hum a n beings to make th eir lives d iffe rent fo r themselves and thei r
chil dre n, which is to say, to endow th eir lives w ith a m ea ning fo r wh ich they
alone a re fully responsible ." 39 In White's view, " hi sto ri ca lity itself is both a
rea lity a nd a myste ry"- a nd the myste ry can not be gotte n ro und.4° In other
wo rds, White offe rs us a historical noume non - that is to say, a co nception
of the limits of hi sto ri ca l knowledge.
One can conce ive of the hi sto rica l noum enon in a number of d ifferent,
althoug h related, ways. In the broadest se nse, it can be th oug ht of as a zone
of incomprehensibility lying behin d w hat we are abl e to know. In th is se nse,
the historical noum enon amounts to a principle of hi sto riograp hic humility.
It is ak in to the humility of Herodotus, who ofte n repeated sto ri es told to
him by hi s in formants w hil e holding himself at a d istance from th e claim
that the stories were tru e.41 Howeve r, W hi te's view is o nly a ki n to that of
Herodotus, not ide ntica l w ith it: fo r the notion of the hi sto ri ca l noumenon
im pli es that there is ind eed a Truth behind the sto ri es, testimonies, me mo-
ries, and the like, eve n though we may be block ed fro m know ing it. More
specifically, the histo rical noumenon can be co nceived of as a domain in-
habited (a) by w hat is too traumati c to be put into lang uage; (b) by w hat
is too fo reig n to be un de rstood in the prese nt; a nd (c) by w hat cannot be
const ru cted or reco nst ru cted fo r lack of adeq uate ev idence.
The notion of a zone of incomp rehensibility helps us to unravel th e d if-
fic ult relations between memory and history by suggesting anot her ho ri zon
that lies behind both memo ry and hi sto ry. It is a mistake to see memory and
H I STORY, MEMORY, IDENTITY t 57
history as continuous w ith eac h other: a mistake, for exa mple, to think of
memory as the raw material of history. It is lik ew ise a m ista ke to think that
hi story is simply the sum of all possibl e m emori es: pace Tolstoy, the Battle of
Waterloo is not to be reconstructed by brin gin g together all m emories of it.
But it is eq ual ly a mistake to see history a nd m emory as simpl y opposed to
each othe r. On the one ha nd , fa r from being histo ry's raw material, m em o ry
is an Other that co ntinuall y haunts hi story. Me m o ry is an im age of the past
constructed by a subj ectivity in the present. It is thus by definition subj ec-
tive; it may also be irratio nal and inconsiste nt. On the othe r hand, histo ry as
a discipli ne has the obligatio n to be objective, unifi ed, o rd erl y, justified. Yet
it cannot entirely be so, fo r the re is always a res idue of incom prehensibility
behind what is known, and a n engagement w ith subjectivity that ca nnot be
eliminated. 4"
With his proclamation, "God is dead," N ietzsch e the modernist sought
to cha racteri ze a n im po rta nt aspect of m odern ity. Nietzsche appea rs to have
meant that modernity has succeeded, or w ill soon succeed, in sepa rating it-
self from th e Othe r: fa ith , revelation, metaphysics, t ransce ndence, a nd any-
thing else that is opposed to reason. Yet N ietzsche a lso ac knowledged- in
a move that is ofte n ove rl oo ked- th e a nxi ety caused by the ex pulsi on of
the Othe r: "How sha ll we comfo rt ourselves, the murderers of all mur-
derers~"4 3 It may be that m emo ry has eme rged in part as a response to a n
anxiety arisi ng from th e fa ilure of m ode rni ty, with its focus on the pursu it
of the new, to prov ide an adequate account of what is past yet co ntinues to
haunt the p rese nt.
Consider, for exa m pie, the relation of the d isciplin e of history, w hich has
Western, C hri stian , monotheistic roots (see chapte r 9), to o ne of its Others,
namely, those parts of the globe a nd of expe rie nce that a re not part of "the
West." Ash is andy has arg ued that th e historians' hi story of the non-West
"is usually a histo ry of the prehi sto ri ca l, the prim itive, and the pre-scien-
tific" that keeps open "o nly one option-that of bringing the ah istor ica l
into history." The a im of suc h histori es, andy claims, is "nothing less than
to bare the past completely, on the basis of a neatly articu lated fram e of ref-
erence." This is, of course, a thoroughly Collingwood ian concepti on of the
past. As Na ndy goes o n to say, "Enlig htenm ent sensitivities ... presume a
perfect eq ui va le nce betwee n histo ry a nd th e co nst ru ctio n of the past; they
presume that th ere is no past in depende nt of history." 44 In this sense, the col-
lective memory of non-Westerners becomes the Other of history, exclud ed
from its domain.
But in actua l fact this Othe r can be quite close to history, or at least to his-
torians. O ne member of the "subalte rn school" of histori ans of South Asia,
58 t P A RT J: MEMORY 1-ll STORY , MEMORY, I DENTITY t 59

Dipes h C hakraba rty, has noted how the subaltern enters into the fo rm ation 3. The bouncl::i ri es betwee n hi sto ry a nd m em o ry no nethel ess ca nn ot be pre-
of the Weste rni zi ng middl e class itse lf. Peopl e fro m the "subaltern" classes cise ly esta blished.
have bee n physically prese nt, as se rva nts, in the fa mili a l a nd format io nal 4. In the ::ibse nce o f a sin g le, unquestioned auth o rity or fra m ewor k , th e ten-
space of the middl e cl asses, and conseq uently aspects o f th eir culture have sion betwee n histo ry and m em o ry can no t be resolved.
been p resent the re as well. These cultura l ex periences have entered, o r at
least can ente r, into historiography. As ch il dren, many m embe rs o f India's
middl e cl asses e ncounte red the m agica l tales of th e suba ltern, which ex- In the tim e of g ra nd narrative, th e presence of Histo ry m ea nt that hi story
pl a ined th e wo rl d a nd provid ed a comprehensiv e und erstanding of it. The could a lways conquer m em ory: Histo ry trumped " histo ri es." In th e tim e of
coll ecti ve m em o ry o f the South Asian subaltern cl asses stands as an Other, g rand na rrative's coll apse, this is no longe r so. Thu s it is ha rd to kn ow how
opposed to hi sto ry. It is an Other that, as ::idu lts , South Asia n hi stor ians the te nsio n betwee n th e histori ca l a nd the mn em oni c ca n eve r be ove rcome.
might we ll see k to und e rsta nd - a nd som e have. 45 It is ce rta in that th e su m of m e mo ri es does no t acid up to history. It is equa ll y
H owever, if m em ory is the Othe r of hi story, we must also say that histo ry certain that hi sto ry does not by itself ge nerate a coll ecti ve consciousness, a n
is th e O th er of m em o ry. Th e claim s that m em o ry makes ::i re on ly possibly identity, ::i nd th::it whe n it gets in volved in proj ects of ide ntity-fo nn ati on
tru e. In its d emand fo r proof, hi sto ry stands in sha rp oppositi on to m em o ry. ::ind promotion, troubl e results. Thu s a boundary rem a ins betwee n histo ry
Histo ry rem inds memory of the need for ev idence com ing fr om eyewit- and m emory that we ca n cross from tim e to tim e but that we ca nnot, a nd
nesses (au topsy) a nd from material remains. 46 Memo ry is a domain of ob- should not w ish to, eliminate. Pe rhaps the m ore disturbing tendency in our
scurity: it is not to be trusted. Yet o ne should not think that histo ry is by this time is th e tend ency to eliminate oppressive Hi sto ry in favo r of auth entic
to ken the d o main o f li g ht, for alo ng w ith the relati ve lig ht of hi story a nd memo ry. But truth ::ind justice, o r whatever simulac ra o f them remain to us,
the relative darkness o f m emory, we must acknowledge a vast domain o f requ ire at least th e ghost of Hi sto ry if th ey a re to have a ny claim on peo pl e
hi sto ri ca l unkn owa bility. Th is lesson a rises fro m the un ce rta inty of identity ::it ::i ll. What is left otherwise is o nl y w hat feels good (o r sati sfy ing ly bad) at
in our tim e, for in unde rminin g th e notion th at a sing le authoritative per- th e mome nt.
spective ex ists to w hi ch we can have access, the un ce rtainty of ide ntity also
unde rmin es th e a rroga nce of both hi sto ry and m em o ry: on th e one han d,
the a rroga nce of defi niti ve ness; on th e oth er, th e a rroga nce of auth enti city.
Th e limits of histo ry a nd of m emo ry are perha ps m ost clea rl y manifested
in an important twenti eth-centur y ph eno m enon, na m ely, trials of all eged
pe rpetrato rs of state-spo nso red brutality, w he n th e tri als a re intended both
to a rri ve at truth / justice and to help in shaping a new coll ecti ve ide ntity
throug h th e fo rmation of coll ecti ve m em o ry. 47 What is str ikin g is the si-
multaneo us necessity a nd impossibili ty of t he cl u::i l project that is en visaged:
how ca n it be d o ne? H ow ca n it not be do ne? Courts a nd commiss ions seek-
ing at the sam e tim e to discove r histo ri ca l truth and to reconstru ct coll ective
ide ntity a re releva nt in th e present context as a m a nifestation of the gene ral
theoretical points that I have tried to a rticul ate, which can be put in the form
of severa l propositio ns:

r. Th e unce rtainti es of history, identity, a nd m em o ry a re mutual.

2. History a nd m em o ry a re sha rpl y different, as m a ni fes ted above all in the
rad ica ll y d ifferent hi stori es that d ifferent people o r groups rem embe r.
 - P A RT rr-

Narrative & Knowledge

 D oes Narrative H ave a
Cognitive Value of Its Own?
CHAP T E R THR EE

D oes na rrative have a cogni tive va lu e of its own? Th e q uestio n is not

easy to a nswe r, at least not in a ny defi niti ve way. T wo a nswe rs suggest
th emselves, th e sirn pl·est of all poss ible a nswe rs: yes, a nd no. Yes, narrati ve
does have its own cogniti ve value. The t ruth in questi o n res id es in the form
of nar rative, no t in its spec ific content: in th e wo rds of the phil osopher o f
history Loui s M ink , "the cogni tive fu nctio n of na rrative fo rm ... is ... to
body fort h a n ense m ble of in te rrelationshi ps .. . as a single w hole." Thi s
"bodying fo rth," M ink ho lds, ma kes us awa re of things that wo ul d other-
wise be inaccessible to us. In M in k's view, na rratives "exp ress th eir own
co nceptual p resuppos itions." In co nseque nce, th ey a re "o ur m ost usefu l ev i-
de nce fo r corning to un de rsta nd conce ptual presu ppositio ns quite different
from our ow n." Fo r exam pl e, we bes t un de rsta nd the G ree k idea of Fate
through th e pl ots o f G reek traged y, g ive n th at the G reek id ea of Fate "was
neve r ex plicitl y fo rmul ated as a phil osophi ca l th eo ry and ... is fa r rem oved
from our ow n p resu ppos itio ns abo ut causa lity, respo nsibility, a nd the natu -
ra I o rder." 1
We m ay raise the fo ll owing objectio n to M ink 's cl a im: H ow ca n we
know, from a ny particul a r na rrative, that the "conceptua l p res u ppositio ns"
that we d isce rn in the text we re ge ne rall y held by pe rso ns in th e empiri -
cal reali ty existin g o uts ide the tex t ? In fact, th e na rrati ve itself ca nnot pro-
vide th is kn owledge. But na rrative's "body ing fo rth " of relati o nships and
its "ex pressing" of conce ptual presuppositions no netheless need to be ta ken
as truthful in th e se nse that, eve n if our o nl y ev id e nce fo r so m e so rt of com-
m itme nt to t hose p resuppositions li es in o ne na rrative and in one na rra-
tive alone, we must ac kn ow ledge th ose relatio nshi ps a nd p resup positio ns as
possible ways of m a king se nse of the wo rl d . In othe r wo rds, na rrative ma kes
ava il able to us a n image of the wo rl d th at we m ust ac kn owledge as a n im age
of the wo rl d p recisely because it is th e re in the na rrative. By virtue of the
64 :j: PART I I: t-: ARR AT IVE AND KN 0 \V LEDGE
narrative's ex iste nce, we kn ow th at th e im age or images of th e world that it
embod ies lik ew ise ex ist.
But the opposing answe r is a lso tru e. o, na rrative does not have a cogni-
tive valu e of its ow n. Th e truth of na rrative a lways needs to be justifi ed by
ev idence outsid e narrative. The plau sibility of a narrative-whi ch we can
conceptualize as the sum of (a) its coherence as a story and (c) its noncontra-
diction of th e w o rld outsid e th e story-does not g ua rantee its truth. T hat
is, a story that is "a good story" and that does not manifestly contradict any-
thing that we currently know about th e wo rld outsid e the story may well be
untrue. Th e " no" a nswe r- th at is, th e claim that narrative does no t have a
cogn itive va lue of its ow n - is likel y to be preferred by the expe ri enced and
disabused judge, w ho aga in a nd aga in has hea rd testim o nies that turn out
to be false, a nd w ho therefore does not believe a sto ry simply because it is
intern all y coherent and does no t co ntrad ict w hat we currently know about
the world. For th e judge knows from hard ex peri ence that close inspection
m ay prov e such stories to be false. Peopl e lie, and people can be mi sta ken.
Th e "n o" answer, in its skeptical attitude towa rd th e beautiful illusions
of narrative, is th e m o re prosaic answer. It is also th e less interesting o ne.
Not accid enta ll y, fo r most histo ria ns up to now, it has a lso been the more
compelling a nswe r. No, na rrative does not ca rr y its ow n truth w ith it; it
does not sta nd as its ow n wa rrant or gauge of truth. "No" is the a nswer
more acceptable to histo ri ans because it pays atte nti o n to minute particu-
la rs-that is, to th e specific facts and contexts that historian s, when they a re
doing th eir job properly, m ost directly attend to. Th e "yes" answe r is less
acceptable because na rrative form, in which the all eged cognitive va lue of
narrativ e res id es, connects with entiti es that histo rians , g ive n th e general ly
empiri cal bent of their discipline, a re less well attuned to. The "form" of
narrative connects w ith totalities rathe r th an w ith particulars: it conn ects
w ith views o r perspectives. Perspectives a re often unnoted by those w ho
enterta in them, hav ing the status of unconscious presuppositions rather
than conscious ass umpti ons. This is espec ially true w hen it is a m atte r of
consid erin g the in vestigato r a nd the co ntex t out of which she comes, fo r the
interpretive perspective of the in vestigato r will ofte n be the one thing left
out of the in vestigatio n.
It thus see ms cl ea r that both answers to th e question, "Does narrative
have a cognitive value of its ow n ?" are true. It also seems clear th at the rela-
tions between the "yes" a nd the " no" a nswe rs are not sym m etri ca l, for they
occupy different co nceptual territories. To say that na rrative has a cognitive
va lue of its own is to evoke totaliti es rat her than minute particulars. To
accept the "yes" answer is to see hi sto ri ograp hy as aim ed prim a ril y at con-
D O E S NARR A T I VE H AVE A COG N I T I VE VAL U E O F I T S O W N: :t: 65
firmin g or mod ify ing people's ways of looking at and acting in the wo rl d .
Conversely, to accept the " no" answe r is to see hi sto ri ograp hy as a imed pri-
marily at offe ring spec ifi c, justifi ed desc ripti o ns a nd expla nations of past
reality, not at co nfirming or modifying people's "st ructure of histo ri ca l con-
sciousness," to use Mink 's phrase. 2
The prese nt chapter explores and criticizes the "yes" answer. Histori-
ography's role in helpin g to configure our ways of seeing and living in the
world is ind eed esse nti al (falling under the hea din g of what, in chapter 4, I
call "interp retatio n"). Th e "yes" answe r embraces the indubitabl e fact that
historiog raphy is co nn ec ted to the time of the histo ri an a nd he r reade rs as
well as to the tim e th at the histori an in vestigates. Th e " no" a nswe r em -
braces the recognition that th e hi sto ri an is und e r a n obligatio n to m ake de-
script ive and expla nato ry statements that a re true about the past. But these
statements a re situated within an interpretive framework co nn ected to th e
present. Thus th e "yes" answer is the one that is th e m ore broadly true. Yet
having sa id this , I must also note that th e "yes" answer not only offers a bow
to narrative but also invites critical refl ectio n on it. H e nce m y concern here
is with the epistem ologica l limits of na rrative . Narrative qua na rrative has a
seductive powe r that tends to ca rry the li stene r a nd reade r along in th e very
telling of a sto ry. In the cognitive domain this power becomes problematic.
Peopl e can tell sto ri es fo r all sorts of reaso ns, not all of them related to the
wo rk of find in g histo ri ca l truth. In view of the aest heti c fac t that na rrative
qua narrative tends to satisfy us as huma n beings, lies and self-deceptions
are eas il y g ive n a pleasing form. The pleasing form of narrative tends to
lend it a cognitive we ig ht that it does not deserve.
Since the publication in 1973 of his Metahistory, the nam e of Hayde n
White has been at the ce nte r of a g reat dea l of discussion amo ng philosophers
of histo ry.3 I a m not inte rested he re in engaging in debate ove r White's spe-
cifi c cla ims, w hi ch in volve the bringing abo ut of a rapprochement between
histo ry and fiction. Rather, I am in te rested in the fa ct of that discussion,
fo r the wide (if co ntrove rsial) noti ce th at White's work has received among
persons inte rested in theoretical issues in hi sto ri og raph y is itself indicative
of a con siderabl e recogniti on of the powe r of narrati ve (a nd of related liter-
ary fo rms), and a recogniti on also that unresolved theo retical questions arise
the refro m.
The characte r a nd impli catio ns of th at compelling force need to be bet-
ter understood. In part, na rrative has a n aesthetic fo rce, by virtue of tying
events toget her into patte rn s that people find inte restin g a nd pleasurable.
It likewise has a cultural fo rce. Thus na rrativ e has been va lued because
of the way it ca rri es, and clothes in specifi c a nd vivid images, impo rta nt
66 :f: PART I I: NARRA TI VE AND K N 0 \V LED G E
aspects of our ways of be ing toget he r w ithin the social o rd e r. For this rea-
son, in the la st thirty years o r so, many hav e raised th eir voices in favo r of re-
narrativizing many fi eld s of inquiry, as a means of in vesting th em wi th
moral purpose, common sense, marginalized voices, substa nt ive rati ona lity,
democratic id ea ls, and so on ! W e shou ld furth er note that narrative is also
capable of imparting and arousing a ce rtain kind of intellectual satisfaction.
When puzzling events "fa ll into pl ace," becom ing part of a cohe rent story,
the puzzl ement tends to disappear. Co n ve rsely, w hen we find ourselves un-
able, as in quirers and as acto rs in the wo rld , to discern a narrati ve fram e-
work that wo uld "make se nse of" the ph e nome na we are confronting, we
are likely to have precisely the oppos ite fee li ng - a ce rtain se nse of intel-
lectual dissatisfaction.
All of these issues dese rve furth e r cons ide ration. But I focus he re o n o nly
two matters-on the so-called "c risis of na rrative," a nd on the ep iste mo-
logical limits of na rrati ve.
TH E "C RISIS" OF NAR R AT IVE
By narrative, I here m ea n an acco unt that is ch ronologica ll y o rd ered a nd has
a recogni zable beginning, middle, and end (I offer a somewhat different
definition of narrative in chapte r 4) . This cl assic d efinition is deceptively
simpl e, and it requires two cla rifi catio ns. First, there is the question of
chron ologica l ord ering. As stru cturali st th eo rists of narrative have taug ht
us , the events of a na rrati ve are ra rely, if eve r, told in stri ct chronol ogical o r-
d er: on th e co ntra ry, all so rts ofback trackings and foretrackings take place
on th e level of th e tellin g of the story (the level of "d iscourse," as structural-
ist na rrative th eo ri sts ca ll it). Th e important point, howeve r, is th at ben eath
th e level of "d iscourse," the reade r ca n discern a ch ro nologica ll y o rd e red
"sto ry." 1
Seco nd, just as narrativ e d ive rges from st ri ct ch ronologica l o rde r in
g reate r or lesse r d eg ree, we must also note an insuffi ciency or divergence
in the catego ries of beginning, midd le, and end . For it is cl ea r that begin-
nin g, middle, and end a re neve r totally present in the text. Co nsequently,
the claim is not that they must all be present for a na rrative to exist. The
claim is rather th at, w heth er present or not, we ca n project each of the three
catego ri es from w hat is prese nt in the text. Accord ingly, we may still rega rd
a truncated or fr agme nted na rrative-that is, an acco unt in w hi ch one or
more of the three catego ri es is missing-as a na rrative.
As ea rl y as the r93os, some comme ntato rs bega n to suggest th at narrative
is passe, eve n in cri sis. Som e have rega rded na rrative as threatened by the
D OES NA l\R A TI VE H AV E A COGN ITI VE VALUE OF IT S OWN ~ :f: 67
conditions of mode rn Ii fe; so m e have regard ed it as beneath the level of ge n-
uinely scientific knowledge. To consid er in d etai l th e q uestio n of th e all eged
crisis of na rrative is beyond the scope of this book, but a few comm ents a re
necessa ry, fo r na rrative's all eged cri sis is ce rtainl y relevant to qu esti ons o f
evidence and truthfulness .6
A good place to begin is with the alleged crisis o f "grand narrative"
(wh ich I d iscuss in chapters 8 a nd 9). A "gra nd na rrative" is a n acco unt
that purpo rts to be the authoritative account of history in ge neral ; to thi s
notion we ca n add th e cl osely alli ed noti on of a " maste r na rrative," which is
an acco unt that purports to be th e autho ritative acco unt of some pa rticu la r
segment of history-say, th e hi sto ry of a nati o n. Famous ly, Jea n-Fra111;ois
Lyotard a rg ued in The Postmodern Condition (1979) that ours is a n age of
"incredu lity" toward "grand na rrati ve." By thi s he meant th at th e cultural
authority of the unifi ed histo ry of humanity that Westerners once accepted
more or less implicitl y has bee n profoundly shaken. In the nin eteenth cen-
tur y it was still easy to believe that there was a unifi ed history of hum a nity
that had freedom, cultivatio n (Bi/dung), or some combination of the two as
its telos; by the late twenti eth cen tury this belief was much m o re d iffi cult to
susta in. 7
But note that, howeve r threate ned g rand na rrati ve may be, its predica-
ment does not ca ll into question narrative tout court. In d eed, it appea rs that
in the abse nce of a " master" or "grand" na rrative that wou ld mak e sense of a
particu la r nati on or of hum anity in general , human beings are all the m o re
dri ve n to tell "li ttle narrati ves" to m a ke sense of their own indi vidual situa-
tions .8 Perhaps the presence of a "grand " or "master " n a rrative to some ex-
tent relieves people of the need to narrate their ow n situations. For exa m pi e,
taking the C hristia n salvati on story as the g ui de fo r th eir lives, individua ls
or groups m ig ht wel l feel no ove rw helming compulsi on to in ve nt and di s-
se m in ate particular li fe-s to ri es of th eir ow n. We ca n plausibly h ypot hesize
that the absence of "gra nd" o r "master" narrativ es tends to driv e people to
"na rrativize" their own situati ons-th at is, to in ve nt life-sto ries as a m ea ns
of making sense of who th ey a re. In other wo rds, th e question of w hethe r
a ny pa rticular narrati ve is gene rall y accepted as authoritative has no neces-
sa ry connection to the question of w hether narrative in general is in crisis.
G rand narrati ve ca n be cacophonousl y denied by the h ybridity a nd va ri ety
of a culture, w hile na rrativ e itself, in the fo rm of a multitude of petits recits,
Aour ish es.
Some mig ht a rg ue that all na rrative, not just g ra nd na rrative, is in cri -
sis. In part this seems to have bee n Lyotard 's a rg um ent in The Postmodern
Condition, for he th ere describes a mov em ent from a situati o n in which o ne
68 :j: PART 11 : NARRATIVE AND K NOWLEDGE
o r anoth er nar rative legitimizes a society and its va rious in stitutions to a
situation in which the "performativ ity principl e"-that is, th e optimiza-
tion of a system 's pe rform ance- is w hat offe rs legitim acy. 9 In th e literature
more ge nerally, sc hola rs have seen narrative as threatened both practically
and theo retically. O n the practical level, some have seen it as threatened by
the linked realities of technology and bureaucracy. Walter Benjamin, in The
St01-yteller (1936), arg ued that technology threate ns na rrative a nd suggested
that the transmission , w ithin communities, of inh erited stories, myths, leg-
ends, and the like is being replaced by the more ano nymous and insta nta-
neous transmission of informati on. fn the same yea r, in "Th e Work of Art
in th e Age of Mechan ica l Reproduction," Benjamin a rg ued that mecha nical
reproducibility removes th e artwo rk from "the doma in of tradition" within
°
w hich it fo rm erly resided. 1 Computer databases are often seen as having
precisely this sort of infinite reproducibility; and a problem is also raised by
the shee r mass of prese r ved informatio n, w hich is so g reat that it is hard to
imagin e how it could ever be put into the coherent fo rm of narrative. 11
As for bureaucracy, its commitment to universally appli cable procedural
rul es tends to departiculari ze individua ls and to make irrelev ant their at-
tempts to justify their claims by reco unting their ow n stories. Kafka's
Trial brilliantly exempli fies this point: The Trial cou ld not have bee n better
couched to make cl ea r th e irreleva ncy ofJosef K's story to his fate (one must
of course und erstand that the "court," in The Trial, is actua ll y a ca ri cature
of a bureaucratic tribunal , and not a court as traditionally und erstood in
the Anglo-American judicial system). A nyo ne w ho has had to deal with
extremely large and remote governmental agencies w ill g rasp the anti-
na rrativist impulse - for the determining factor, where a depersonalizing
bureaucracy holds sway, is the flt of th e in div idua l to a pa rticul ar bureau-
cratic category. Fo r exa mpl e, if the individual is a fo reign professor for
whom a n Amer ica n uni ve rsity wants to obtain a "g reen card,'' the uni ve r-
sity might find itself having to prove th at the professor fits th e catego ry of
"outstanding professors and resea rch ers." In such instances, unless the per-
son's story can be mad e to serve th e purposes of classifying her, th e story is
irreleva nt. Further, in the Ame rican bureaucracy, it is sa id , "governm ental
wo rk ers rarel y read beyond the second page." 1 ~ Compression carried out to
this degree makes narrative expositi on difficult. 13
For its part, th e th eo retical attack on narrative appears in two oppos-
ing forms. O ne fo rm of th eoreti ca l attack emanates from positivism . Here,
an insiste nce o n th e necess ity a nd impo rtan ce of unive rsal laws a nd theo-
ries leads to a manifest rejectio n of narrative. This scientistic form of anti-
narrativism was articu lated ex pli citly by th e logical empiricists. Although
D OES NARRA TI VE HAVE A COGN ITI VE VALUE OF IT S OWN ? :j: 69
long dead as a positi on in philosophy, logical empiricism co nsiderably in -
flu enced th e m eth odology of the social sciences, and its in sistence that o nly
laws and theories are truly sci entific continues to hold sway in vast areas of
the soc ial sciences eve n today. The basic claim is th at scie nce should speak
the language of law and theo ry, not the language of narrative. One thinks
especially of Ca rl Hempel's account of th e cracking of an automobile radia-
tor on a cold nigh t, to wh ich I turn in chapter 4: the account is resolutely
non-chronological, but consists instead of stateme nts of initi al and bound-
a ry conditions combined with statements of empirical laws . 14
A second fo rm of th eo reti ca l attack on narrati ve de riv es from entirely
diffe rent preoccupations. This second fo rm of attack casts the continuity of
narrative as the vill ain: fo r by portray ing an entity as hav ing a sustai ned
existence ove r time, it is said, narrative confirms the autho rity of th at entity.
In short, here narrative is rejected on the grounds that it se rves to justify
th e central subject of the narrative. The argument is in some ways funda-
mentally Nietzschean, resonating to Nietzsche's claim in Human, All-Too-
Human (1878) that "the w hole of teleology is co nstructed by speaking of the
man of the last four mill ennia as of an eternal man towards whom all things
in the wo rld have had a natural relationship from the time he bega n." 15
But N ietzsche neve r ra ised discontinuity to an ex plicit principle. It beca m e
such on ly in th e twentieth ce ntury- most famo usly w ith Fou cault, w hose
Archaeology of Knowledge (1969) prese nts itself as, among other things, an
attempt to formulate "a gene ral theory of discontinuity" to put up against
the "co ntinuous history" that is "the indispensable correlative of th e fo und-
ing function of the subject." 16 We should also note that in his "Theses on
the P hiloso phy of History" (1940) Walter Benjamin insisted that historians
ought to "[stop] telling the sequence of eve nts lik e the beads of a rosary." 17
Note, howeve r, that Ben jam in's compressed formu lati on is hardl y a clea r
stateme nt of th e anticontinuity a rgument.
We thus find an array of attac ks (o r alleged attacks) o n narrative. At the
practical level nar rative is alleged to be the victim of tec hnology and of bu-
reaucracy; at the theoreti cal level it is the butt of attacks by proponents of a
universa li zin g scientific m ethod and by antihi storicist historicists lik e Fou-
cault or Benjamin. Yet neither the technolog ical attack, the bureaucratic at-
tack, the scientistic attack, nor the anticontinuist attack is as threatening as
it appea rs at first glance. On the contrary, tim e and aga in narrative returns,
reap pearing eve n in those situations where it seems m ost seriously threat-
ened . Speak ing specu latively and relying on ev ide nce of a som ewhat scat-
tered a nd anecdota l character-for a detail ed study is not poss ibl e here - £
ca n suggest someth ing of the character of this return .
70 + PART I I: NARRAT I VE A 1
D K N 0 \V LED CE
Consid er, first, the supposed attacks o n na rrative that a re see n as a ris-
in g o n a practical level. Tec hn ologica ll y, we do appea r to live-as Lyota rd
suggested m o re tha n a gene rati on ago - in "compute ri zed societi es." 1 It is
lik ew ise tru e th at digital technology m ost often manifests itself in non-nar-
rati ve ways. For example, information in a computerized database is not
organized narrativel y. Similarl y, the Web makes informatio n available to us
along a vast multitud e of separate branching and rebra nching paths: the re is
no singl e line, a nd th e lines that do exist a re in any case not chronologically
o rd ered . Yet w hat is striking is th e degree to w hi ch peo ple seem driv en to
construct narratives out of scatte red fra g m e nts of in fo rm ation . For exa mple,
the Web has been the matrix out of which co nspiracy th eo ries have been
co nstructed - such as th e all eged co nspiracy to suppress the all eged fac t
that Trans World A irlin es Flig ht 800 from New Yo rk to Pa ri s on Jul y 17,
r996, was shot down by a missile, possibl y o ne launc hed by the United States
Navy (other conspiracy theo ries, burgeoning after Septembe r 11 , 2 00 1,
abound). 19 A co nspiracy th eo ry, of course, is nothing other th a n a ti g htl y
o rdered narrati ve. Similarly, persons co nfro nted by the bureaucratic o rde r
of th e modern state customaril y tell stories about th emselves in a n attem pt
to a rg ue that they fit such -a nd-s uch a bureaucratic catego ry. Na rrativization
appea rs to be a no rmal hum a n res ponse both to complex ity and complica-
ti o n, a nd to th e bureaucrati c drive to ove rsimplify.
As for the theo reti ca l attac k o n narrativ e, neithe r its scientisti c nor its
a nticontinuist ve rsion is as opposed to narrative as it appea rs to be at firs t
g la nce. In each case, would-be a ntin a rratives are easil y constru ed, by little
m o re than a twist of the kaleidoscope, as narratives afte r all. For example,
H empel offe rs an accou nt of w hat led to th e cracking of the radiator via
a se ri es of sing ul a r statem e nts, such as "The ca r was left in th e st reet all
ni g ht," a nd anothe r se ri es of ge neral statem ents, such as "Below 32° F., un-
de r no rm al atm osphe ric press ure, water freezes." But although o n the level
of di scourse H empel's account is ce rtainl y not a narrative, rea de rs can read-
ily constru ct th ese stateme nts as a nar rative, disce rning th e story behind the
d isco urse. A nd this is in fact w hat read ers do. It is th e same w ith th e a nti-
continui st attac k o n narrative. Consid e r Foucault's account in The Order of
Things ( r 966) of th e succession of epistemes, or systems of thoug ht, in the
West: Renaissa nce, "Classical ," mod ern o r " hum a nist," a nd post-humanist.
Foucault claims in that wo rk that the m ove m ent from o ne episteme to the
next has th e cha racter of a rad ical a nd inex plicabl e "mutation." 20 In sho rt,
Fo ucault den ies that the re is a na rrati ve co ntinuity in th e succession of e pis-
temes- but reade rs co nstruct a na rrativ e non eth eless, o ne emphasiz ing
d isco ntinuity rath er than continuity.
D O E S NARRAT I VE H AVE A COG N I T I VE VA L UE OF I T S OWN ' + 71
In bri ef, it seems that narrative always returns, eve n when it is unde r th e
most seve re attack. T he re peated return of narrative suggests so mething of
its power as a mode of o rga ni z ing o ur pe rcepti ons of the wo rld. It appea rs
that human bein gs are constituted in such a way th at, in ori enting th em-
selves to th e world, th ey come back aga in a nd again to na rrative. This is
a point on w hi ch many prominent narrative th eorists ag ree. For exa mpl e,
Rola nd Barthes , in his "Introd uction to th e Structural Ana lysis of Na rra-
ti ves," cla im ed that na rrati ve is "intentional, transhistori ca l, transcultural: it
is simply the re, like life itself." A lth ough he d iffers from Barthes in man y
ways, Pau l Ri coe ur, in Time and Na 1Tative, m akes a lm ost the sam e point: " I
see in th e pl ots we in vent th e pri vil eged m ea ns by whi ch we re-co nfig ure
our confused , un fo rm ed, and at th e limit mute tempora l ex peri ence."
Mink notes that "sto rytellin g is the m ost ubiquitous of hum a n acti viti es."
W. B. Ga l li e emphasizes th e "foll owability" of sto ries, and sees peo pl e as
having a natural desire to be car ried along by the stories that are told . Fi-
na ll y, Hayde n White obse rves that "to raise the questi o n of the nature of
narrative is to in vite refl ection on the ve ry nature of cul ture"-fo r the im -
pu lse to na rrate is so " natural" that "na rrati vity coul d ap pea r problemati ca l
on ly in a culture in whic h it was absent." H ence, White cl a ims, "na rrati ve
and nar ratio n a re less probl ems than simpl y data." 21
O ur discovery here of a cri sis of na rrative that turns o ut not to be a crisi s
undersco res the po int that these na rrativ e theo ri sts ma ke: namely, that we
human bein gs find sto ri es deeply attractive . Of th ese theori sts, Ricoeur is
least suspicious of the powe rs of narrative. Whil e it is som etim es diffi cult to
pin down Ricoeur's own positi on in th e midst of his extended comme ntar-
ies on other w riters , he does g iv e a strongly pos itive va luatio n to narrative:
we might eve n say that he m ythologizes it. Th e othe r theo ri sts noted above
show a g reater sense of reserve . In Ga lli e, "followability" does not in a ny
sense am ount to truth. In Mink , th ere is a cl ea r se nse that na rrative goes
beyond what the evidence of particul a r eve nts ca n sup ply. A nd White, al-
tho ug h he is not ge nera ll y rega rd ed as an epistemol ogicall y o ri e nted write r,
has emphaticall y suggested that we impose na rrative o n th e wo rl d . We need
not accept th e pos ition that Wh ite has sometimes seemed to contend fo r,
namely, that the human wo rld is at base chaotic, to accept the skepti cal at-
tit ude towa rd th e truth of narrative that White's position auth o ri zes .
THE EP I STEMOLOGICAL LIMITS OF N A RR A TI VE
T he ubiquity of narrati ve- its unca nn y capac ity to return from rum ored
death , its aestheti c and pe rsuasive force as a way of making sense of the
72 + PAHT J I: NARRAT I VE AND K NOWLEDGE
wo rl d - brings us back to the cent ral q uestio n of thi s chap ter: Does na rrati ve
have a cogniti ve va lue of its ow n ? Na rrative's ubi q uit y brin gs us bac k to that
q uestion by un de rsco ring its im po rta nce. As noted above, one ca n answer
both yes and no to th e q uesti on: at the empirica l leve l, we a nswe r no; at
th e level of inte rpreti ve w holes or totalities, yes, fo r na rrative bodies fo rth
a view of the w orld- or a way of being in the worl d - that, ifit did not
ex ist prio r to its appea ra nce in th at narrati ve, com es into being w hen the
na rrati ve comes into bein g.
Wh y does na rrati ve co ntinuall y return , eve n w hen it is prog ra mm ati ca lly
refu sed? W hy is na rrati ve " nat ura l" to hum a n bein gs? Th e answe r seems
cl ea r: na rrative is intim ately co nn ected w ith the processes by w hi ch ind ivid-
uals a nd grou ps m a ke se nse of them selves-eve n defi ne th emselves. W hen
we spea k of such se lf-definiti o n, there imm ed iately ente rs into play some-
thing th at is closely co nn ected to na rrative and th at habituall y ma ni fests
itself in na rrati ve fo rm - m em ory. Wh en self-definiti on is in play, th e ques-
ti o n of how na rrative is related to truth tend s to resolve itself into the
questi on of how m em o ry is related to truth . We ca n think of the truth
in q uesti o n as prim a ril y a n ide ntity- related truth , a tru th that w ill some-
ti mes co nve rge w ith and som etim es d ive rge from a nother kind of truth that
we ca n think of as a wo rl d- related o r inte rsubj ec ti ve truth.
l n situa ti ons w he re mem o ry's acco unt of the past is un chall enged by some
co ntra ry account, a nd w he re we have no pa rti cul a r reaso n to do ubt th e re-
po rted m em o ri es, we cu sto m a ril y accept m em o ry-based truth-cl aim s. Un-
de r such circum sta nces we m ay m o re o r less ide ntify m em o ry w ith (truth-
ful ) hi sto ry; we m ay fin d ourselves spea king, regretfully, of a m em ory defi cit
(Defizit an Gediichtnis) w hen w hat we reall y mea n is a hi story defi cit (D efizit
an Gej·chichte) . ~~ But at the prese nt hi sto ri ca l mom ent, the exte nt to w hi ch
mem o ri es sta nd in confli ct w ith each othe r is stri k ing. Just as the soli d ity
of a pa rti cu la r field of expe rti se becom es do u btful w hen rep resentati ves of
that fie ld co ntrad ict eac h othe r in the courtroom , so th e soli d ity of m em-
ory becom es d oubtful w he n d iffe rent m em o ries co nfli ct w ith each other.
Thi s am ounts to say ing th at th e truth of th e na rratives th at recount these
mem o ri es is call ed into questi o n. To put the matte r another way: ide ntity-
related truth finds itself call ed into questio n by wo rld-related truth.
W hat we mu st avoid is a ro m anti cizati on of m em ory-w hi ch am ounts
to a roma nticiza ti on of ide ntity- related tru th. T he temptati on is to ta k e at
face valu e the na rratives th at issu e from m em o ry. W here th e mind in ques-
tio n is ratio nal a nd attentive, the d ive rge nces may be sli g ht betwee n an ac-
co un t of the wo rl d th at this mind na rratively reca ll s a nd th e co nst ruction
of a n acco unt out of" traces" a nd "sources" (c ha pte r 1). But th e m in d is not
DOE S NARRAT I VE HAVE A COGN I T I VE VALUE OF I TS OWN~ + 73
always ratio nal and attentive, a nd w hen th e dee pest desires of ind ivid uals
or groups a re bo un d to a pa rticul a r im age of the past, th e m atter becomes
even more d iffi cult. In som e situati ons today, me m o ry is seen as co nfirm ing,
justifying, a nd pe rhaps eve n g roun d ing w hateve r ide ntity a perso n has ad-
opted. Whe re mem ory is seen as g rounding identity, a deep commitment to
the na rrative th at m em ory tells is likely, along w ith a correspondingly deep
hostility to an ything that wo uld undermin e th at na rrative.
It is possible to spea k entirely in the lang uage of m em o ry a nd fo rgetting.
Thus o ne co uld spea k of a combined Defizit an Gediichtnis a nd Ubermafi an
Ve1gessen (excess of fo rge tting) preva iling in , say, Ge rmany, o r th e Balk a ns,
or in othe r regio ns, at ce rtain (q uite rece nt) tim es in their hi sto ries. But I
wish to suggest (it is a N ietzschea n point) th at m em o ry a nd fo rgetting a re
so closely tied up w ith each oth er that th ey are in separable-that eve ry re-
m embe ring is also a m ode of fo rgetting and eve ry fo rgetting a m ode of re-
membe ring. Thus, although I contend that the oppos itio n betwee n m em ory
and fo rgetting does have a ro ug h va lidity and u se fuln ess, the interpenetra-
tion of the two catego ries m ea ns that it m akes far m o re sense to speak rather
of the acceptance o r re jecti on of ce rta in na rrati ves-each of w hi ch is itself
a bund le of rememberin gs a nd fo rgettings. Th e qu esti o n th en becomes,
What crite ri a sho uld one deploy in dec id ing to accept, reject, or pa rtl y ac-
cept and pa rtl y re ject th e na rrati ves in questi on ?
W hat seem s m a ni fes tl y cl ea r is th at the criteri a must be epistem ological
and th at th ey must resid e outsid e th e fram ewo rk of narrative itsel f. We have
a duty to be sk epti ca l abo ut th e truth of th e spec ifi c assertio ns of fa ct that
enter into a na rrative, espec ially in situati ons w here such narratives play an
impo rtant role in validating identity. This is not to deny that n arrative m ay
well have a heuristi c im po rta nce fo r th e hi sto ri an. Hi sto ri ans in the m ids t
of their resea rch co mm onl y fi nd th at th e "p rem ature" constructio n of a hy-
pothetica l na rrati ve (o r na rratives) that attempts to "cove r" the pa rti cu lar
histo rical reali ty un de r in vestigation ca n offe r insig hts. In co nstructing such
narrati ves hi sto ria ns com e to see m ore cl ea rl y w hat ga ps still rem ain in th eir
resea rch - a nd thus th e process of resea rch is ca rri ed fo rward. Perha ps even
mo re impo rtant, the histo rian m ay thereby come to see w hat as pects of the
topic d o not need to be researched (limiting one's resea rch is essential if any
resea rch at all is to be fi ni shed ). But cl aim s as to the truth of the narrati ves
in q uestio n must still be held in abeya nce until the d isagreem ents betwee n
competin g accounts have bee n in vestigated a nd a rg ued out.
Ex trem e cases ofte n hi g hli g ht problem s that a re ha rd to d isce rn o r eve n
inv isible in "ave rage" cases. In sho rt, ext remity has a he uri sti c va lue, as na r-
rative itself does . Conside r th e fo ur ext re me cases that fo ll ow.
74 t PART II: NARRAT I VE A ND KNOWLEDGE
CASE 1. As a n unde rg raduate student in Saskatoon, I lived, o ne yea r, in
a private house in w hi ch two upstairs bed room s we re rented out to stu-
dents. The la ndlad y, who was obsessive ly th oroug h about keeping the
house loc ked up, told m e a n interesting story. She cl a im ed that a ga ng of
thieves was at work in Saskatoon, a ga ng w ith a peculiar modus operandi.
The thieves would steal pieces of prope rty and cunningly replace them with
other ob jects of id enti ca l appearance but lesse r va lue (one mig ht imagine,
here, an entire treatise o n the m eta physics of theft). My la ndlady informed
m e th at the ga ng had stolen va rious items from her ho use, including the
bathtub. T o m y know ledge, no othe r pe rson in Saskatoo n was awa re o f the
wo rk of this ga ng of thi eves, and its activities were neve r repo rted in the
local news paper. Skeptical about th e existence of the ga ng, I attempted to
persuade my la ndl ady th at she must be w rong, a nd th at, in parti cul a r, the
bathtub in the house was undoubtedly the ve ry bathtub that had been in
the house sin ce its constructio n m any years before. My efforts at persuasion
fail ed utte rl y.23
c As E 2 . In a celebrated case that has bee n d iscussed by the litera ry critic
T erry Castl e, two Engli sh academ ic women, C ha rl otte A nne Mobe rl y a nd
E lea nor Jo urdain, cl aim ed to have seen a n a ppa rition of Ma ri e A ntoi nette
and seve ral m embers o f her court in th e ga rd ens of the Petit Triano n near
Versai lles on Aug ust 10, 19o r. In fasc in ating deta il , Professor Castl e re-
counts a nd analyzes their story. What is most striking in Castl e's account is
the ease w ith w hi ch Mobe rl y and Jourdain fo und confirmatory deta il s for
their cl aim to have seen th e late French queen. 24
CASE 3. In th e ea rl y 1990s a professo r of psychiatry at H a rvard Medica l
School, John Mack, worked extensively w ith nea rl y one hundred people
who rem embered being abducted by space alie ns. H e reac hed th e conclu-
sion that these people were not suffe ring from m ental illn ess a nd had not
m e rely im agined the encounters, but had had real encounters with no n-
human intelligent li fe. In Mack's words: "I am as ca reful as I know how to
be in m y diagnostic discriminations. I have exhausted all the possibilities that
are purely psychological, eve n psychosocial, that could account for this." 25
c As E 4. Th is is in fact a myriad of exa m pi es . From the ea rly 198os th rough
much of th e 1990s in th e United States , m any all eged cases of " rep ressed
m em o ry" related to "satanic" o r " rituali sti c" sexual abuse arose (m em o ry o f
this ab use was all eged ly restored tha nks to th e interve nti o n of the ra pists). 26
Th e pheno m eno n still co ntinues . Howeve r elicited , th e mate rial in va ri ably
D OES NARRAT I VE H AVE A COGN ITI VE VA L UE OF I TS OWN~ :f: 75
takes the fo rm o f na rratives that becom e more d etail ed a nd ram ifi ed as th ey
are "worked o n" and repeated. Large numbe rs of peopl e in th e "the rapeuti c
comm unity " in the Un ited States rega rd such nar rati ves as self-justifying.
On occas io n, gross misca rriages of justice have res ulted . O ne of the most
flag rant cases, bri efl y noted in chapter 2 , is that of Paul Ing ram, of O lympia,
Wash ington, w ho in 1988 was accused by hi s daughters of having rituall y
abused th em. Biza rrely, he was induced to "remembe r" episodes of such
abuse, a nd in co nseque nce he entered a g uilty pl ea , w hi ch - too late- he
atte mpted to retract. Afte r fourtee n years in prison , he was finally paroled
in A pril 2003 .17
W hat ca n we learn from th ese cases, a nd from th e countl ess simil a r cases
that could be adduced? Th ey all und e rscore how ev ide nce is fa r from being
"ev ident." O n the contra ry, ev idence is a fra il reed, Iiabl e to be bent by sub-
jecti vity and und ermined by ca reless ness a nd an uncriti ca l attitud e. Above
all , the cases noted above suggest how easily evid ence can be tram pi ed un -
derfoot by acknowledged o r unacknowl edged desire. Som etimes it is the
des ire to see oneself as such-and-such a kind of important o r interesting
person (a defender of hea rth a nd hom e; a pe rson importa nt enoug h to be a n
o nloo ker at a n O ld Regim e ce rem o ny; a n a lie n abductee; a protector of"the
children"). Som etim es it see ms to be nothing m o re th an the d esire to adh ere
to a simpl e a nd satisfy ing story of eve nts. Perh aps, in th e absence of sim ple
and satisfying g rand a nd maste r narratives, people's desire for such stories
has fixated at a noth er, more specific level, leading to a kind of all egia nce
ve ry diffe rent from the nati onal a ll egiances o f old. O r perh a ps it is simpl y
a co ntinuation of the h ype and snak e-oil sa lesmans hip th at tend to fl our-
ish in any comm ercial , market-driven society, w he re there a re sign ifi cant
materi al rewards ava il a bl e to people who have a ta lent fo r persuading their
fe llow citi ze ns of the truth of X, Y, o r Z on ground s that oug ht not to be
pe rsuasive.
It wou ld be easy if histo ry were a matter of defin iti ve truth, of an apo-
d ictic certa inty ad mitting o f no disag ree m ent. In o ne of the least happy pas-
sages in the "Epil egom ena" of The Idea of History, Collingwood asse rts th at
"genuine history has no room fo r the m erely probable or the m erely possibl e;
all it permits th e histo ria n to assert is w hat the ev idence before him obl iges
him to assert." 18 Would it we re as simpl e as this! But it is not, as chapte r 6,
below, attempts to mak e clear. In deed, Collingwood him self knew better:
in a nother passage he asserts th at no achievem e nt in histo ry is eve r fin al,
tha t the ev id ence changes "with eve ry cha nge of hi sto ri ca l m eth od," th at
"the principles by wh ich this ev id ence is inte rpreted cha nge too," a nd that
conseque ntl y "every new gene rati o n must rew rite histo ry in its ow n way"
76 t PAR T II: NARRAT I VE AND KNOWLEDGE DOES NA R RATIVE H AVE A COGN I T I VE V A LUE OF I TS OWN ' t 77

(248). f o nl y need to add th at thi s d oes not mea n -ca nnot m ea n - that d istance fro m th e obj ects of her attentio n th at may foste r th e idea that we
"a nything goes," or th at eve ry "ge ne ratio n" (school, national grou p, pa ra- really ought to try to get thi ngs rig ht, even if no practical co nseq uence ha ngs
d ig m ) is equall y justified in its w ritin g of hi story. Collingwood also w rites on doing so .19
in thi s sam e passage that there is "va ri atio n in the com petence of hi sto ri a ns."
Such a statement presupposes a capacity on our part fo r judging levels of
competence. D oing so is one part of the task of histo ri cal epistem ology. But In response to the questio n, "D oes narrative have a cognitive value of its
it is also one of the task s of history pro pe r, since m atters of a rg ument and own?" the first a nswe r must be affirm ed. Of course na rrative has a cognitive
justification, and not na rrative alon e, m ake histo rical research a nd w riting value of its own , in th e sense that the coherence of na rrative is th e coherence
w hat it oug ht to be. of a poss ible world . Whether o r not the vision pro jected by the na rrative
We a II know th e powe r of a good sto ry. l t is ha rd to defi ne in a general has an actual ex istence, it ex ists in the narrative, a nd it may well ex ist within
way w hat th e elements of a "good sto ry" a re. It is much easier to recogni ze the m ind that co nceived th e na rrative. But at th e sam e tim e, a nd perhaps
a good story w hen o ne encounters it, es peciall y w hen it alread y bea rs the more emp hatica ll y, we must also say th at na rrative does not have a cogni-
imprim atur of tim e. My th a nd literature a re ce rtainl y two fi elds th at a re re- tive va lu e of its ow n. W hat it has, rath er, is a sed uctive power-a powe r
plete with stori es so attracti ve th at they a re told and retold fo r hundreds and that can easil y be d eployed in order to present the na rrative's possible vision
even thousands of yea rs. We should also be aware-and this is the impor- as an actuality. H ere; we mu st say no to na rrative: against its beautiful o r
tant point here-of the aw k wa rd juncture between th e fi ctional construc- sublime sed uctio ns we must bring to bea r the defl ating fo rce of m ethod a nd
tions of m yth and literature and assertions concerning literal truth in the criticism . Am ong other things, this m eans that historians must prosel yti ze
wo rl d. O ne of th e reasons that m any wo rk s of literature a nd myth ap pea l to by exa m pie, trying to be as ca reful as they can abo ut matters of historical
us is that th ey offe r us a coherent fic tio nal wo rld-a wo rl d that, fo r all its knowledge and as ope n as possible to the processes of a rg umentati on a nd
pe ripeteia, fin all y is show n to m ake se nse. proof by w hi ch we test a nd refin e histo rica l a nd othe r cl aims-for it seem s
Gossip-whi ch, ev ide ntiall y, we ca n cha racteri ze as un substa nti ated obvious t hat the t ruth w ill neve r be d iscove red .30
hea rsay- has a simil a r a ppeal. W hen we ente r into the wo rl d of gossip, we
m ove beyond the actions and sufferings of fi cti onal characters (or cha racters
w hom we today take to be fi ctional) to those of real huma n beings . A nd
he re one ri sk s entering into the territory of both epi stem ologica l a nd ethical
transgression . O ne of the virtues of the time-tested epi stemological practices
of hi sto ry is that th ese practi ces ca ll upon us to conside r the ev ide nce fo r and
against the cla ims th at we m ight fi nd pleas ure in m akin g. The probl em w ith
the ev ide nce offe red by the creato r o r proponent of a pa rticul a r na rrative
is th at it is ofte n too integral to the nar rative itself to be full y t rustwo rthy.
Thus we need not o nly evidence, but evidence of evidence : or to put the m at-
te r di ffe rentl y, we need concurrence am ong d iffe rent pieces of evide nce and
fo rms of ev ide nce. Thi s is pa rt of the reason w hy hi sto ry must be not only
(in some of its as pects) a n aesthetic practice, but also a discipline- th at is,
an orga ni zed pursuit of kn ow ledge by coll ectiviti es committed in prin ciple
and practice to the precise, m ethod ica l, and un end ing constru ctio n, d ism an-
tling, and reconstructio n of th e histo ri ca l past. So long as th e Ce rteauvian
breach betwee n past a nd prese nt is mainta in ed, the hi sto rian is better placed
tha n a re the practitio ners of most other huma n sc iences to ca rry fo rwa rd the
critica l d ime nsion of unde rsta nd ing . Th e sta nce of the histo ri a n impli es a

Narrative and the Four Tasks of History-Writing
C H A PT E R FOUR~~-
hat d istin ct task s a re in volved in hi sto ri cal resea rch a nd w riting?
W Hi sto ri ans a re not as cl ea r abo ut thi s qu estio n as they o ug ht to be.
Admitted ly, rigorous conceptual clarity is not always com patible w ith the
writing of coherent hi storical na rratives. Moreove r, sc hola rs vvho fuss about
th e precise boundari es of the conce pts they deploy m ay well end up becom-
ing so interested in the co nce pts that the ve ry idea of writing a hi sto ry d isa p-
pears from view. Yet at the end of the day we are obliged to say, w ith Fra ncis
Bacon, that "truth em erges mo re qui ckl y from er ro r tha n from confu sio n." 1
If histori a ns wish to be somethin g mo re th a n me re chee rl eade rs fo r thi s or
that good cause, they had better be clea r about what they a re d oing. Ma ny
hi sto rians undoubtedly lea rn to be clea r about th eir ow n assumptions and
practices by virtue of hig h intel lige nce a nd attentiveness to their work of re-
sea rch and w riting. o netheless, it is u sually best to refl ect on such matte rs
in an ex plicit way. What are the task s of history-w riting? Furthe r: H ow do
the diffe rent tasks fit together? These a re th e questio ns th at I seek to a n-
swe r in th e present chapter. I ente r into the subject by way of an erro neous
opinio n, the a nalys is of w hich wi ll help us see our way to a conce ptu al tru th
about the w riting of hi sto ry.
As rece ntl y as the 1980s it was a w idely held view am ong profess io nal
hi sto ri ans that th e one trul y se ri ous ta sk of histo ry, making it a contribu-
tion to knowledge and not a triviality, was the task of "explanation ." (I put
explanation in quotation m a rks because we, reade r and w rite r, have not yet
come to an understand ing as to what mea ning to attribute to this wo rd.)
T o be su re, the view th at ex planatio n is the centra l task of hi sto ry-w riting
te nded to fa ll by the wayside in the 1990s, w hen the "new cultural hi sto ry"
beca m e w id ely fashionable within the d iscipline, and ea rlier com mitm ents
to social a nd social science hi story decl in ed in promin ence and influ ence (I
di scuss th e ri se of the new cultural histo ry in chapte r IO). Wh e reas social
NARR A TI V E A ' D T 1-1 E F 0 UR TA S KS 0 F 1-1 I S T 0 RY - WR I T I N C t 79
science histori a ns took "ex pl a nati on" as th eir main co nce rn , new cu ltu ral
histo rians emphas ized "description" (prefe rably, "thi ck" desc rip tion) and
"inte rpre tati on." 2 Yet the olde r o pinio n - namely, th at the prima ry tas k of
histo ry-w ri ting is "ex pl anati o n"- nonet heless pers ists, eve n occasio na ll y
am ong advocates a nd practitio ne rs of the new cultural history. It persists as
well am ong ma ny theorists and practitione rs of many of the social sciences,
whose impact on histo ry ca n hardl y be discounted . But eve n ifth e opini o n
were no lo nge r held at all , it wou ld sti ll be wo rth in vestigating, because
some of th e theo rists a nd m ethodologists w ho foc used on ex planation ma n-
aged, so metim es unwitting ly, to cla ri fy eve n th e nonexplanato ry tas ks of the
histo ria n.
EXPLANA TION A D D ESC RIPTION
Th e view that ex pl anatio n is the centra l task of disciplina ry understa nd-
ing -w hether in hi story o r in any other discipline-was most forcefu ll y ex-
pressed by scholars w ho saw th em selves as soc ial scientists, a nd w ho viewed
science in th e lig ht of theo ries a rticulated by logica l empiri cist phi losophers. 3
In the methodologica l culture that fo ll owed from logical empiricism and
was influ ential in the pe ri od from the 1940s to the 1970s, ex planation had a
priv il eged pl ace . N ote that f he re use th e term explanation not in th e broa d
se nse of "to elucid ate" or "to ma ke cl ea r," but in the sense customa ry in
phi losophical and social science circles, w here in most contexts to "explain"
something m ea ns to say w hat caused it. That is , to "explain" someth ing, as
I am using the term in this chapter, is to offer an answer to the question ,
"W hy?" (using "Why?" in the se nse of"What caused it ?" or "What broug ht
it abo ut? "). I have no obj ecti o n to people using th e word explain in other
ways, fo r that is ce rtainl y the ir pri vilege. But if we a re to think cl ea rl y about
th ings, it is best that we not confuse diffe rent mea nings of the same word.
H ence m y foc us he re on a sing le mea ning of exp fanation. 4
It is easy to find ev idence of the privil eged place of ex planation, defin ed
as I define it he re, in Anglo-Ame rica n phil osoph y of science. Phil osoph ers
of science in th e r94os, 1950s, and 1960s we re overw helmingly co nce rn ed
wi th "explanation," which they viewed as the ans we ring of the "W hy?"
q uestion , taken in th e causa l sense. 5 Theo rists and m ethodologists of soc ial
science foll owed the lead of th ese phil osoph e rs of science. Many m ethod-
ologica l handbooks influ enced by the logica l empiri cist dispensatio n pro-
cla im ed expli citl y that the co re task of soc ial science is ex pl a natio n. Such
sta ndard tex ts as Stinchcombe's Constructing Social Th eories a re cl ea r o n
this poin t. 6 The handbooks are not always precise about w hat th ey m ea n
80 t P ART I J: NARRAT I VE AN D K N 0 W LEDGE
by expla nation, but usuall y the co re, if not the exclusive mea ning, is the a n-
swe ring of a causa l question. Con versely, within thi s m ethodol ogical tradi-
ti on little attenti on was paid to "description," wh ich was seen as essenti ally
uninteresting. For exa mple, the auth ors of A Research Primer for the Social
and Behavioral Sciences maintain that "case stud y" type research has o nly a
preliminary status: at most, it may suggest hypotheses for furth er research
and m ay possibly provide "anecdotal ev idence to illustrate m o re general-
ized findings." 7
A generatio n o r two of practicing hi sto ri ans appea r to have shared the
view that the task of hi sto ri cal resea rch and w riting is to ex plain hi stori-
ca l events, w hil e d iscount ing or ig no ring othe r possible tasks. To be sure,
to find out w hat hi sto ria ns reall y we re-a nd are - thinking about such
m atters wo uld require a resea rch project of impossible com plex ity, a nd the
res ults wou ld be problematic because hi stori a ns do not always think cl ea rly,
o r at all , abo ut issues that are so theo reticall y o riented. The best we can do
is look at w hat som e hi sto rians have said abo ut ex planation. I ask readers
to consider w hethe r they ag ree or not w ith the position that eac h historian
here quoted appea rs to be a rticul ating.
In a 196 1 essay, "Causatio n and the America n C ivil War," L ee Ben-
son mad e use of E. M. Forster's distinction betwee n "sto ry" a nd "plo t." A
"story," as defined by Fo rste r, is "a na rrative of events ar ranged in their
time-sequence": fo r exa mple, "The king di ed a nd then the queen died." As
fo r a plot, it is "also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality":
for example, "The king died and then the queen died of g rief." Benson built
on Forster's sto ry/ plot distinction as follows:
Using Forster's criteri o n, we can d efin e a histo ri a n as a plot-tell e r. U n-
like the chron icl er, the historian tri es to solve the mystery of w hy hu-
m an eve nts occurred in a pa rticula r time-sequence. His ulti mate goa l
is to uncove r and illumin ate th e motives of human beings actin g in
pa rticula r situati ons, a nd , thus, help m en to unde rsta nd them selves. A
hi storica l account, therefo re, necessaril y takes this fo rm: "Something
happened and then something else happened because . .. ." Put an-
other way, the histo ri an's job is to explain human behavior ove r time.
Consid er, second, E. H. Ca rr's assertion in What /:; Hi:;tory? that "the study
of hi sto ry is a study of causes" and hi s repeated cha rac te ri zation of a proper
historica l account as o ne that gives th e reade r "a coherent sequence of
cause and effect." Consid er finally Dav id Hackett F ische r's contention in
H istorians' Fallacies that " history-writing is not story-tel ling but problem
solving" a nd that historical narrati on is "a fo rm of explanation." 8
NA RR A TIVE AND TH E F OUR TASKS OF HI STORY-W RITI NG t 81
The statements by Be nson a nd Ca rr assume that the essenti al connections
in a histo ri cal account are causal, concern ed with a rticul ating what broug ht
about the next occurrence in the seq uence of eve nts. The revea ling of causa l
connectio ns is w hat I (a nd th ey) defin e as explanati on. F ischer's pos ition is
ambiguous, fo r hi s definition of explanati on embraces el ucidation ge nerally,
not just causal analysis. 9 Nonetheless, Fischer's insistence that histo ry is "not
story-telling but probl em solving" (a noti on also advanced, as we shall see,
by the French Annales hi storia n Frarn;ois Furet) seems to confirm the pres-
ence here, too, of a bi as towa rd explanation.
Of cou rse, Ca rr, Benso n, and Fischer a re onl y three hi sto rian s among
th ousa nds. But a bias towa rd ex planatio n seems to be present generally
among histo ri ans attracted by a nalytic phil osophy o r social science method -
ology. In short, it seems reasonabl e to rega rd th e statements just q uoted from
Ca rr, Benson, and Fischer as symptoms of a large r comm itm ent among
historians. O ther obse rve rs have noticed this sa m e commitment. Thus the
histo rian and theo ri st of hi story Paul Vey ne obse rved in hi s Writing History
that "there is . . . a w id espread id ea that a histori ography worth y of the
name and truly scientific must pass from 'na rrative' to 'ex pla natory ' hi s-
to ry." Simil a rl y, in the ea rl y 1980s the phil osopher Paul Ricoeur decla red,
on the basis of his study of Annales school hi sto ri ograph y, that in " hi story as
a sc ience ... th e ex planato ry fo rm is mad e auto nom ous." 10
The bias towa rd ex planatio n among some histo rians and -eve n
mo re-among soc ial scientists is som ething that itse lf needs to be histori -
ca lly understood. First, in the twentieth ce ntury much phil osophi ca l and
methodological thinking about science was influenced by the history of
Newtonian physics. Logical empiricism, and much of analyti c phil osophy
mo re generall y, took a fact conce rning that hi sto ry and co nve rted it into a
principle. Physical science in the eig htee nth and nineteenth centuries was
ma rked by attempts to extend Newton ian theory to eve r mo re phenomena.
W ith in th e Newtonia n framewor k , the cutting edge of sc ience was not to be
fo und in "me re" descripti o n. To take the best-known counte rexampl e, this
was unlik e th e situ atio n that prevail ed, befo re the Darwinia n revoluti o n, in
Li nn ea n natura l hi sto ry, w he re kud os were to be ga in ed by the discovery
and classification of ever m ore types of organism s (onl y after Darwin did
biological desc ripti o n come to be tied up with a n ex plan atory proj ect). In
contras t, the payoff in Newtonian ph ysics did not com e in th e orde ring of
phe nome na into desc riptive types. Rathe r, in exte nd ing Newtoni an th eory
by discovering mo re laws of nature (or by showing how laws already discov -
e red we re mo re ge nerall y o r intens ively ap plicabl e than had been prev iousl y
tho ug ht) , physicists were engaging in what was ultim ately a n explanato ry
task . In lay ing out laws of motio n, fo r exa mpl e, they \Ne re show ing w hy,
82 :t: PART 11'. NARRAT I VE AND KNOWLEDGE
under such-a nd -such physical cond itio ns, a ca nno nball wo uld foll ow such-
and-s uch a trajecto ry. Nor d id the re seem to be a n inte1p retive d im ension to
physics. Until th e 1890s th e ewto ni a n interpretive fram ewo rk was almost
unive rsall y held to be uneq uivoca ll y true. In sum, it was not perceived as
a n interpretive fram ewo rk at a ll , but as a rend ition of the way th e world
(absolute tim e, absolute space) rea lly is.11
Second, w hen we turn to the context of th e human sciences specifically,
we find that a st riking feat ure of secula r, mod ernist academic culture has
been its commitment to meta phors of ve rti cali ty-w ith surface rea lity play-
ing off aga in st a deepe r, hi dde n rea lity. (The m etap ho r of ve rti ca lity ca n
equ all y well be thoug ht of as a metapho r of differential visibility, a nd is akin
to such contrasts as those betwee n fo reground a nd ba ckgroun d a nd between
o n-stage a nd off-stage.) Th e use of such a metapho ri c, w hich was perhaps
m ost gla ringly ev id ent in Freudianism (id vs . culture) and Ma rxism (base vs.
superstructu re), was ubiquitou s in twenti eth-century soc ial sc ience. It is a
common trope of mode rnist in quiry th at things more o r less d irectl y obse rv-
able a re not the " rea l" reality at all. In this view, the task of inqu iry is to get
down to what is hidd en - to "unde rl ying" determina nts , to the "fundame n-
tal" feat ures of the situation. Metapho rs of vertica lity tend to p ri vil ege the
expla nato ry proj ect. Dav id Hume's demonstratio n th at we ca nnot obse rve
causation und erpin s the view that ex pl anatio n is "dee per" th a n "desc rip-
tio n." When the phi losopher of social science Philippe Van Pa riji s claimed
that "a ny explanation assumes the o pe ration of an underlying mechanism,"
he unwittingly reported th e presence of this same meta pho r. Discussing
Prog ress ive social tho ug ht in Ame rica, Richard H ofstadter detected the as-
sumption that "reality" is "hidd en, neglected, and off-stage," a simil ar trope
with an identica l funct ion .12 Whe n such metaphors a re in pl ace, the most
st riking insig hts will be those that cl aim to show how "on-stage" o r "su-
perstructural" things and eve nts a ri se from prev iousl y in visibl e eco nomic,
sociologica l, o r psychologica l co nditio ns. These in sights have a n expl a nato ry
cha racter, fo r th ey a re answe rs to th e questi on , "What caused it ?" i;
Base /supe rstructure metapho rs a re in no way contrary to th e adva nce of
knowledge, as lo ng as th ey continu e to produce new insig hts and as long as
th eir heuristic, limited character is k ept in view. But disciplines tend toward
sclerotic self-satisfaction. Me thodological rul es articulated in o ne context are
often in approp ri atel y applied to othe r contexts. Interpretive fram ewo rk s all
too ofte n come to be see n as die Sache selbst ("the thing itself").
Consid er th e bia s for expla nati o n as expressed in logica l e mpiricism. While
logica l empiri cism gave way lo ng ago to va rious neo- and post-positiv isms,
logica l empiri cist formu lati ons rem ain important for two reasons. First,
NARRAT I VE AND THE FOUR TASKS O F HI S T ORY-W RITIN G f 83
they express emphati ca ll y a nd with precisio n notio ns less clearly exp ressed
elsewhe re, a nd, second , m a ny no nphil osophe rs , includin g a few hi sto ri a ns,
still cling to logical empiri cist d icta of man y decades ago and trot th em out
whenever they want to appea r rigoro us a nd m ethodologica l. "
In the first sente nce of their once widely cited pape r, "Studies in the
Logic of Explanation" (1948), Ca rl H empel and Paul Oppen heim declared,
"To explain the ph eno mena in the world of o ur ex peri ence, to answer the
question 'w hy?' rath er than on ly the qu esti on 'w hat? ' is o ne of the foremost
obj ectives of empirical science." In a simil ar vein , E rnest age! asserted in
Th e Structure of Science that "it is the des ire for explanatio ns w hi ch are at
once systematic and controll able by fact ual ev id ence that ge nerates science;
and it is the o rga ni zatio n a nd classifi cati on of knowledge on th e bas is of
explanatory princi pies that is the distinctive goal of the sc iences." As a fin al
exa mple, consider the fo ll owing assertio n by a number of self-consc iously
"ri go ro us" historia ns, ap pea ring in a work th at aspired to set the agend a
for socia l science histo ry in the United States, th e Social Science Resea rch
Cou ncil 's "B ulletin 64": "The truly scientific functi on begin s where th e de-
scriptive fun cti o n sto ps. Th e scientific funct io n in volves not o nly identify-
ing and desc ribing tempo ral sequences; it also in volves ex plaining them." 15
None of these authors den ies th at "desc ripti on" is part of empirical sci-
ence; such a deni al wou ld, of course, be a nti -e mpiri ca l. But, by th e same
toke n, they all hold that "ex planation"-which they d efin e essentially as
I do here - is "the truly scie ntifi c functi o n." Given th e rheto ri cal prestige
that attach es to th e word scientific, we have no choice but to read th ese state-
ments as manifestations of a n explanatory bias.
Two mista ken prejudices supported-a nd to some extent continue to
support - this bias. O ne is th e prejudice fo r universa lity; the other is her-
meneutic na'tvete, or th e belief in imm acul ate perception.
T he prejudice for univ ersa li ty elevates explanation ove r "desc ri pti on"
because in th e logica l empiricist view "desc riptio n" is ti ed to the me rely
pa rticu lar, whe reas ex plan ation is seen as universa li za bl e. In the imm edi-
ate background to logica l empiri cism sta nds the still rema rkabl y influenti al
oppositi on, first proposed by Wilhelm W ind elband in 1894, betwee n th e
"no mothetic" sciences, concerned w ith the search for gene ral and in variable
laws, and th e "idiograph ic" sciences, whose focus of attention is held to be
pa rticular entities. 16 At least in prin ciple, Wind elband accord ed equal status
to nomothetic and idi ographic in vestigatio ns: in his eyes, both were scie nce
(Wissenschaft) . Pos itivists, in co ntrast, res tricted the name and status of sci-
ence to nom othetic in vestigatio ns, to those fields produ cing, o r cl aiming to
produce, gene ral laws.
84 + PART I I'. NARRATIVE AND KN 0 W LED CE
Because they often confuse "general laws" with other kinds of ge neraliza-
tions, histo ria ns sometimes miss the full fo rce of the id ea that a field is sci-
en tific onl y if it produces general laws . By generalization, historians usually
mean a broad statement that is nonetheless still tied to a particular historical
context. In histo rians' language, the following invented statement counts as
a general ization (whether the statement is co rrect does not concern us here}:
"As a result of the growth of towns and trad e, feudalism gave way to incipi-
ent capitalism in late medieval and early m od ern Europe." The "problem
of generalizatio n,'' as historians conceive of it, is usually the problem of how
to get from fra gme nta ry a nd confusin g data to such larger asse rti o ns. 17 But
such assertions are not what the log ical empiricists, or Windelband before
them, had in mind when they spoke of ge neral laws. In nomothetic science,
the desired gene ralizations transcend particular times and places, as in, for
instance, the following in vented statement: "Wheneve1; within a feuda l sys-
tem, towns and trade begin to grow [we would likely find enumerated fur-
ther conditions, alo ng with statements concerning th eir inte rrelations], then
feudalism gives way to capitalism." In short, the ge neralizations in question
a re laws (w hich can be formulated as "if ... then" statements) a nd assem-
blages of such laws brought together in theories.
The Windelbandian distinction between the particular and the ge neral
has ofte n been eq uated with the distinction between "desc ripti o n" and
explanation. Consid er the following passage, wh ich is the start of H em pel's
famous paper of r942, "The Function of General Laws in History":
It is a rather widely held opinion that history, in contradistinction to
the so-called physical sciences, is concerned with the description of
particular events of the past rat he r than w ith the search for general
laws which might gove rn those events. As a characte rizatio n of the
type of problem in which some historians a re mainly interested, this
view probably can not be denied; as a statement of the theoretical
function of ge nera l laws in scientific hi stori ca l resea rch, it is certainly
unacceptable. 18
As anyone willing to pause ove r this passage long enough to absorb its
dismissive iron y ca n see, Hempel is rea ll y making two moves here. First, he
rejects Windelband's suggestion that historica l resea rch and writing o ught
to be defined by its "id iographic" characte r -that is, by a concern with
particulars as distinguished from what is universal (namely, laws). Hempel
concedes that "some histo ria ns" (we should read this as "unfortunately, al-
most all historians"} are deeply interested in particulars. As a good logical
empiri cist, Hempel views such an interest as actua ll y quite trivial. What is
NARRATIVE AND THE FOUR TASKS OF HI STORY - WRITING + 85
truly serious, in his view, is the articul ation of lavvs and theories, to w hich
the reliable "desc ription" of particulars is related in the way that the pre-
lim inaries to sex a re related to sex itself. Second, Hempel link s "descripti on"
to the particular. These two moves add up to a profound downgrading of
"description," but a downgrading that Hempel seems to have regarded as so
implicitly justified that it required no explicit justification at all.
How so? Consider aga in the two in ve nted passages, offe red above, con-
cerning th e transition from feudalism to capitalism . Here is the first: "As
a resu lt of the growth of towns a nd trade, feudalism gave way to incipi -
ent capitalism in late medieval and ea rl y mod e rn Eu rope." This statement
has both "What?" and "Why?" components. C learly, the stateme nt is d e-
scriptive, answering a "What?" question, for it asserts w hat was the case (or
rather, what it alleges to have been the case) in late medieval and ea rl y mod-
ern Europe: towns and trade grew, feudalism gave way, capita lism began.
The statement is also explanato ry, for it offers an acco unt of what caused the
transition from feudalism to capitalism : it took place because of the growth
of towns and trade.
More precisely, the statement claims to offer a "description" and an ex-
planation of something in the past. I say that the statement claims to do so,
because it offers nothing that justifies o ur believing the claims. For exa mple,
it offers no ev id ence or arguments to conv in ce us that the growth of towns
and trade caused capitalism to emerge. To be su re, we might well find that
passage in a history textbook, whe re it is hardly possible to provide support-
ing ev idence. But the epistemologica ll y attentive rea der demands that un -
justified claims be justifiable (by ev idence and argument), even though there
may be grounds fo r the absence of ev idence and a rg um ent from a particular
historica l wo rk. Historians ought to be able to offer evidence and argu-
ments for the ir historical claims, and to do so in a specific and not m erely a
vague, ostensive way.
We shou ld also note that explanatory claims demand a different sort
of justification than do descriptive claims. Any claim that is causal-that
is, any claim co ncerning what brought about such-and-such a state of af-
fai rs-must in volve counte rfactual reasoning, as I contend below and in
chapte r 7 (althoug h my asse rtion here is hardly controversial among those
who have thought abo ut the matter) . Presumably, people will agree that the
claim that feuda lism 's g iving way to capitalism "resulted from" the growth
of towns and trade is true once they have been persuaded by a cons id eration
of the arguments for and against that propositi on.
Let us turn now to the second statement: "Wheneve r, within a feudal
system, tow ns and trade begin to grow, ... feudalism g ives way to capital-
ism ." This statement is very different from the first, for it "describes" no
86 t P A RT II: NARRAT I VE AND KNOWLEDGE
parti cula r reality. Rath e r, it states a uni ve rsal cl aim , a th eo reti cal cl aim. Its
relatio n is to conce pts: fe udal system, growth, cities , ca pita li sm. When it
is appli ed to a particul a r rea lity-say, Europe in th e fo urtee nth ce ntury
o r Down-in-the-Boo ncl oc ksl a ncl in th e twentieth-it has an expla natory
payoff, at least if the audi ence in questio n accepts th e stated laws as true
and agrees that the concepts in question are approp riate to that reality.
"Why was there a transitio n from feud ali sm to capitali sm in D ow n-in-the-
Boonclockslancl in the twenti eth century? Well , it is because wheneve r .. ."
And so we have a form of explanation th at has a po rtability, a universaliz-
ability, that m ere "desc ription" ca nnot have.
Where there is a pre judice for univ ersality, peopl e acco rd ex pl a nation a
hig he r valu e th a n "descripti on." It is widely held in ph il oso ph y a nd in social
science that o nl y knowl edge of the ge ne ral o r univ ersa l (as d isting uished
from the local o r particula r) is trul y sc ientific; all else is infe rio r. Th e preju-
dice for universality has roots in Greek thought, in Plato and (even more
influentiall y for science) in Aristotle. In hi s Metaphysicj· and elsewhere,
Aristotle co ntended that knowledge of uni ve rsa ls is the highest form of
knowleclge. 19 In the Poetics he noted th e implication for history, observing
that "poetry is som ething more phil osophica l and of g rave r impo rt than his-
tory, since its statements are of the nature rath er of universals, whereas those
of histo ry are sing ul a rs." 20 In th e m ode rn world the unive rsa li zing commit-
ment is still ali ve, alth ough in mod ern th oug ht it der ives more directly from
Hume and from K a nt than from Aristotle . Poetry has dropped out of the
circle of universal kn ow ledge, which is now restricted to math ematics and
th e natura l sciences-and social science insofar as it follows the natural sci-
ence m od el thus proj ectecl .21
So the first mistaken reaso n for a ge ne ral privil egin g of explanation
ove r "description" is the prejudice for unive rsality. The second reason,
he rm eneuti c na·ivete, lea ds not to th e elevati on of ex planatio n but to the
debasement of "desc riptio n." By herm eneuti c na·1·vete, I m ea n th e mi stake
of thinking of th e histo rical account as if it we re a "v iew from now he re,"
instea d of-as it decid edl y is-a view from some particular interpretive
perspective. Modernist academi c culture, pa rticularly when it cl aim ed the
prestige of science, tended to repress the interpretive dimension. Both Marx
and Freud we re noto riously prone to suc h rep ression, but their offe nse is fa r
from unique. O nce aga in, logica l empiri cism provid es an es pec iall y clear
ex press ion ofa widely held view. Consider H empel's "Fun cti on of General
Laws in Hi sto ry." Historia n-rea ders of H em pel's widely kn ow n paper wi ll
remember its ce nterpiece, th e cracking of a ca r radi ato r. H empel offe red an
expla natio n in a clecluctive-nomological form of the event, such that from
NAR R AT I VE AN D THE F OUR TA SKS OF H I S T OR \" -W RIT I NG t 87
certain initial a nd boundary conditions (fo r example, the bursting strength
of the radiato r metal, the temperature ove rni g ht), and from ce rta in ph ysi-
cal laws (for in sta nce, concerning th e freezing of water), we ca n d ed uce the
cracking of the car radiato r. The statement of initi al a nd boundary co ndi -
tions constitutes, of course, a "description." Ironi ca lly, at the encl of his paper
H empel cam e to the proto-Kuhnian conclus ion that the separation of"pure
desc ription" from "hypothetical generali zati on and theory-construction"
is unwarranted. Presumabl y, then, eve ry "desc ription" is already perm eated
by "theo ry," as fact is pe rm eated by paradig m in T o m Kuhn's image of sci-
ence. Yet, in dealin g with the radiator exa mpl e, H empel fa il ed to ta ke ac-
count of his ow n conclusion. Instead, he proceeded as if "pure description"
were ind eed possibl e.22
H ermeneutic na·ive te is intertwined with the noti on th at "desc riptio n" is
intr insica ll y uninte resting. When the hermeneutic dim ension is exclud ed,
"desc ription" gets red uced to data coll ection. On this point, positivism holds
to a positi o n that m ost historians w ill recogni ze as faulty. Yet eve n among
histori a ns of some sophistication, there remains a tendency to und errate
the force and scope of th e he rm eneutic insight th at all perception is per-
spectiva l. Richard J. Bernstein has usefull y (if schematicall y) d isting uished
between pre- and post-H eid egge ri an noti ons of th e so-ca ll ed "herm eneutic
circl e." In m a ny standa rd characteri zations, th e circle runs betwee n part
and w hole within the rea lity that the in vestigato r seeks to und ersta nd. For
in sta nce, a historian or a textual critic wi ll come to understand one sentence
of a docu m ent in lig ht of the docum ent as a whole . But in its w id er, post-
Heidegge ri an sense, the circle runs between the in vestigator and what is be-
ing in vesti gated. The investigation w ill be prompted by the traditions, com-
mitme nts, interests, a nd hopes of the in vestigato r, w hich w ill affect w hat
the investigato r discove rs. Conve rsely, the process of hi stori cal resea rch
and wr iting wi ll cha nge both the in vesti gator a nd the audi ence-at least,
it w ill do so ifth e inquiry is m ore than tr ivial .23 T o com e to g rips w ith the
interp reti ve as pect of inquiry, we must make a refl exive m ove, looking at
the way th e inquirer's point of view ente rs into th e inv estigatio n. The long
historiographic traditio n that holds to th e fi cti o n of a n objective narrator
feig ning to be silent before the truth of the past resists self-reflex ive sensi-
tiv ity.24 The tradition goes along with an unde rrating of the "descriptive"
project, which, as we sha ll see in relation to Fernand Braudel's g reat work,
The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World, is far more complex and
inte resting th an a herm eneuti ca ll y unawa re perspective acknowledges.
You wi ll have noted that I have enclosed th e term description in quota-
tio n marks, the intell ectual equi valent of rubber gloves. U nfortun ate ly, the
88 :f: P AR T I I '. NARR A T I \IE AN D K N 0 W LEDGE
wo rd is tied almost um bili ca ll y to the noti on of "mere desc ri ptio n"-to the
und errating of the project that it is m ea nt to name. T he proj ect is th e an-
swe ring of the questi on, "What was the case?" rather than the question that
is the hallmark of explanatio n, "Why was it th e case?" (o r "What caused
it ?"). Given the in finite va ri ety of perspecti ves from w hi ch we can write a
hi storical account, both projects embody a n infinite number of difficulties
and possibilities. 25
Acco rd in g ly, a term not so suggesti ve of the m e re copyin g of some exter-
nal m odel is ca ll ed fo r. Thus I favo r recounting as an altern ative te rm fo r des-
ig nating a nswe rs to the questio n "W hat was th e GJ.se?" Linked to th e F re nch
raconte1; the te rm encourages us to mod el the answe ring of suc h questions
on the telling of a ta le - in this case, a tal e whose truth we affirm by m ea ns
of va rious arg um ents, doc um entary a nd othe rw ise. The re is clea rl y more
th an o ne way to tell a tale; by the same token, there a re d iffere nt ways of con-
structing o r reconstructing the hi sto ri ca l past. Th e term recounting helps us
to app reciate that "desc riptio n" is not a neutral prelimina ry to th e real work
of ex planation , not m ere d ata collecti on. It helps us to see that we cann ot g ive
description and ex planation a d iffe renti al impo rtance in abstraction from
the aims and audiences of particular historical works.
Those who miss th e importance of recounting adopt (usuall y more or
less un co nscio usl y) o ne of two related positions. E ith e r, w hil e prese rv ing a
distinction betwee n desc ripti on and ex pla nation , th ey see d esc ription as un-
inte resting (as w hen it is ta ken to be a m ere prelimin a ry to sc ienti fic knowl-
edge); or they blend the two togeth er, but in such a way as to reinterpret
d esc ripti on as being nothing othe r than explanati on . Both positions exclude
recounting from the circl e of valued kn ow ledge.
Th e dep recation of recountin g is closely bound up w ith questions con-
ce rning narrative and its va lid ity. Narrative blends desc ri ption and ex pla-
natio n. O ne of the effects of the bias for explanation and of the related bias
fo r uni versa lity has bee n a dep recati on not just o f "desc ripti o n" but of nar-
rative. The celeb rated " rev iva l of na rrative" of th e last thirty yea rs had to
wo rk against the preva lent suspicion that na rrative as such is epistemologi-
call y defective. When Lawrence Stone remark ed in a 1979 a rticl e that nar-
rative "dea ls w ith the particular and specific rather than [with] the collective
and stati stical," he seems to have been m oti vated in thi s asse rti on (whi ch , as
stated, is fa lse) by the un easy thought that na rrative is in capable of the theo-
retical universality th at ex planation in te rms of laws a nd theo ri es promises,
wh ich wou ld mak e it scientific. Thus narrative's all eged rev ival was shad -
owed by a deeply held p rejudice wo rking aga inst narrative.26
f\: AR R AT I VE AN D TH E F 0 U R T AS K S 0 F HI ST 0 RY -WR IT I NG t 89
We can get at the questionable nature of these views by looking at th eir
articulation by Frarn;:ois Furet, who d ismissed both descriptio n and narra -
tive for reasons cl osely connected to the ph il osophi cal and soc ial scientific
prejudices noted above. In "From Narrative Histo ry to P robl em -O ri ented
History," o rig inall y publish ed in 1975, Furet ch ro nicl ed th e rise of a new,
analytica l, conceptual, "problem-o ri ented" hi sto riograp hy, and alleged a
"possibly defin itive d eclin e of narrative hi sto ry." 27 H e approved of th ese de-
velopments, for narrativ e, he held , is logica ll y and epistemologica ll y flawed :
" arration's particu la r kin d of logic-post hoc, e1go propter hoc- is no bet-
ter su ited to the new type of history th an th e eq uall y traditiona l m eth od of
ge neralizing from the sing ular." 28 Adm itted ly, Furet revea led him self to be
a di:;abu:;ed pos iti vist, fo r he den ied th at the transition from narrative hi sto ry
to "probl em-oriented h isto ry" suffices to brin g histo ry into "the sc ien tifi c
domain of the demonst rabl e." Such a goal, he suggested, is probably un-
attainable, but at least the transition brings history close r to it.29
To w hat ex tent is Furet's cha rac te ri zation of narrative adeq uate to rea l-
ity? Two points a re of inte rest. First, lik e Stone, Furet al ludes to na rrative's
supposed attachm ent to singu lars, but unlik e Stone, he g ives the attachment
an ex plicitly negative cast by linking it to the empirical erro r of fau lty ge n-
erali zatio n. But th e status of Furet's statement remains ambig uous, fo r he
did not actua ll y say (a ltho ug h hi s words appear to suggest) that narrativ e
and ge ne rali z in g from the sing ular have some specia l affinity fo r each other.
M uch cleare r is Furet's othe r asse rti on, namely, that na rrative fo llows the
(il )logic o f po:;t hoc, e1go propter hoc. Th e same asse rti on has bee n m ade by
some other w riters as well - including th e literary theo rist Roland Barthes,
whose ow n brief comm ents on the all eged ly fa ll ac ious cha racter of na rrative
help to g loss Furet's rath e r clipped statement. In an influenti a l essay,
" Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives" ( 1966), Barthes held
that na rrati ve is cha racte ri zed by a '"telescopin g' of logic and tempora li ty":
"Eve rything suggests ... that the ma in spring of na rrative is p recisely the
co nfusion of co nsecuti on a nd conseq uence, w hat comes after being rea d in
nar rati ve as what is caused by: in w hich case narrative wo uld be a systematic
ap plicatio n of th e logica l fa ll acy denounced by Scholasticism in the fo rmul a
post hoc, e1go propter hoc." 30 Even though Barthes's statement m ay seem
puzz ling at first read ing, the basic point is simple. Barthes is suggesting that
nar rativ e is a seque nce of stated causes and effects. In short, he is making the
sa me assertion about nar rative that, above, we found Lee Benson and E. H.
Ca rr mak ing about histori g rap hy. By th e same tok en, he is suggesti ng that
narrativ e is essentia ll y explanatory.
90 t PART II'. NA RR A TI VE AND KNOWLED GE
Another causal /explan ato ry constru al of narrative is to be found in the
work of the Ame ri can philosopher Morton White . In his FoundationJ· of His-
torical Knowledge ( 1966), he conte nd ed that "a narrative cons ists prima r-
ily of singular explanato ry statements," and that a history is "a logica l con-
junction of statements most of which are singula r causa l assertions." Wh ite
distinguished history from chronicle, which is "a con junction of noncausal
singu lar statements." H e th en complicated matte rs by an explicit admission
that a history may contain elements of chronicl e and still be a history: this is
why a hi storical na rrative is onl y "p rim a ril y" causal or explanatory.31 But he
did not go on to co nsid er what impact the presence of ch ro nicl e might have
o n the structure of hi stori ca l narrative . Implicitl y, he thought of chronicle
as mere chronicle, just as histo rical "desc riptio n" tends to bear the g uise of
"me re descriptio n." Histo ry proper is causa l/expla nato ry.
The Barthes a nd Furet fo rmul ation of this idea is easi ly subjected to em-
pirical test, for it makes a clear stateme nt about the extant things that we
call na rratives. Narrative, Barthes suggested, confuses "consecution" and
"conseq uence," lead in g us to see whatever it is that comes "after" X as be-
ing "caused by" X . Barthes's suggestion would be correct if narrative were
ind eed a cha in of stated causes and effects, A caus in g B causing C causing D,
and so o n. If narratives act uall y do in vite their reade rs to eq uate co nsecu-
ti ve ness with conseq uence, post hoc with propter hoc, it fo llows that narrative
does function as a chain of causes and effects. Further, if this is the case,
narrative will be adequately unde rstan dable in terms of the category of ex-
planation alone. Co n versely, if we do not find th at th e post hoc, e1go propter
hoc fallacy is prom inent in actual narratives, this will suggest the need for
prec isely that attention to nonexpla nato ry el ements in narrative that the
recounting /e xplanation distinction encourages.
As it turns out, instances of causa l-tempo ral confusion in narrative
a re fairly difficult to find. Adm itted ly, in a perhaps unexpected narrative
sphe re, the cinem::i, Barth es's suggestion is illumin ating, fo r it casts light
o n how viewers make sense of film action. Wh en a came ra shot shows one
person pointing a gun a nd firing it, and the next shot shows a nother person
falling to the ground and lying motionl ess, ski ll ed viewe rs normally ass ume
that the second person fell to the ground not only afte r th e firing of the gun
but also because of its firing . But the cinema is in some ways a spec ial case of
narrative, fo r there is usually no nar rator's voice telling us the story; instead,
the film feigns to show the story. In conseq uence, cinema seems to depend
espec iall y heavily for its cohe rence on viewer-inferred causal connect i ons . 3~
In w ritten fiction it is d ifficu lt to find instances of causal-tempora l co nfu-
sion in the absence of a nar rato r of a ce rtain so rt - o ne who, perhaps out
NARRATIVE t\ND THE FOUR T ASKS OF HI S T ORY-WR IT! 1 G :f: 9 1
of a stylistic comm itm ent to parataxis, prefers to insinuate causal relations
in stead of statin g them out rig ht. 31 Written fiction thus makes clear to us that
causal-tempora l con fu sion is not an essential part of fictional narrative but
resu lts instead from the na rrato r's adoption of a particular style of narra-
tion. As for historiography, we can show clearly that, con tra Furet, causal-
tempo ral co nfusi on arises not from the act of narration itself but from lapses
in argume nt or justification-the third aspect of the histo rical account (a nd
th e third task of histo ry-w riting), beyond recounting a nd explanati on.
In sho rt, it is an epistemologica l-methodologica l lapse o n the part of the
historian-not a probl em inh erent to na rrative-that leads to post hoc e1go
propter hoc mistakes. Consid e r th e follow ing passage, from Nathan Rosen-
berg and L. E . Birdzell Jr.'s H ow the West Grew Rich: "It is easy to imagin e
business enterprises formed amo ng compa ni ons who learned to trust eac h
other at wa r or at sea, fo r it happens often enough in our own tim es. (The
gene ration which fought the American C ivil War in th eir twenties, for ex-
ample, in vented the epitom e of enterp rises not based o n kinship, th e mod-
ern industrial co rporatio n, in their forties.)" 34 In the second , parenthetical
sentence, Rosenberg a nd Birdzell appea r to be m a king two distinct state-
ments . They tell us stra ightforwa rdl y that the in vention of the modern in-
dust rial co rpo ratio n follow ed the C ivil War expe ri ence. At the sa m e time,
they in sinuate that th e in ve nti o n of the modern industria l co rpo rati on was
caused by the C ivi l War expe ri ence. L::iy reade rs may find nothin g wrong
with this piggybacking of a n insinuati on o n a n assertio n. But competently
trained professional historians, when they encounter such a move, are li kely
to become suspicious and to ask for ev idence. For exam pie, how man y of the
inven to rs of the modern industrial corporation actua ll y served in the C ivil
W::ir? How close a connection ca n be drawn between suc h expe ri ence a nd
their fo un d ing, two decades late r, of corporati ons? What other factors might
have prompted the development of co rporatio ns? The causa l-temporal con-
fusio n in this text has nothing to do w ith th e "particular logic" of narrative.
It res ults from failure to ad he re to a tacit rul e in professional historiograph y
aga inst ambig uous assertio n. O ne sees here an a rgume ntative lapse, not th e
man ifestat ion of an intrinsic property of narrative.
To sum up: narrative itself is not a scientifically disreputable appl ication
of the fallacy of post hoc, e1go propter hoc.35 This is not surprising. What is
su rprising is that a view co ntradicted by the read ing of almost a ny good
narrative hi sto ri a n -Thucyd ides, fo r example-has been asse rted without
se rious cha ll enge. Perhaps this indicates the depth of the bias for ex plana-
tio n. The soc iologist Arthur Stinchcombe suggested that "as the profes-
sional tone has taken over hi sto ry (from th e prais ing and damn ing tone ... ),
92 t PART II: NARRAT I VE AND KNOWLEDGE
the no rmal lingu istic effect is to make the narrative appear causal." 36 Con-
cluding that narrative is more than causal assertion, we are force<l to attend
to what is other than causal asse rtion in it.
NARRATIVE AND BRAUDEL'S MEDITERRANEAN
Furet's attempt to deny that narrative history is a legitim ate form of
knowl edge-prod uctio n is closely connected to the distinction between
na rrative histo ry and "problem-oriented histo ry." But Furet did not o rigi-
nate th e distinction: it was proposed by Fernand Braudel in the same yea r,
1949, that the first ed iti on of his The Mediterranean and the Medite/'/'anean
World appeared . At sta ke in the distinction betwee n na rrative history and
problem-oriented hi sto ry is a scientifi c mythology that lo ng shadowed the
so-called Annales school of French histo rians (discussed in chapter 10). In a
rev iew of C harl es-Andre Julien's book Les Voyages de decouverte, Braudel
articulated the contrast between an histoire-recit th at "too often hid es the
background of econom ic, social, and cultural facts" and an histoire-probleme
that "d ives deeper lplonge plus loin J than eve nts and m en, a histo ry gras ped
within the framework of a living problem or of a se ri es of living problems
clearly posed a nd to w hi ch eve rything that fo ll ows is subo rdinated, the joy
of recounting lraconterl o r of bringing the past back to life, th e delights of
making the g reat dead live again." 37 H ow are we to characte ri ze the histoire-
probleme th at Braudel recommended? J. H. H exte r offe rs an answer in a
wittily parodic a rticl e on Braudel. H exte r rig htl y id entifies histoire-probleme
as history in which the question "W hy ?"- in the sense of "What caused
it ?"- is uppermost in the historian's mind . In short, it is history that looks
for explanatio ns. As a n example of histoire-problerne, H exter cited Edmund
Mo rgan's article, "The Labor Problem at Jamestow n, 1607- 18," which set
out to answer the question w hy, in a colony that by 16 1 r was on the ve rge of
extinction, the coloni sts we re to be found "at their da il y and usual! workes,
bowling in the streetes" in stead of raising the crops needed to keep them
alive. 38
H exter had to go to Morgan for a n exa mpl e of the kind of question that
histoire-probleme asks because The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World
is not histoire-probleme.
First, the work poses no sing le, ove rriding causa l question. For example,
it does not ask th e question, "What caused 'the Mediterranean world' to
come into ex istence?" Of course, eve n to think of thi s question is to rec-
ogni ze the ext reme difficulty of answe rin g it. What about causa l questions
of a more specific sort? H exte r cited three insta nces: "W hy did banditry
NARRATIVE AND THE FOUR TA S KS OF HI STORY - WRITING + 93
flourish in the Mediterranean towa rd the end of the sixtee nth century?"
"What acco unts fo r th e consid erabl e flood of C hri stia n renegades into the
service of the Turk a nd the Barbary states?" "Why did the Spanish ulti -
mately expel the Moriscos?" 39 There a re man y m o re, but seen in relati on
to the wor k as a whole-1'375 pages in the English translation-they play
a relatively minor role. They appear intermittently. We may read for sev-
eral pages-even, exce ptionall y, for a dozen pages o r m o re-a nd not en-
counter the answering (or eve n the asking) of a "Why?" question . Then a
questio n a nd pe rhaps an answer will ap pea r. But o ne has no sense that the
explanatio n, whether offe red o r o nly ca lled fo r, in any way determines the
genera l shape of the text. The expla nations seem embedded in something
much larger that is not ex planatio n. For exa mpl e, in the first three sections
of chapter 1 of part r, which ta ke up sixty pages in th e English text, I find
only three clea r instances of explanation-seeking questions.4° While Braudel
poses such questions somewhat more frequently elsewhere in the book , the
early sections are not greatly atypical. 41
Second, we are concerned not simply with the intermittency ofBraudel's
explanatio ns but also with th e range of the explanatio ns offe red . I have al-
ready noted th e affi nity betwee n explanati o n a nd metap hors of ve rticality.
The metaphors are obviously prese nt in Braudel's conceit that th ere exist
three hi sto rica l leve ls: the superficial, fast-moving, eas il y visible level of
event; the m o re profound a nd slowly moving level of conjuncture; and
the deepest geohistorical o r structural level, which ha rdly moves at all and
whose impact on human history is easily missed.4 2 Moreover, he accepted
the challenge that the conceit offers to the historian of explaining by con-
necting one level to another. His most explicit statement of this aim oc-
curs at the end of th e preface to the second ed ition ( 1: r6), and he also sug-
gests it in his rev iew of Julien. But as eve ry serious commentator o n The
Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World has obse rv ed, Braudel failed to
conn ect the different levels. H ex te r noted that histoire-probleme provid es an
answe r to t h e pro bl em " o f b on d'mg event, coniuncture,
. an d structure. " 43
But th e answer is refused- to such a deg ree that th e sociologist C laud e
Lefort, rev iewing The Mediterranean in 1952, saw in it a "fear of causality":
"The condemnation of the causal relation lea ds rBraudel] into a pointillism
that seems contrary to the sociological inspiratio n of the work." 44
Braud el himself seems to have recogni zed that The Mediterranean did not
fit the histoire-probleme m old. In the new introdu ction to part 3 written for
the second ed iti on, he suggested that recent resea rch has m ade it possible
fo r histo ri ans to choose from " two fairly well establish ed 'chains"' in recon-
st ructing the past-the cha in of econom ic events and co njunctures, and
94 t PAR T I I: N AR R A T I V E AND KNOWL E DG E
the chain o f politi ca l events. A full y ex pl anatory hi story would presum ably
reduce one cha in to th e othe r. But he w ent on to asse rt th at "for us, there
w ill always be two ch ains - not o ne" (2 :902). In the sa m e introd u ctio n, he
refe rs to th e "bedrock of hi sto ry" th at is geog ra ph y, and th en im medi ately
suggests that "the m etaph o r of the ho urg lass , ete rn all y reve rsibl e" wo uld be
a "fitting image" of the work (2: 903). In short, he himself d econstructed the
m eta ph or o f ve rtica lity th at accompa ni es hi s noti on of histoire-probleme.
T o w hat genre, then, d oes The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean
Wo rld bel ong , if not to the profes si onal ge nre of histoire-probleme? Follow-
ing Brau de I him self (2: 12 38), H ex ter suggested th at it is "tota l" or "global"
history. 45 This charac teri zati o n begs to be fill ed in. Tn anothe r impo rtant
contributio n to th e Braud el literature, H ans Kelln e r showed th at the total-
iz in g as pirati ons (inev itably unfulfill ed) of Th e Mediterranean help to iden-
tify it as an "a nato m y" o r "Menippean satire." In his auth oritativ e-and
self-refl ex ive-account of this lite ra ry form (the best-know n m anifestation
of which is perhaps Robert Burton's A natomy of Melancholy), N o rthrop Frye
noted som e of its m ost striking features: it engages in "dissection o r a naly-
sis"; it is "loose- jointed "; it m a nifests "v iole nt dislocations"; a nd it is apt,
th ro ug h th e " piling up [ofJ a n eno rmo us m ass of e ruditi on," to turn into
an "encycl o pedic fa rrago" to whi ch "a m ag pi e instinct to coll ect fac ts is not
unrelated." % E ve n th ose who have onl y leafed th ro ug h Th e Mediterranean
should feel a se nse of recognitio n. But the a natom y, as Frye also pointed
out, is "a loose-j ointed narrative fo rm ," manifesting "v iolent di slocations
in the customar y logic of narrative." 4i In sh o rt, The Mediterranean and the
Mediterranean World is a w ork of narrati ve history.
It would be an understatem ent to say that The M editerranean is not usu-
a lly see n as narrative. But thi s is because narrative is usuall y ta ken to m ean
"the organi zati on of m ateria l in a chro nologica ll y sequentia l o rd e r," to
qu ote L aw rence Stone.48 Stone fo ll ows a ve nerabl e traditio n. His definiti o n
of narrati ve has roots in A ri stotl e's Poetics, w he re A ristotl e g ives primacy
to pl ot (muthos) ove r the oth er elem e nts m aking up a tragedy. 49 But if, as is
usuall y d one, we tak e " pl ot" to m ea n the sequence of ac tio ns within a w ork ,
the notio n o f plot focuses on o nl y o ne aspect o f na rrative. "Acti on" implies an
agent, a nd it also implies a setting within which action takes place. Accord-
ingly, to co nsid er "chronologicall y sequ ential o rd er" as the d efinin g feature
of na rrati ve is to engage in a n a rbitra ry exclusion. T o be sure, "traditio na l"
hi sto ri ograph y d oes tend to foc us on ac ti on, and in consequence hi sto ry has
o ften bee n th oug ht of as the sto ry o f ac tio ns- as the historia rerum gestarum .
But we shoul d not allow w hat is o nl y an as pect of na rrative to d efin e na rra-
tive as a w hole.
NA RR A T I V E AN D TH E F OU R T AS K S O F H I S T O RY - W RITIN G :f: 95
Mo re th a n a centur y ago, H enry Jam es ca ll ed into qu esti o n "the old -
fas h ioned d istin cti o n betwee n th e nove l o f cha rac te r a nd th e novel of in -
cident." 50 T he d iffe rence between the two extrem es is a m atter o f deg ree,
not of k ind. We ca n im agine a co ntinuum , running fr om fas t- paced pl ots of
in cid ent (as in , say, some T V cop show se ri es) to th e novels of, say, H enry
James. But the distincti on between incid ent and ch a rac ter must be furth e r
broken d ow n. Building o n the Russia n Fo rm ali st traditi on, th e narrati ve
theo rist Seym our C hatm an di sting ui shed betwee n ac ti o n (ca rri ed o ut by a n
age nt) a nd " ha ppening" (an impingem ent on a cha rac te r). We mu st di stin -
g ui sh furt he r between cha rac ter (whi ch ac ts) a nd settin g (w hi ch impinges).
Th e inte rac ti on of th e fo ur elem ents prod uces th e na rrati ve. Two of th e
el em ents (actio n a nd h a ppening) occur; two (c ha rac ter and settin g) simply
are. T he fi rst two we ca n ca ll events; th e last two (to in ve nt a te rm), existents.
(Of course, ex istents can com e into being, but thi s is no d eni al of the distin c-
ti on betwee n the em e rge nce of an ex istent, w hich falls und er the heading
of event , an d th e ex istent itself. ) Emph as is o n one of the fo ur el em ents per-
fo rce li m its the attenti o n g ive n to the oth ers. O ne mig ht express this id ea by
m ea ns o f a fo rm ul a:
(A H ) x (CS) =k
(actio n times ha ppening [th at is, "eve nts" I tim es cha rac te r times setting l th at
is, "existe nts"] equa ls a consta nt).51 It is simpl y tradition , w hen it is not un-
in fo rm ed prejudice, th at in sists on id enti fy ing na rrati ve hi sto ry w ith ac tio ns
and h a ppenings, for ch arac ters and settin gs can a lso in principle se rve as the
foc i of a na rrati ve as he re d efin ed .
Acco rd ing ly, th e cru cial q uesti on to as k , in dec id in g w heth er a g ive n
wo rk is best seen as an instance of na rrati ve histo ry, is not, " Ts thi s text o r-
ga n ized in a chronologica ll y sequ enti al o rd e r ?" It is rathe r, " H ow pro mi -
nent in th e tex t a re th e elements of na rrati ve?" In The Mediterranean and
the Mediterra11ean World, th ey a re ind eed promin ent, even th ou g h onl y
pa rt 3, d ea ling w ith th e "brilli ant sur face" (2: 903) constituted by politi ca l
eve nts, is ch ro nologicall y o rd ered . Succin ctl y put, The Mediterranean and
the Mediterranean Wo rld is a wo rk of na rrative histo ry th at (exce pt in pa rt 3)
fo cuses not on events but o n existents. Braud el turn ed th e historica l setting
a nd th e di visio ns a nd subd ivisions of that setting into a vast coll ecti on of
ch a rac te rs. Th ese cha rac te rs m ak e u p the single, a ll -embrac ing cha rac te r
tha t is "th e Med iterranea n a nd the Med ite rra nea n wo rl d" itself.
Ma ny of Braud el's com m entato rs have pointed out hi s pe ncha nt fo r pe r-
so nifi cati on. In a n ea rl y review Lu cie n Febvre rem a rked that Braudel p ro-
96 t PART II: NARRATIVE AND KNOWLEDGE
m oted the Mediter ranean to "the dign ity of a hi sto rical personage." H exter
observed that Braudel popu lated the longue duree w ith "non-people pe r-
sons-geographi ca l entiti es, features of th e terrain"; towns have intentions;
the Med ite rranea n is a protago ni st; eve n ce nturi es are personali zed . Kinser
noted that Braude l treated space as "a human actor energetic and prompt
to change costu m e." 52 But we do not need to depe nd on the commentators,
for Braud el himself was ex plicit about w hat he was doing. Co nsid er th e fol-
lowing passage, in th e preface to the first edition: " Its character is complex,
awkward, and unique. It cannot be conta ined w ithin our m easurem ents
and classifications. No simple biography beginning w ith date of birth ca n
be written of this sea; no simpl e nar rative of how things happened wo uld
be appropriate to its histo ry .... So it w ill be no easy task to d iscover exactly
what th e hi stor ica l character of the Medite rranean has been." (1: 17)
The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World is best seen, th en, as a
vast characte r analysis, in w hich Braud el brok e down "the Med iterranean,"
w hich begin s as an undifferentiated entity, into its constituent parts, w ith
growing attention ove r the course of th e book to the hum an processes car-
ried out within th is geoh isto ri ca l space. By th e time he was throug h, "the
Med iterranean" had become a mass ively differentiated entity. Thi s is w hat
we lea rn: that "the Med iterranean speaks w ith man y voices; it is a sum of
individua l histori es," as Braudel wrote in th e preface to the 1972 English
ed itio n (1: 13). The Mediterranean tell s us what "the Med iterranean" was
and, to some extent, what it still is. Braudel's explanations a re co ntributi ons
to this end. The work is a vast recounting, into wh ich ex planati ons are stuck
like pins into a pin cushion. It is likewise a vast na rrative, although m o re
an anatom iz ing nar rative of character than a sequential narrative of action.
THE FOUR TASKS OF HISTORY-WRITING
The force and implicatio ns of this chapter's d isti nction between description
and expla natio n, and of its demonstration that Braudel's The Mediterranean
is in fact a wo rk of na rrative, a re likely to be misunderstood by m any read-
ers. Some m ay ca rry in th eir mind s awa reness of a n ea rlie r po lemic, heav ily
marked by political comm itments, conce rning the desirability or und esir-
ability of " nar rative histo ry." 53 Some wi ll be inclined , wrongly, to see my
attack on positivism's a priori p ri vileging of expla nation ove r description
as, in some way, a rejecti on of th e legitim acy and importance of histo rians'
explanato ry effo rts. Finall y, some wi ll mi sunde rstand the nat ure of the d is-
tinctions that the chapte r poses. They a re conceptual d istinctions, aiming at
clarity of thought abo ut histo rical research and writing. T o say that we ca n
NARRATIVE A ' D THE FOUR TASKS OF HI S TOR\' - WRIT I NC t 97
make a distin ction in tho ught is not to say that we ca n always clearly mark
out in practice the elements thus distinguished. In fact, th e distinctio n be-
tween descripti on and expla nati on is partly reade r-co nstructed, but this is
no denia l of its rea lity, fo r th e reader's active in volve m ent with th e text is a
necessa ry co nditi on of und erstanding .
As suggested at the beginning of this chapte r, descriptio n and explanati on
are but two of th e fou r tasks of hi sto ry-w ritin g . Describing some aspect of
historical reali ty-telling w hat was th e case- is the first task. A wo rk
in which this aim dom in ates wi ll inev itably be o rde red in na rrative form,
as defined here - that is, hi sto ri ca l actions, happen ings, cha racte rs, a nd
settings w ill play (but in va rying proportions) a prom inent role in the text.
Follow ing o n desc ri ptio n is th e explaining of som e aspect of histo ri ca l rea lity.
If ex pla natio n becomes the hi sto ri an's main conce rn, the work, in its foc us on
connecting expfanans and expfanandum, may well dive rge from a primar il y
narrative form (a lt houg h narrative does accomm odate explanati ons).
Third, the historia n claim s th at his desc ripti ons and ex planati ons a re
true: oth erw ise, we wou ld conve nti onally rega rd him as something other
than a histo ri an (a place-keepe r; a propagandist; a li a r; a foo l . .. ). Thus
the historical accou nt has a third aspect, t hat of a1gument or justification .
It is qu ite possible fo r a histo rian to turn as id e from offe ring a first-order
represe ntatio n of the past: he mig ht th ink , fo r example, that e noug h fi rst-
orde r representatio ns, offering in each case some combinatio n of descr iption
and explanatio n, have already been proposed. In such a case , the histori a n
might well become fixated on justifying a particu la r represe ntation of th e
past against one o r m o re co ntrary represe ntations. H ere his acco unt wou ld
have the fo rm of an exposito ry argum ent. A lternati vely, the historian mig ht
come to fixate o n "the sources," with description a nd expla nation aga in re-
ced ing into the background as he focuses on offering a co mm enta ry on, o r
a nalysis of, th e so urce texts. H ere th e historian's acco unt wou ld begin to
look a lot li ke li tera ry criti cism. In both in stances the offer ing of a narrative
of the past wou ld recede into the bac kground, fo r the elements of na rrati ve
(c haracter, actio n, sett ing, and happe ning) wou ld be presupposed rath e r
tha n laid o ut in detai l.
Finall y, the historian necessarily inte1prets the pas t, fo r she both views it
fro m a particular prese nt pers pective and addresses her wo rk to peo pl e in
the present o r future. Perspective perm eates all that the histo ri an writes: we
have access to no regard de fin du monde, a nd eve n if we did, it wou ld be one
inte rpretatio n amo ng othe rs, God's interpretation as distingu ished from all
the rest. Since the histo ri ca l accou nt is necessari ly w ri tten from a present
perspective, it is always conce rned with th e meaning of hi sto ri ca l rea li ty fo r
98 t P A RT JI: NARRAT I VE AN D KNOWLEDGE
peopl e now a nd in the future-eve n if, o n an ex pli cit level, it denies that it
has a ny suc h concern. 54 To the extent that th e conce rn w ith prese nt m ea ning
com es to the fo re, th e hi stori an becom es not simpl y a hi sto ri a n but a social
o r intell ectual critic as well. H e re, too, the hi sto ri ca l accou nt may well cease
to be primarily a nar rative of past events a nd existents.
The li mits of this set of distinctions need to be kept in mind. The claim
is not th at the resulting schema is suffic ient to underpin a complete a nalysis
of wo rk s of hi sto ry but o nl y th at th e fo ur interrelated tasks that it id entifies
a re ve ry impo rta nt fo r the hi sto ri ograp hi c ente rprise.
Cons ide r th e fo ll owing seq ue nce of stateme nts exce rpted from a freshman
coll ege history textbook - a seque nce that, both in th e usua l defi niti on and
in th e definition offe red here, is a n in stance of na rrative hi sto ry:
1. In 1839, alo ng w ith the othe r g reat powers, Britain had sig ned a
treaty g ua ranteei ng th e neutrality of Belgi um .
2. Th e Ge rm a ns planned to attack France through Belgium.
3. Th ey d emand ed of th e Belgian gove rnm ent permission to se nd
troops across its terri tory . ...
+ Belgium refused .. ..
5. Th e ka iser's legions bega n pouring ac ross the fronti e r la nyway l.
6. Th e Briti sh fore ig n secretary imm ediately went befo re Parliament
a nd urged that his countr y rall y to th e defense of internatio nal law
a nd the protection of small nations.
7. Th e [British] cabinet se nt an ultim atum to Be rlin de m a ndin g that
Germany respect Belg ia n neutrality, and th at the Ge rm ans g ive a
sati sfacto ry reply by midnight.
8. Th e kaiser's ministers offe red no answe r save military necessity. . ..
9. As the clock struck twelve, Great Bri ta in and Ge rm a ny we re
at wa r. 55
Each of the nin e statements tell s w hat was the case. But, tak en coll ectively,
th ey a re more than just a seq uence of descriptions, fo r they offer a n a nswer
to the explanatio n-seeking question , "W hy did Britain go to wa r aga inst
G erm a ny?" O nce reade rs have passed throug h the desc ripti ons, they w ill
be positio ned to see that the text offe rs an ex planation as well. (One of the
d ifficu lti es that weaker students have in read ing such textbooks li es in their
fai lu re to make th is lea p.)
Expla nation is dependent o n desc ri ption. To ex plain, as defined he re, is to
give a n answer to the question, "What caused it ?" In o rde r to as k the ques-
NA RR A T I VE AND THE F 0 U R T ASKS 0 F H I S T 0 RY - W RITI NG t 99
tion, w e need an "it." Thus the qu esti on, "What was th e case?" is primal:
it precedes th e expla natio n-see king qu estio n. But th e ex pl a nations offe red
will themselves be recountings of what was the case. Assu m e that a n aud i-
ence has bee n brought to a n elementary un de rsta nd ing of, say, th e Fre nch
Re volution. The aud ience has been offe red an outlin e of the Revoluti on :
that it bega n in Fra nce in r 789 w ith the m eeting of th e Estates-General; that
its first important sy mboli c event was the Oath of the T enni s Court; th at the
Estates-Gene ral becam e, soon th erea fter, the at ional Assembly; that the
storm ing of the Bastille ha ppened soo n afte r that; that the re was a wa r a nd
a T error, a nd so on. Pa rt of thi s reco untin g w ill include ex pl a natio ns of hi s-
tor ica l eve nts and ex istents. The ex pl a nations, o nce accepted by a n aud ience
as persuasive, w ill becom e part of its im age of w hat was th e case - part, that
is, of a represe ntati on of the past. But images of w hat was the case always
make possibl e furth e r explanatio n-see king q uestio ns. T hese furth er expla -
nations, if accepted as persuasive, w ill also e nter into th e im age of w hat was
th e case a nd w ill make possibl e still more explanatio n-see king questions.
Acco rd ingly, w hat cou nts as a n expla nation in one context m ay count
as a recounting in th e next. Th e process is lik e the w inning of la nd from
th e Zu ide r Zee. First, th ere is that pa rt of the hi sto ri ca l acco unt that the
audi ence- whatever audience it is, a mateurs o r the m ost "advanced" pro-
fess iona l hi sto ri a ns-s impl y accepts as w hat was the case, not (o r not a ny
lo nger) ca lli ng it into questio n. This is like land won from the Zuider Z ee
a nd now solid ly unde r cultivati o n. Second, th e re is th at part that th e au-
dience is inclined to ask further explanati on-seeking questions abo ut.
Th is is like the prese nt shoreline of the Zuider Zee. Pe rsuasi ve answers to
ex pla nation-see king questions a re lik e pumps a nd dikes that w ill turn th is
pa rt, too, in to d ry la nd - into w hat is accepted as what was th e case. The re
is nex t that part-not kn owledge but nescience - that is too far fr om ac-
ce pted recountings to pe rmit explanation -seekin g questions, but wh ich m ay
become an ob ject of ex planatio n in th e future. H e re we have the dee per
pa rts of th e Zuider Zee, still hidd en beneath th e waters. Fin all y, not to be
fo rgotten, the re is the w id er society with in w hi ch hi sto ria ns w rite. Thi s is
like the North Sea, w hose storms m ay ove rwhelm th e dikes and inundate
pa rt o r all of what had bee n won , with appa rent secu rity, fo r cu ltivati on.
W hen this happens, the old descriptio ns, a nd th e expla nati o ns subsidiary to
them, w ill come to seem m ista ken; o r, if not mistaken , misguided; o r, if not
misguid ed, at least irrel evant to th e impo rtant co nce rns of th e present and
futu re. In respo nse to the evac uation o f w hat o nce seemed to be th eir inh er-
ent persuasive ness w ill come demands for a revision of the past.
 I 00 + PART I I: NARRAT I VE AND KN 0 W LEDGE
Yet, fo r all th e interweavi ng of description and ex planation, the distinc-
tion betwee n th em is justified and impo rtant. Co nside r a nother passage
from the same textbook :
"The Com ing of the Revolution"
Faced with se ri ous chall enges to ce ntralized power from th e resur-
ge nt noble el ites as well as popularly based political move m ents in
th e eig hteenth century, on ly the ablest absoluti st rul er, possessing in
eq ual measure the ta lents of admin istrative ab il ity and perso nal de-
termination a nd vision, cou ld hope to rul e successfull y. Th e French
king, Louis XVI, possessed neith er of these tal ents. Louis came to the
throne in 1774 at th e age of twenty. H e was a well -intentioned but
du ll -witted and ineffectual monarch ....
Conditions in France wo ul d have taxed the abilities of even the
most tal ented king; fo r one w ith Louis XVl's perso nal shortcom ings,
th e tas k was virtuall y insurmountable. Three facto rs , in particula r,
co ntributed to the breakdown that prod uced revoluti o n.56
C lea rl y, on one level, this passage offers us a desc riptive recounting - a
ser ies of statements as to w hat th e authors believed was th e case in France
in th e pe riod preced ing the French Revoluti o n. But on anothe r level, the
authors are beginning to offer an expla nation as to w hy, in th eir view, the
revolution occur red. Whil e th e distincti on between description a nd ex pla-
nation is not always clea rl y marked w ithin histo ri cal texts, a cl ea r marker
is prese nt here, in the fo rm of a "contra ry-to-fact co nd itio nal,'' o r "coun-
terfactual." As ph il osophers have lo ng know n, statem ents about causation
presuppose counter factuality. A historian w ho states that C caused (led to,
occasioned, broug ht about) E is simul taneo usly im plying that w ithout C
th ere wo uld hav e bee n no E, all other things being equal. 07 In tellin g us that
"o nl y th e ablest absolu tist ruler ... could hope to rul e successfull y," the au-
th o rs of th e passage quoted above explicitl y int roduce th e cou nte rfactua lity
that is present at least impli citl y in all explanati o n. Historians wh o remain
unawa re of how explanation, in its appeal to contrary-to-fact cond itionals,
d iffers from desc ripti on trea d o n shak y epistem ologica l groun d .
Description a nd explanation do not ex ist alone; rath er, th ey fit w ithin
the fo urfold matrix suggested above. Ofte n in histo ri ologica l d iscussion
we mak e a d istinction between " na rrative" a nd ";ma lytic" hi sto ry. But
th e na rrative /a nalysis d ichotom y is too crud e to cont ribu te much to un-
derstanding. Braudel's Medite/'l'anean shows that some narrative is heav ily
NARRAT I VE AND THE FOUR TASKS OF HISTORY - \VRITING + 10 1
analytic-that is, it e ngages in th e differentiation of hitherto undifferenti-
ated entities. Conve rsely, much a nalys is proceeds in (conventi o nall y) na rra -
tive form, followi ng "ch ro nologicall y sequen ti al o rd er": a model in stance
is Marx's Class Struggles in France .58 The term 17a1'1'ative is often used con-
fused ly, alth oug h the negative task of unpacking th e co nfusio ns cannot be
undertaken here. As fo r analysis, it takes place in quite d ifferent intellectual
contexts, establi shed by the four tasks of desc riptio n, explanati on , justifica-
tion , and interp retatio n.
We hav e seen already, in connecti on w ith Braud el's Mediterranean, that
a nalysis can occ ur in the co ntext of description. It occ urs also in th e co ntext
of expla nat io n: thus Ma rx's deta il ed ana lysis of the cl ass st ru cture of French
society in 1848 aim s at explaining why the French revolu tio n of 1848 turned
out as it d id. F in all y, a nal ys is also occurs in the contex ts of justifi cation a nd
interp retation. In the forme r case, the resu lting focus on the texts out of
which history is written may cause the writer-inqu irer to be seen more as a
literary critic than as a hi storian.59 In th e latter case, th e res ulting focus o n
the sign ifica nce of the past fo r the prese nt may cause the write r-inquirer to
be seen m o re as a social critic and cultural commentato r than as a histo rian.
Related to the narrative/ana lysis d istin ction is the distinction between
"nar rative" and "problem-o ri ented" hi story that Furer developed o ut of
Braudel. In "From Nar rative H isto ry to Probl em -O ri ented Histo ry" Fu-
rer seemed to im agine a break in g free of "probl em -o ri ented" hi sto ry from
"na rrative" hi story. In the introduction to In the Workshop of History Furer
complained that the Briti sh histo ria n of France, Rich a rd Cobb, "turn s his-
tory into a labo ratory fo r a purely existential preference." Hating "ideas"
and "intell ectualism," Cobb transformed the quest fo r know ledge "into a
passion fo r noveli stic na rrative." Lacking "intell ectual constructs," he was a
socia l historian fo r w hom "on ly individuals ex ist." His na rrative was g uided
by a sympathy fo r the "life" of the period he described . But acco rdin g to Fu-
rer, sympath y, wh ich seeks to d isplace "the ex plicitly form ulated question"
as a g uid e to resea rch, "belongs to th e rea lm of a ffecti o n, of id eology, or of
the two combined ." Thus hi story a la Cobb " rem a in s purely emotio nal,"
fai ling to mainta in "cu ltu ral distance between th e observe r and the ob-
served ." The product of such a history is "erud iti on" - not, we are give n to
unde rsta nd, th e tru e se riousness of a " probl em-oriented history that builds
its data expli citl y on th e basis of co nceptuall y developed questio ns." w
Yet, in hi s neo- positivist commitm ent to a unive rsa li zable (o r at least a
com parable) history that w ill supersede the current "proli fe ration of his-
tories,"h1 Furer swept und er the rug the fact th at, on ni ce ly "conce ptual"
grounds , expla nati o n cannot be autonomo us. Moreover, like m any in the
10 2 t PART II'. NARRA TIVE AN D K NOWLEDGE
positivist tradition, he has forgotten that th e ex planatory theo ries he wants
hi sto rian s to deploy pres uppose particu lar inte rpretive standpoints that the
th eo ri es th emselves do not bring to lig ht. D escriptions (a nd ex planations as
well) must be offered fro m some place and for some motive. The interpre-
tiv e dimension is thus in escapable. The first wo rd s of The Mediterranean and
the Mediterranean World are telling on this point: " I have loved th e Medi-
terran ea n with passion."6" Braudel's wo rds are as "affective" as anyth ing
in Cobb, and hi s hi sto ry just as "e rudite." These facts might be taken as
excluding The Mediterranean from the true ranks of disciplinary history. In
a rev iew in 1953, Bernard Bailyn criti cized th e book for being "an exhaust-
ing treadmill," ruin ed by the fact th at "there was no cen tra l probl em Brau-
d el wish ed to exa mine," painfully lack in g in "proper historica l questions." 63
But precise ly at issu e is what constitutes a "proper historical question." 64 To
focus on ex planation alone is to exclud e this issu e-a nd yet it perpetually
returns .
To say that explanation presupposes description is to say that it presup-
poses a presentation of narrative elem ents . But historiography is a collective
enterprise, a nd an individua l historian may choose to forgo, in g reate r or
less degree , th e telling of a narrati ve th at is already largely known. Ind eed,
such a fo rgoing is often necessa ry if histo rical knowl ed ge is to advance. To
th e ex te nt that a ba sic narrative is not told but presupposed, th e el ements
of na rrative w ill tend to fade into th e background. In such cases, the re is a
genu in e departure from narrative hi story. Thus, in rej ecting th e narrative/
analysis contrast, I am not making th e empty gesture of declaring that all
history is na rrative history.
The historian who is clearest on this matter is Alexis de Tocqueville.
Co nsid er th e beginnin g of The Old Regime and the Revolution: "Thi s book
is not a history [histoire] of th e French Revolution, whose story [histoirel has
bee n too brilliantly told fo r me to imagin e retellin g it. It is a study of the
Revoluti o n." 65 T ocqu ev ill e is tru e to his word. Tim e a nd aga in in The Old
R egime and the Revolution he refe rs to historical eve nts and ex istents with-
out recounting th em in detail, relyin g instead on the reader's knowl edge
of th em. His relative neglect of recounti ng frees him to move forwa rd on
th e three remaining fronts. He addresses head -on the explanation-seeking
question, "What caused the revolution ?" 66 He arg ues explicitly aga inst those
represe ntations of th e revoluti on that saw it as essentiall y an attack on reli-
g ious and political authority. H e is likewise explicit about the interpretive
dimensi on of the book and hence about th e soc ial criti cism that it offers . As
he observes, "I have neve r entirely lost sight of ou r modern society." Thus,
N A RR A TI V E A ND THE F OU R T AS K S O F HI S TORY - W l<IT I NG t ! OJ
among othe r things, he sought to hi g hlig ht "those m a nl y virtu es which a re
most necessary in our tim es a nd w hi ch have alm ost disappearcd." '' 7
An intell ectua l histo rian associated with th e turn in the late 1980s to th e
"new cu ltural history" (see chapter ro) once suggested that intell ectual his-
tory "m ust address the issue of ex planation, of why certain mea nin gs a rise,
persist, a nd collapse at particular times and in specific sociocultural situa-
t i ons." r.~ O f course, this particular exe rcise in ex planation, and ex planation
ge ne rally, is ce rtainl y pa rt of what intell ectual hi sto rian s do. Thi s sugges-
tio n is on the mark only if we und erstand that ex pl a nati on is but one of the
ta sks of hi sto rical resea rch and writing. Sometim es ex pl a natio n w ill come
to th e fo re; sometimes descr iptio n; som etim es th e task of a rg um ent a nd
justification, by which histo rians seek to clarify how they kn ow w hat th ey
claim to know about th e past; and sometimes the task of interpretation, by
wh ich they seek to reflect on the significance of the past for peopl e now and
in the future .
To g rant pri ority to hi sto ry's ex plan ator y task is to put into th e back-
g round the fram ework of ass umpti o ns that every expla nato ry project pre-
supposes . Th ese assumptions derive fro m th e histori a n's ow n trad iti ons,
comm itments, inte rests, a nd expe ri ence, wh ich fin all y ca nn ot be histori-
cized, ca nn ot be subordin ated to a n authoritative rep rese ntati o n of history-
as-a-who le. Th e co nservative critics of historiog raph y are correct: history
is (in part) about values. Historians qua histori ans, given th e largely un-
reflexive character of their disciplin e, do not seem especially wel l equipped
to deal w ith this fact. Nonetheless, historians can at least kno w what they
are doing when th ey a re contributing to knowl edge. It is not simply th at
th ey ex plain. On the co ntrary, they fir st of all descr ibe, in del ig ht o r fas-
cination or ho rror o r resig nation . Upon descriptions, expla natio ns a rise.69
Desc ripti ons and ex pl a nati ons presuppose a n interpreti ve perspective, a nd
in the best histori es they m odify and enrich such a pe rspective. The articu la-
tio n of pe rspectives is a co ntributi on to know ledge that hi sto rians too often
ove rl ook o r view w ith discomfort.
For these tasks, argument and justification - a nd th e historical episte-
mology that th ese presuppose - are a sine qua non . To th e beli ef that history
o ug ht to be sociall y useful id eology, we must counte rpose a criti cal plu-
ralism that reli es o n standards of eva lu atio n appropriate to th e forms of
knowledge being soug ht.
 - P A RT III-

Objectivity & Speculation

 Objectivity for Historians
CHAP T E R FIVE~--

I s objectivity passe? A well -kn ovv n histo ri a n of m ode rn Ge rm a ny, Geoff

Eley, suggested in a n essay of a few yea rs ago that histo ry oug ht to m eld
itself into th e "un-d isciplined" domain of cultural studies loosely defined
(incl uding such fi elds as wom en's studies, Afr ica n Ame rican studies, eth -
nic stud ies, gay and lesbia n studi es, film studies, and so on). In Eley's view,
such a mode of "u n-," "inter-," or "cross-" disciplin arit y "mea ns tra nsgres-
sion, .. . d isobey ing, . .. rul e-brea kin g, ... making tro ubl e, ... sha king
things up, ... being expe rim ental , t rying new thoug hts, taking risks"; a nd
it also has to do "with unsettling our custo m a ry cond itio ns a nd habits of
unde rstand ing, with the release of mea ning rathe r than its predictabl e accu-
mulatio n ." Eley's unsettling " release of meaning" see m s aimed at pro m ot-
ing w hateve r progressive political causes the undisciplined histori an favors.
Rev iew in g the volum e in w hich Eley's essay was published, another histo-
rian, Thom as H as k ell, noted th at Eley has much to say "about th e political
perspectives that g rad uate students shou ld want to embrace," but "sca rcely
anyt hing . .. about th e constra ints that objectivity mi g ht entail." 1 " Release
of m ea ning"- but how do we choose whose mea ning? Is it esse nti all y a n
arbitra ry cho ice? And w hy shoul d the " mea nings" in questi on have any
aut hor ity ove r us?

OB JE C TIVITY AND COMM ITMENT

O ne implicatio n of th e present book is that it is impossibl e to tak e seriously

histo ri ans' (o r anyone else's) blithely confi dent claims to have atta ined the
trut h of things. A related implicatio n is that the d isciplina ry isolationi sm
that a ri ses from such confidence is unju stifi ed . After all , hi sto ri a ns do not
have access to th e autho ri tative narrative that wou ld establish the rig ht fram e
fo r unde rsta nding the ge nera l basis a nd di rection of history. ietzsc he's
asse rti on in On the Genealogy of Morality is correct: down here o n ea rth ,
10 :f: PART 111: OBJECT I V I TY AND SPECULAT I ON
"there is only a perspective seei ng, only a pe rspective 'know in g ."' ~ Acco rd-
ingly, we must ask how historians a re to choose between one perspective
and anothe r.
It is a hard choice to make-or rathe r, a hard choice to justify. One posi-
tion is that the choice ought to be made o n grounds that a re in a broad sense
political. That is, th e perspective we choose oug ht to be o ne that ca n contrib-
ute to progressiv e cha nge in the prese nt. Th ere is more tha n a hint of this in
E ley's reAections o n "h istoria ns and soc ial val ues," as well as in some of his
historical w riting. 3 H oweve r, wh il e E ley favo rs transgression, disobedience,
a nd rul e-brea king (a ll in the inte rest, it seems, of e ncoura ging progress ive
cha nge within the co ntext of a discipline, hi story, that he sees as "more con-
se rvative th an most"), he is also comm itted-as hi s wo rds say and hi s work
shows- to what he ca ll s "the norma l ru les and protocols of ev id ence and
argum ent." 4 In fact, the preeminent advocate for putting schola rship in the
serv ice of commitment was the French historian-philosopher Michel Fou-
cault, rathe r than Eley o r other advocates of a politically engaged "new"
cultural histo ry. Foucault exemplified his more ext reme position in his life,
a nd a rticul ated it in two ways in hi s work s. H e wrote hi sto ri ca l o r quasi-
hi sto ri ca l stud ies, suc h as H istory of Madness a nd Discipline and Punish, that
we re primarily aim ed at a rad ical transformation of attitud es a nd institu-
tional p ractices in the prese nt, and he also offered methodological (more
properl y, anti-methodological) reAections-in hi s book The A rchaeology of
Knowledge, in inte rviews, and in sho rt essays-that were likew ise aimed at
rad ica lly tra nsfo rming the present.'
I believe that the Foucauldian view is a mistake. It amou nts to a recipe for
the w riting of works that a re better see n as subj ective encounters with the
past than as hi sto ry. T here is no denying the brilliance of much of Foucau lt's
w ritin g. Notably, he was a master of the striking image o r set piece. O ne
thinks of his evocation of the all eged "ships of fools" that all eged ly sa iled
up a nd down the waterways of Europe in the late med ieva l per iod. H e uses
this im age to hi ghlig ht hi s claim that in the late middle ages, fa r from be-
ing locked up in madhouses, the insa ne we re all owed to wand er about.
O ne thinks also of the ho rrific set piece w ith whi ch he begins Discipline
and Punish, the execution of the would-be regicide, Damiens, in r 757· Even
Foucault's rather abstract history of thought, The Order of Th ings, is enliv-
ened by str ikin g images, from th e odd ly illogical "Chin ese encycloped ia"
th at he descr ibes at th e beginning of the book to the erasu re of man by the
ri sin g tide oflanguage at its e nd. 6
But what exactl y is the objectivity that Foucault attacks a nd that other
hi storia ns give obeisance to? Whil e va ri ous workable suggestions have been
mad e, the actual content of the notion of obj ectivity remains elusive. It is
OBJE C TI V ITY FOR HI S T OR I AN S t !09
often eas ier to begin by say ing w hat objectivity is not than w hat it is. For ex-
ample, Haskell entitl es a rev iew essay devoted to Peter Nov ick's That Noble
Dream (see chapter 8) "Objectivity Is Not Neutrality." 7 Here Haskell is dis-
tancing himself from the notion that obj ectivity means atta ining a perspec-
tive that is completely detached from the world of human commitments
and desires (below, I give a name to this notion: "absolute" objectivity). In
hig hlig hting th e id ea that objectivity a nd neutrality should not be eq uated,
Haskell means to suggest that commitment to obj ectivity does not excl ud e
pol itica l or other commitments. On the contra ry, in H as kell 's view objectiv-
ity is perhaps most cl ea rl y d isce rn able in in sta nces whe re th e hi sto ri an has
a "strong political com mitmen t." The cha ll enge fo r such a hi stori an is to
ac hieve , in the pursuit of a n adequate und ersta ndin g of the past, a measure
of detachm ent from he r ow n personal co mmitm ents. Such an understand-
ing req uires that we "strive to see things in a detached lig ht," freeing our-
selves from "life's most seductive illusion," nam ely, that "the world centers
on me (o r on th ose with w hom I choose to identify)." 8
Muc h could be added to w hat Haskell says he re, but I will confine myself
to two points that a re not obv ious. First, in seeing objectivity as coexist-
ing with com mitm ent rathe r than as achiev ing freedom from it, H askell is
pointing to an aspect of hi storical thinking that I alluded to in th e introduc-
tion to this book, namely, its "unresolving" chara cte r. Second, he is here
high li g hting an important difference between w hat (good) historians aim
for a nd what we find in th e engagement of m any theo ri sts and social sci-
entists (not to m enti on polemicists) with the past. "Detachm ent from o ne's
own com mitments" also m ea ns detachment from the proj ect of tr ying to
demo nstrate the truth of o ne's own theory concerning huma n society. Phi-
losophers, politi ca l theorists , social scientists, and others often mistakenly
look fo r a conclusive ness in the work of hi sto rians th at is simpl y not com-
patibl e with th e project of doing hi story. They wrongly ass ume that the
historia n's work has as its dete rmining aim the adva ncin g of some particu-
lar politi ca l o r theoretical position . Thus, w hen I published a book o n Karl
Ma rx, some peo pl e who encountered it ass umed that I must have had th e
aim of either attacking or supporting Marx's views, when in fact m y aim
as a historian was to understand what those views were and how a nd why
Ma rx arrived at th em . The distinctive aim of the histo rian is not to show
the truth or desirability of some particular theory o r political o ri entation,
alth oug h his work, if it is of any sig nificance, will likely be rel eva nt to such
issues. Rather, the historia n's distinctive aim is to illuminate the past.
Ob jectivity, then , is not neutrality - alth oug h it does involve a measure
of detachment from one's ow n comm itm ents. A noth er thing that obj ectiv-
ity is not is "balance," although in popular discourse today objectivity and
11 0 :f: PART 111: OBJE C TIVITY AND SPE CU LATION
balance a re often see n as closely related, if not identical. Fo r example, two
slogans used by the Fox Television News Channel in the United States are
"Fair and ba lanced" and "We report, you decide." 9 The impli cit claim here
is that an "objective" news channe l is one that reports the diffe rent opinions
or perspectives that are current concern in g a subject and then all ows view-
ers to draw their own conclusions. In sum, "objectivity" would be tanta-
mount to neutrality between the different perspectives in question. By the
sa me token, it would be "objective" fo r seco nda ry school systems to give
eq ual tim e, in the teaching of hig h school biology, to evoluti o na ry a nd a nti-
evolu tiona ry views.
The "bala nce" view of ob jectivity implies that obj ectivity is atta in ed when
all points of view a re recognized, each finding its approp riate spokespe rson.
Jn this view, no particular account of rea lity can coun t as objective. Rather,
objectivity is asymptotica ll y approached within the situation as a whole as
more and more perspectives are given voice. This is a position suggested by
N ietzsche in On the Genealogy of Morality, where he tells us th at "the more
affects we allow to spea k abo ut a matte r, the more eyes, different eyes, we
know how to bring to bea r on o ne and the same matter, that much more
complete wi ll ou r "concept" of th is matter, our "objectivity" be." 10 Th is is
an odd conceptio n of objectivity, partly because it says nothing abo ut the
stupidity (o r not) of the d iffe rent competin g perspectives and partly because
it can not be located in any pa rticul ar work o r statemen t. It is not surpri sing
that Richard Rorty, in hi s own ve rsion of this N ietzschea n position, a rg ues
that we do not need a co ncepti on of ob jectivity at all-that objectivity is
compl etel y red ucibl e to social solidarity. 11 This is a logical development of
Nietzsche's view as stated above, but it lik ewise says nothing about the stu-
pid ity, not to mention the mendacity, of the various competing views in
circu lation. It has no response to the obse rvation that a hundred Fox ews
C ha nn els, each cacophonously devoted to its own "point of view," are likely
to get us no closer to "truth " and "objectivity" than one Fox News C han-
nel. "Balance" between one stupid ideologica l position and a noth e r stupid
ideological position does not eq uate to "objectivity," any mo re tha n does a
"balance" in schools between a scienti fic theo ry like the theo ry of descent
w ith modification (evolution) and a position grounded in religious fa ith (the
C reato r created all o rga ni c beings as they a re now at o r nea r th e beginning
of time).
Howeve r, "balance" can be understood in another, d iffe rent way that
does not amount to the offering of a supposed ly "balanced" articu lation
of competing positions. Haskell puts thi s nicely in hi s 2004 rev iew of the
book in w hich Professor Eley's reAectio ns appea r, Leerssen a nd Rigney's
Oil) ECT IVITY FOR HISTOR I ANS :j: 111
Historians and Social Values. H ere Hask ell suggests that the "balance" th at
historians o ug ht to seek amo unts to a "balancing act." Mo re precisely, it is a
bal ancing act between th e idea l of exclud ing va lue judgments from schol-
arship and th e view that th e on ly thing that cou nts is str iking a blow for
one's ow n va lues. In othe r wo rd s, the balance is not between the different
committed positions that are in play (a balance that of course includes the
histor ia n's ow n position o r positions). Such a task would be nothing short
of mind-boggling: How, after all , is one to "balance" the potentially infinite
number of competing o ri entatio ns - libe ral, co nse rvative, ana rchist, sy n-
dica list, radical , commu ni st, sociali st, monarchist, Catholi c, Protesta nt, Is-
lam ic, Buddh ist, Hindu, and on and o n ? It is rather a balance betwee n co m-
mitme nt to the (d isc iplin a ry) value of objectivity a nd comm itm ent to o ne or
more ext ra -d isciplina ry comm itm ents. In fact, the true hi stor ian needs to
be committed to both ob jectivity and comm itment, because "d iscernment
of mu ltipl e perspectives is a condition of understand ing huma n affa irs,"
and thus is "a lso a prerequisite of atta ining reliabl e hi sto rica l knowledge."
Haskell rig htl y notes th at "this leaves the histo rian on a hig h wire, . .. g rap-
pling with the crosswind s of pe rspecti ve and objectivity witho ut any ex-
pli cit instructions about how to proceed." The high wire act that Haskell
evokes refers to one aspect of the unresolving tensi o n that is part of-and
in some measure peculiar to - hi sto rical st udy. H askell is quite rig ht to add
that "those w ho w ill settl e fo r nothing less than algorithmic solutions a re
best adv ised to seek alternative forms of employment." 12 Let them become
mathematicia ns, ana lytic philosophers, o r political "scienti sts."
Haskell's "balancing act" view of ob jectivity is nicely congruent w ith hi s
earlier insi stence that objectivity is not neutrality. Ob jectivity is not neutral-
ity because some measure of comm itm ent is necessary if we are to "see" the
histo rica l object at all (thus, gende r issues in histo ry we re not "see n" until
some historians developed a commitm ent to fem ini sm). I would onl y em-
phasize that the histo ria n's pursuit of the ri g ht kind of balance does not re-
qu ire putting fo rwa rd a moderate, consensus-o ri ented, middle-of-the- road
view. O n the contra ry, a ng ula rity of perspective can bring o ut as pects of hi s-
to rica l reality that would rema in obscu re from more "mode rate," "m iddle
of the road" points of view. O ne can liken history-writing to the work of a
photographer, who m ay sometimes lig ht a surface from a sha rp angle in o r-
de r to bring out, by means of the heavy shadows that the lig ht casts, features
of the surface that wo ul d other wise be d ifficu lt to see. A ngu la r perspectives
are not neutral, no r a re th ey "balanced" in the sense of taking a "balanced
view" of things. Bu t suc h pe rspectives a re certa inl y compatible with com-
mitment to the project of d iscove ring truth abo ut the past. Natalie Davis's
!!2 t P AR T Ill: OB JE C T I V IT Y AND SPECU L ATION
fem ini st comm itment helped her to g rasp the situation of the sixteenth-
century peasant woman Be rtrand e de Rois bette r than she m ight have in the
absence of that comm itment (see th e int rod uction to this book).
DEFININ G OBJECTIVITY
O f course we have still not arrived at a d efiniti on of obj ectivity, fo r we
'
seem to have come down to the not entirely logica l view that obj ectivity
is a ba lanci ng ac t between obj ectivity and commitm ent. Part o f the diffi-
culty, here, li es in th e noti on of obj ecti vity itself. In fact, ob jectivity is not
a sing le concept, but a number of d ifferent concepts that are not entirely
reducibl e to o ne basic concept. In recent yea rs a number of com m e ntators
have mad e the point that the m ea ning of the term objectivity is va riable.
For example, the histori an Perez Zagorin suggests that in contemporary
discourse, "obj ecti vity" is "mainly used with three principal m ea nings in
mind all of w hich are rel ated to one anoth er in the sense of sharing fam ily
reserr:blances." (In Wittgenstein's notio n of "family resemblance," two d if-
fe rent ind ividuals may have no features in common, a nd yet be recogni zed
as m embers of th e same fam il y because of features they share w ith other
family membe rs) . A nother rece nt commentato r, the philosopher H eather
Douglas, suggests that there are actuall y eight "ope rationa ll y accessibl e a nd
distinct senses of ob jectivity." She adds that "whil e there are links a m ong
these senses, ... none of th e eight senses is strictl y reducible to th e othe rs."
In consequence, we have to contend w ith w hat she refe rs to as ob jectivity's
"irred ucibl e complexity." 13
H ow m any conce pts of objectivity are there, th en? O r at any rate, how
m any concepts a re th ere that are relevant to history? It is possibl e to d ivide
up conceptual rea lities in d ifferent ways, and I do not m ean in this chapte r
to d ismiss other ways of dividing up the co nceptual fie ld o f objectivity. My
claim is onl y that th e typology that I offe r in this chapter w ill help us think
m o re clearly about objectivity issues than we ca n w ith out it. For the fact is,
the wo rd objectivity is too often used as a polemica l d ev ice, w ith its mea ning
left completely unanalyzed . In polemics, the aim is to w in the arg ume nt.
My aim is not to win the argument but to und erstand things wel l- a nd
perhaps, in this way, to win all th e same.
An obj ectivity-claim , as unde rstood here, am ou nts to a claim to possess
cogniti ve o r epistemological auth ority of a n intersubj ectively testabl e so rt.
Note how this cha rac teri zation elim in ates certa in territo ries from the range
of ou r co ncern. Fo r example, a painte r, composer, o r other artist, at least if
thi s person o perates w ithin the aesthetic d ispensatio n of modernity, is likely
OBJ E C T ! V I TY FOR HI S T OR I ANS t 1 IJ
to wa nt to m a ke auth o rity-cla ims fo r hi s ow n work. H e is likely to want to
establi sh that hi s wo rk is some how " in th e m om ent," a lea p beyo nd w hat
was prev iously done, tec hni ca ll y adept, aesthetica ll y powerful, a nd so on.
These a re cla im s to auth ority, but th ey a re m ost likely not objectivity-cla ims
as defi ned he re, fo r the auth o rity being claim ed is usuall y not cogn itive. To
be sure, a rtists often claim a truth of some kin d fo r th eir art, but th ese truth s
are most ofte n prese nted as aesth etic, pe rsonal, ex istenti al, a nd so on, a nd
not as meth od ica ll y testabl e. In oth er wo rds, th e truth-claims in questio n
are not in th e sam e catego ry as th e truth-cl aims that the natural a nd social
sc iences- and hi sto ry- put forwa rd. Th ese truth -claim s d emand acce p-
tance by oth e r resea rchers , w ho fo ll ow commo nl y ag reed-upon procedures
of eva luati o n desig ned to test th e truth o f such cla im s a nd to m inimi ze the
intru sion o f e r ro r.
Within the ge ne ra l fram ewo rk of an obj ectivity-claim as a cla im to cog-
niti ve aut hority, it is reasona bl e and usefu l to d isting uish among fo ur prin-
cipal se nses of ob jectivity (see fig ure 5. 1 ) . Th ese senses ove rl ap w ith eac h
other in practice, but we ca n d isting ui sh th em from each oth e r conce ptu-
all y, a nd it is often indispensable to do so.
There is, first, a phi losophi ca l o r absolute sense o f obj ecti vity, whi ch is
deeply rooted in th e tradition of m ode rn phil osophy from Desca rtes on-
ward; it is closely co nn ec ted to (a lth oug h not quite ide nti ca l w ith ) th e noti o n
that sea rchers afte r kn owled ge a re engaged in th e enterpri se of (in Ri chard
Ro rty's phrase) " rep rese nting things as th ey rea ll y a re." 14 Researchers w ho
are committed to th e no ti o n of absolute ob jecti vity asp ire to a kn ow ledge
so fa ithfu l to rea lity as to suffe r no bi as, partiality, o r d isto rtio n . Furth er,
th ey believe th at all inquirers of good w ill are destin ed to con ve rge to ward
the sa m e set of represe ntatio ns, and w he n th is does not ha ppen, they a re
in clin ed to suspect th e p rese nce of incompetence o r m endac ity (o r both to-
gether). Seco nd, th ere is a disciplina1y sense of obj ecti vity, which no longer
ass umes a wholesa le conve rgence, but instead takes co nse nsus a m o ng the
mem be rs of particu la r resea rch co mmuniti es as its sta nd a rd of obj ecti vity.
Th ird, th e re is an inte ractio nal , o r dialectical, se nse, w hich holds that ob jects
are constitu ted as objects in th e course of an interpl ay betwee n subj ect and
objec t; thu s, unlik e th e absolute and disciplinary senses, th e dialectical se nse
of objecti vity leaves room fo r th e sub jectivity of th e knowe r. F in all y, th ere is
a procedural sense of ob jectivity, w hich a im s at the practice of an imperso nal
method of investi gation. H e re, th e suspicion of subj ectivity that is promi -
nent in both th e abso lu te and th e d isc iplin a ry se nses of objec ti vity is pursued
in abstracti on from the bel ief that exclud ing subj ecti vity necessar il y bring s
tru th w ith it. H ere th e aim is less to atta in truth than to avoid e rro r.
I L-l t P A RT Il l: O BJ E. C T I V ITY AN D S P EC'U L AT I ON O il) E C T I V I TY F O R H I S TORIAN S t 11 5

In both th eo ry a nd practi ce th ese fo ur se nses of obj ecti vity blu r together. THE A B SO LU T E SENSE OF OB J E C T I V ITY
Th ey blur togethe r th eo re tica ll y because, w itho ut t h e o the rs, each of them Phil oso phe rs have wo rk ed lo ngest w ith o bj ecti vity iss ues. The cru cial fi g-
a mo unts to nothing . Fo r e xa mple, in the a bse nce of comm itm e nt to a n ideal ure fo r the phi losoph ica l d isc ussi o n is Ka nt, w hose Critique of Pure Reason
of truth (howe ve r ha rd to attain in prac tice), to th e goa l of ill um inati ng (1781, 1787) was impo rta nt in esta bli shing bot h t he te rm a nd t he co nce pt.
the rea l cha rac te r of the obj ects bein g in vestigated, a nd to good proced ure, T o be sure, w ell befo re Ka nt va ri o us co n ce ptio ns o f obj ectivity cam e into
d isciplin a ry objectivity wo ul d amount to o ne o r a nothe r va rie ty o f " politi- pl ay, alth o ug h not un d e r t he name objectivity . Use o f objectivity (F ren ch
ca ll y co rrect" o rth od oxy. D iscipli na ry, d ialectica l, a n d proced ural ob jectiv- objectivite; Ge rma n Objektivitiit ) in som et hin g li k e t he cur re nt phil osophi ca l
ity ~a nn ot be fo und in t heir pure fo rm s in rea li ty, a nd absolute ob jectiv- se nse arose o n ly in th e n ine tee nth century, la rgely und e r Ka nt's inAuence. 15
ity, w h ich requ ires a di vine leve l of detac hme nt a nd ins ig ht, is best seen Ea rli e r, in scholasti c phil oso p h y, objective a n d subjective refe rred, res pec-
as a n id eal lyin g beyo nd hum a n atta inm e nt (::i lth o ug h not beyo nd hu man tively, to o bj ec ts of co nsc io usness and to th in gs in t he m selves , u sages th::it
aspiratio n). Ad mitted ly, in som e fi eld s in so m e pe ri ods, we ca n find nearly a re nea rl y t he reve rse of cur rent usage . 16
pure in sta nces of d isc iplin a ry, d ialectica l, a nd procedural obj ectivity. But T he a bsolu te se nse of ob jectivity is less a sing le notio n t ha n a set of loosely
in ge ne ral thi s is no t t he case in hi sto rica l resea rch a nd writing, a fa ct that related notio ns; in fa ct, a la rge pa rt o f th e h isto ry of m od e rn phil oso ph y is
we m ay take as a marke r of h istory's im p ure, h ybr id, ne ithe r-fi sh - no r-fowl, impli cated in it. We sho u ld no te fi rst of all t he two fo ld ch a racte r of the
cont rad ictio n-lad en and -tole rant cha racte r. pro ject o f "re p resenting things as t hey reall y a re" : o ntological (thin gs "as
they rea ll y a re") , a nd ep iste m olog ica l (sin ce w e see k "to rep rese nt" t hin gs,
a nd ca n go no w he re w it ho ut thi s re presen tati o n). We can also id e ntify nor-
A B so L u T E o 11 J E c T 1 v 1T Y . G od 's- D I A LE C T I CA L O BJE C TI V IT Y . mative a nd m et hod ologica l d im ensi o ns of a bsolute obj ec tivity. 1; F ur t he r, as
eye vic \v, vie w fro111 nowh ere, In vo lves co n noisseu rshi p (ind ivid ua l T ho m as Nage l has pointed o ut, t he notio n o f absolutely ob jective k now l-
ape rspectiva l pe rspect ive , O lympian expnt ise co nce rn ing a particu la r type
ec.l ge is qu ite compli cated, since by defin itio n a bsolutely obj ecti ve kn o w l-
neut ralit y. A im s to see th e ob jec t as it o f oh jcc t, e.g., Flem ish Re na issan ce
edge esca pes the co nst ra ints of subj ectivity a nd pa rtiality- ye t if a n abso-
rea ll y is. \'a lu<:s impe r>ona li ty. pa intings) . Aim s to interact w ith t he
lutely ob jective view o f reali ty is to be all -embrac ing, it m u st in cl u d e th e
obj ec t and, id ea ll y, to co m mun e w ith
pa rticu la r, su bj ecti ve vie ws of reality th at exist a nd t hu s a re also pa rt of t hat
it (and possibl y a lso w ith its c reato rs).
reality. Idea ll y, t h e o b jective a nd the subjective sid es of ob jecti vity go to-
See k s to exclude sub jectivity, exce pt fo r See k s to hamess subj ectivity, ma king it ge the r. Bu t they go togeth e r o nl y ideally; in act u al fac t, the absolute sen se of
the obj ec ti ve subj ecti vity o f God . a positive fo rce fo r th e d iscove ry a nd
obj ectivity co m es u p aga in st a n in fi ni te regress , as Nagel notes . Thi s is w hy,
adva nce of kn ow ledge.
tak en to its ex t rem e, absolu te obj ectivity o ffe rs a " view fr o m no whe re" : it is
a vie w that we ca nnot situate, fo r to be fu ll y compreh e ns ive it wo u ld need
DI SC I PLI NA RY O RJ EC T I V I TY. p R0 c ED u RA L 0 BJ E c T I v IT y . \'a Iues
to view itse lf view ing , a nd so o n ad infinitum .18
Di sc ipli nary co nst: nsu s is th e m easure totally impe rso nal p rocedures (e.g .,
H oweve r, it is m islea ding to foc us too na rrowl y o n the "v iew fr o m no-
of truth. H os ti le to o ri g inali ty-bcyo n<l - do uble- bli nd ex pe ri m ents), w ith
thc- paradig m a nd to o ff-ce nte r view- th e inte nt o f avo id ing a ll subj ective w he re" co nun d ru m . Mu ch of twe ntieth -ce ntur y phil osophi ca l disc ussio n
poin ts ge ne ra ll y. \'a lu es impe rso na li ty. so urces of e r ror. \'a lu es avoida nce p resented ob jectivity less as a ma tte r o f " re p rese nting t hings as t hey reall y
o f erro r as hi g hl y as th e di scove ry a re" th a n as a matte r o f ar ri ving at cri te ri a fo r jud g ing claim s to have re p re-
o f t ruth. sented things as th ey reall y a re. Th ese c rite ria t he n help us ad va n ce toward
kno w ledge-cla im s su ffic ie ntl y aut ho ritative t hat no ratio nal pe rso n, a fte r
Seek s to contain su bj ec tivit y: See k s to exclud e all su bj ecti vity.
cl ue in ves tigatio n, wo ul d ca ll the m into d o ubt. A nd th e c ri te ri a t hemselves
acce pts o nl y t he (u na ckn owledged)
subj ec tivity o f the d isc ipli ne (subfi eld,
o ug ht to evok e a sim il a rl y u nive rsa l, ratio nal asse nt. Th e kn o w ledge p ro-
re><:a rch netw o rk , etc.). d uced w o u Id at leas t move us in the direction o f th e Ca rtesia n (a ncl Baco ni a n)
"absolute conce ptio n o f rea lity." 1'1 O f course, w e m ay neve r actua ll y arrive
at such a co nce ptio n , but as rati o na l hum a n being s w e ca n be expected to
F 1 Gu R E 5 . 1 Four Senses of Objectivity co n ve rg e to ward a n a pprox im atio n o fit. Absolute obj ec tivity, t he n , p rese nts
11 6 :j: PART I I I: O BJE C TIV I TY AN D S PE CU LAT I 01'
itse lf as absolu te not in its certitude or in fa lli bi li ty, but rath er in the hold
that it ought to hJve on us as rational beings .
Unti l th e 1960s , the dom inJnt assumptio n in ph il osophy of science was
that rntional Jcceptance or re jection involves b rin g ing to bear th e logical
weig ht of obse rvation on specifi c theo retical statements. This was true
eq uall y of K arl Popper and his followers , w ho maintained that scientific
laws ca n neve r be ve rifi ed but onl y fa lsifi ed , a nd of such logica l empiri cists
as Rudolf Ca rnap a nd CJ rl Hempel. Th e mod el presup posed that it is pos-
sible to test sin gle se ntences wh il e leav ing as ide the question of th e va lidity
o f the ep istemologica l framewo rk as a w hole. Subseq ue nt reAection ca ll ed
into do ubt both the logica l mod el and the possibility of singula r ve ri fica tion
(o r fa lsificat ion). The result was a lively d iscu ss io n in phil osophy. After 1970
o r so, much of th e discussio n took place und e r th e head in g "rea li sm" rather
than "objectivity," but it embraced a simil a r range of co ncern s.' 0 Hil a ry Put-
nam and Richard Ro rty, amo ng m any oth ers, we re prominent co ntributors
to this phil osophica l discussion. 11
O ur co nce rn here is much m o re w ith th e ex tra-p hil osophica l discussion
of ob jecti vity. Yet philosophica l concerns a re im porta nt to many of the extra-
ph il osoph ical discussions, some of w hi ch bega n as debates wit h and amo ng
phil osophe rs. In particu la r, phil osophers' d iscussio ns of rationality a nd of
relativism had som e impact o n the w ide r d iscuss io n of obj ectivity issues
from th e 1970s onward. Two loc i of de bate are of spec ial inte rest because
of the issues th ey raised and th e attention they received . One locus, b rought
into being by the publi catio n in 1962 of Th om as S. Kuhn's The Structure of
Scientific Revolutions, was centered on the questio n of the rati onality of sci-
ence; the oth er, prompted by the process of decolo ni zatio n that was th en go-
ing on and by the g rowing prom in ence of sociology a nd ant h ropology, con-
cern ed cultu ral relativism. In both in sta nces, ph il osophe rs we re led to say
interestin g things in part as a res ult of exte rnal e ngagem ents - w ith hi sto ry
of sc ience in th e one case, and wit h soc iology and anthropology in the other.
Many phil osophers we re disturbed by Th e Structure of Scientific Revolu -
tions. Th ey we re espec iall y d isturbed by Kuhn's account of how a sc ientific
community moves from ad herence to o ne "pa rad igm," or set of prefe rred
exa mpl es, th eo ries, and problems, to ad he rence to its successor. Since differ-
ent paradigms a re, Kuhn contend ed, "incommensurabl e," the reasons that
the proponents of a new paradigm put fo rwa rd fo r adopting it do not count,
he held, fo r adherents of th e currently dom ina nt pa rad igm . Acco rd ing ly,
the shift fr om o ne paradigm to anot her is ak in, he suggested, to a co nve r-
sion expe rience.'' Th e shift thus seem ed in some d ee p se nse to be irratio nal.
Fu rther, if we tak e Kuhn's talk of conversion se riously, we must see him as
OB J ECT I V ITY F OR HI S T OR I ANS :j: 1 17
an epistemologica l relati vist, at least in sofa r as eva luations ca rri ed o ut across
paradig ms are concerned. That is, we must see hi m as adhering to th e char-
acte ristica ll y relat ivist view that th ere is no neutral way of choos ing between
th e (two o r more) sets of background p rin ciples and standards of eva lu atio n
that cou ld be used to eva luate (assess, esta blish) th e truth of the competing
knowledge-cla im s in questi on; in bri ef, we ca n find no neutral authoritative
view.23 L ittl e wo nde r, th en, that m a ny philosophe rs accused Kuhn of bein g
a n irrationalist and a relativist. The two cha rges we re closely co nn ected to
eac h ot her, a nd bo th we re co nn ected to th e all eged imposs ibility of engagin g
in th e obj ective eva lu atio n of sc ientifi c kn ow ledge-c laims. Those phil oso-
phers who accused Kuhn of relativ ism and irratio nal ism were rea ll y accus-
ing him of abandon in g ob jectivity in its absolu te, phil osop hica l se nse.' 4
Th e d iscussion of relati vism that took pla ce in the contex t of the prob-
lem of othe r cultures also connected w ith the d iscuss io n of objectivity in th e
late twenti eth ce ntury. Two con ve ni ent a nth ologies provid e access to th e
cultural relativism d isc ussio n fr om th e 1960s to th e beginning of th e 1980s:
Bryan Wi lso n's coll ection Rationallty (1970), a nd Ma rtin H ollis and Steve n
Lukes's coll ection Rationality and Relativism ( 1982)." Th e phil osop he rs, so-
ciologists, and ant h ropologists re prese nted in the two anthologies attempted
to com e to g ri ps w ith such matters as ca rgo cu lts, ma g ic, and th e relati o n
betwee n A fri ca n t rad iti onal th ought a nd Weste rn scie nce. In thus goin g be-
yo nd the pu rely theoretical curi os ity of m ode rn phil osophy, they anticipated
the directio n taken by the ob jectivity discussion in the las t two d ecades of
th e twe nti eth ce ntur y. Yet th ey did not focus o n obj ecti vity per se, fo r th eir
main conce rn vvas not w ith finding criteri a that wo uld e nabl e us to judge th e
co rrectness of co mpeting beli efs o r beli ef systems. Rat he r, their con cern was
w ith "trans-cul tura l and trans-t heo reti ca l und e rstand in g a nd ... mutua l
und e rstand ing in gene ral." 11' This problem of "trans-" und erstanding co n-
nects closely with th e em e rge nce o f th e notio n of d isciplina ry ob jectivity.
THE D I SC IPLIN A RY SE ' SE O F OB JE C TIVITY
D isc iplina ry objectivity emphasizes not universal crite ria of judgment but
pa rticular, yet still auth o ritati ve, disciplin a ry criteri a. l t emphasizes not th e
eve ntual con ve rge nce of all inquirers of good will but th e proxim ate con ve r-
ge nce of acc red ited inqu irers within a g iv en fi eld .' 7 T o be sure, it is misl ead -
ing to paint too stark a n oppos iti o n betwee n absolute and d isciplin a ry ob-
jectivity. In practice, th ere seem to be defe nsibl e alternatives between these
ex tremes, and to th e ex te nt th at this is so, th e se nses blur into eac h o th e r. '~
But the blurrings o n th e conceptual level a re cou nte red by institutional sepa-
ratio ns. Disciplin es (subdiscip lin es, resea rch fi eld s, etc.) ex ist. Defined in sti-
11 8 :f: P ART Il l: OBJECT I V ITY AND SPECU L AT I ON
tuti o nall y, d isciplin a ry ob jecti vity refe rs to th e cl aim by pra ctiti on ers of a
parti cular di sciplin e (s ubdiscipline , resea rch fi eld, etc.) to have autho ri tative
jurisdicti on ove r its a rea of compete nce. Su ch cla im s take diffe rent fo rms,
with d iffe rent d egrees of explicitness a n d articul ation . The gro undings
va ry from discip line to d iscipline a nd from fi eld to fie ld, a nd th ey cha nge
over tim e as wel l. O n th e most elem ental and ina rticulate level, disciplinary
obj ecti vity-claims ap pea r in , fo r exampl e, the co n victio n of hi sto ri a ns that
hi sto rians , rath e r than sociologists, a re able to get at th e t ruth of th e past; th e
co nviction of philosoph e rs that th ey, rat he r than hi sto ri an s, a re able to get at
th e nature of truth ; th e co n victi on of 1itera ry sc ho la rs th at th ey, rath e r than
hi sto rian s, a re abl e to get at th e truth o f litera ry works; a nd th e co n viction
of physicists th at th ey, rath e r th a n chemists, a re able to get at the truth o f the
physical uni ve rse.
Disciplinary ob jectivity is tied up with the dynamics of th e modern
academ ic enterp rise, w hi ch is sha rply d ivid ed by discipline and fie ld and
frac tured by competing claim s to authority (thi s is w hy boundar y disputes,
althou g h not always ide ntifi ed as such, com e up repeated ly in intell ectual
d iscussion ). We ca n, of course, im agin e oth er k in ds of intell ectual e nviron-
me nts, in w hi ch peo pl e wo uld esche w the making of disciplinary ob jecti vity-
cl a ims. Th ey mig ht d o so because th ey beli eve that they have ac hi eved a
genera /Ly auth oritative view: in this case, th e cla im to d isc iplin a ry ob jecti vity
wo uld be unnecessa ry. O r th ey mi g ht do so because they beli eve that they
have developed a special, indi vidual se nsiti vity to th e ob ject of th eir in ves ti-
gation: for exampl e, th e biologist Ba rbara McClintock saw he rself as hav ing
"a feeling fo r the organ ism ," and a rt historians and critics have often sou ght
to cultivate a sim il ar o rientati on toward wo rks of a rt.c'I H e re, a claim is being
made to dia lec ti ca l obj ectivity, in volving a n interac ti o n betwee n resea rcher
and obj ect; in such a case, co nn oisse urship might well h old sway ove r the
impersona lity that absolute and d isc iplin a ry obj ectivity recomm e nd. Fi-
nall y, we can imag ine in ves tigato rs so co nfid e nt o f th eir person::d visio n o r,
co n ve rsely, so m od est abo ut th eir a bility to contribute to kn owledge at all ,
th at nothing rem otely like a disciplina ry objectivity-cl aim wo uld be made.
Edward G ibbon in The Decline and Falt ofthe Roman Empire m ig ht be taken
as exempl ifying the first type; M ichel de Montaigne, in hisE·says, th e second.
It is sig nificant th at I here evok e two no nacadem ic authors -w riters
w h o did not see themselves as parti cipa nts in a coll ec ti ve, unifi ed , sea rch fo r
kn ow led ge. Disciplin a ry objectivity-cl aim s can a ri se only w hen such a col-
lecti ve pro ject is in pla ce, fo r cla ims of this sort are a way of asse rting, at least
ove r a limited doma in , th e unity o f kn owledge. But disciplin a ry obj ectivity-
claim s are also products of e pistemological in security. They a re likely to a ri se
OBJECT I V I TY FOR H1'TOR I AN; t 11 9
only when th e fa ith in o ne in d ivisible truth that accompanies absolute ob jec-
ti vity seems unsustainable, and when there a re doubts abo ut the reli abili ty
of persona l vis ion.
Epistemo logica l insec urit y amo ng soc ial sc ie ntists a nd humanists helps
to explain the enorm ous impac t of Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions
beyond its special field: th e history, philosophy, and soc iology of natural sc i-
ence . As is 'vVell kn ow n, Kuhn went ou t of his way to deny that his acco un t of
natural sc ience was ap plicable to th e social sciences, let alo ne to th e hum ani-
ties . m Yet by the ea rly 197os acq uaintance w ith Th e Structu re of Scientific
Revolutions was de rigueur in th e soc ia l scien ces, and was becoming so in
the humaniti es.3 1 Th e hi sto ri a n Dav id H ollinge r, writing in the American
Historical Review in 1973, id entifi ed an impo rtant reaso n for the book 's ap-
peal: in Hollinge r's words, it offe red socia l scientists (includ in g hi sto ria ns) a
"se nse of va lidity, o r obj ecti vity." 12
Hollinge r's assessmen t of Kuhn's book w ill seem strange to som e read-
ers, for, as H o llinge r noted , man y philosophers in sisted that Kuh n had " no
sense of va li d ity at all "-that he had "so relati vized even th e developed Ithat
is, naturall sciences as to deny th eir claims to obj ecti vity." 33 C lea rl y, to use
my terminology, Kuhn d eni ed the noti on of abo·olute objecti vity; in th is re-
gard, Kuhn's "ha rd" phil osophi ca l criti cs were rig ht in th eir reaction to hi s
book. But they we re wrong in thinking that to d eny absolute ob jectivity
is to deny objecti vity gene rall y. Th e parad ig m , wh ich holds togeth er th e
membe rs of a " m ature scientific commun ity," 34 prov ides a court of a ppea l
that w ill suppo rt objec ti vity-cla im s: not a n absolute court of a ppea l, but on e
that w ill se rve w ithin a pa rticul a r community at a particular time. If our
commitment is to absolute objectivity, th e position that Kuhn articul ated in
The Structu re of Scientific Revolutions ca n onl y appear as a n ar rant, a nd er-
rant, re lativism. Yet, as H ollinge r pointed out, eve n though histo ri a ns h ad
long ago forsaken "p retensio ns to 'scientifi c hi sto ry,"' th ey continu ed "to
term good sc holarship 'ob jecti ve ."' The bas is fo r this continued claim to
ob jec ti vity lay, H ollin ge r contend ed, in th e w id e d egree of intersubjective
ag reem ent among professional hi storia ns as to the criteri a for a successfu l
wo rk of hi storica l schola rship. 31 Kuhn's image of th e "norma l" scientifi c
community united by a paradigm is simp ly a m o re coh esive fo rm of this
so rt of professional ag reem ent. 36
Q uesti o ns of di sc ipli nary ob jectiv ity a re of compelling impo rtance in
our kn owledge- m aking institutions. Th e system is a mu lti ce nte red one,
in w hi ch acade mi c autho rity is consta ntl y be ing disputed and reim posed .
l n th e abse nce of a neutral view, d iscip lin ary obj ectivity stand s as a hig hl y
importa nt form of academi c autho ri ty. After a ll , the perpetua ll y recurrin g
120 :j: PART 11 I: Oil) E C T I V ITY AND SPE CU LATION
qu esti on, wh ich sch ola rs must answer if they are eve r to be h ea rd, is "By
what author ity do yo u speak~" Th e claim to d isc iplin a ry obj ectivity, lik e the
claim to a bsolute obj ec ti vity, offe rs a n answe r to this qu esti o n.
THE DI A LE C TI CAL SENSE OF OB J EC TIVITY
Dial ecti cal ob jectivity o ffers a different a nswe r. A striking feature of both
absolute a nd disciplinary obj ecti vity is th eir negative relation to subj ectiv ity.
A bsolute obj ecti vity see k s to exc lude sub jecti vity, a nd disciplin a ry objectiv-
ity see ks to conta in it. H oweve r, th e ass um ed opposition between ob jectiv-
ity and subj ecti vity em e rged histori ca ll y. In a paper o n seve ntee nth -ce ntury
conceptio ns of obj ecti vity, th e historia n of sc ie nce Peter D ea r has noted the
disappea ra nce in th e ea rl y mod ern pe riod of th e use of the term objectivity
to refe r to a mental obj ect, nam ely, a tru e re prese ntatio n in th e min d, and
its use instead to desig nate th e effort to remove fr om th e proj ect of sc ience
all features d ee m ed in approp riate to true knowledge. Th e " inappro pri-
ate" featu res all had to do w ith subj ecti vity. !' Studying nin etee nth -century
conceptions of sci entifi c obj ectivity, Daston and Ga lison similarly note the
" negati ve cha racte r" of th ese concepti o ns. 38 Phrases like "aperspectival ob-
jecti vity" and "v iew fr o m now here" rightl y draw attention to this negativ-
ity.19 In contras t, dial ectical obj ecti vity in volves a positi ve attitud e toward
subj ectivity. Th e defi ning feature of dial ecti ca l obj ec ti vity is th e claim that
su bjectivity is indi spensable to th e co n stitutin g of obj ects. Assoc iated with
this feature is a prefe rence fo r "doin g" ove r "v iewing ."
A n orientatio n toward "doing" (practi ce} perm eates a number of differ-
ent philosophica l schools o r tend en cies, and so it is not surprising th at the
noti o n of dial ectical obj ectivity has a ppeared in a vari ety of contexts. One
ea rl y arti culati on appea rs in N ietzsch e's On the Use..· and Di..·advan tages of
H istory fo r Life ( 1874). Lam entin g that hi s fe ll ow cl assicists often had no
in volveme nt w hatsoever w ith th e G reeks w hom they stud ied, N ietzsche
co nte nd ed that unl ess th e hi sto ri a n already has with in himself someth ing
of what a particular m o ment of th e past offe rs, he w ill fail to see w hat is
being g ive n to him . In oth er wo rds, subjectivity is need ed fo r objectivity;
o r, as ietzsche put it, "Obj ectivity is required , but as a pos itive quality." 40
Working along the sam e gene ral lin e, H eid egge r in Being and Time ( 1927)
argued that ob jects first becom e know n to us in th e co urse of our action
in th e wo rld , not through th eo reti ca l contemplation. 41 Similar conceptions
have a lso bee n adva nced by a wide va ri ety of othe r think e rs, o ften link ed to
pra g matist, ex istentiali st, o r ph e nome nologica l te nd e ncies in phil osoph y.42
Fo r a se nse of how dial ectical obj ectivity has bee n th oug ht abo ut in a
neighbo ring d isc ipline to hi sto ry, a nth ropology, we ca n hard ly do bette r
O BJ J,C TI V I TY FOR HI STO IUAN S :j: 121
than rely o n the a nthropologist Johann es Fabia n's 199 1 essay, "Ethn og rap hi c
Objectivity Rev isited: From Ri go r to Vigo r." 41 Fabian fi rst addressed obj ec-
tivity in a 197 1 pape r, "Histo ry, L a ng uage a nd Anthropology." 44 H e was
led to w rite this ea rli er paper by hi s reac tion against two views conce rnin g
ethnographi c ob jecti vity that we re th en circul atin g . O ne view was that th e
sta nd a rd fo r evaluating the obj ectivity of ethn ograp hi c resea rch and writing
is "sc ientific logic." 4' This view, which we can recogni ze as a ve rsion of ''ab-
solute" obj ecti vity, ca m e to anthropology fr om logica l empiri cist (o r " logica l
positi vist"} philosophy. Th e second view, in spired by Kuhn's Structure of
Scientific Revolutions, was that trul y ob jec ti ve know ledge is only possibl e
with in the fram ewo rk of a paradi g m. Ant h ropologists who adhered to this
view tho ug ht it un fort unate th at ant h ropology was " pre- paradi g matic." 4''
This was not Fabian's wor ry; o n th e contra ry, he dec la red in hi s 197 1 pape r
that Kuhn's view "ano ints th e fetish of pro fess io nalism ." 47 Reac ting aga in st
these two views- but es pecially against th e "positivist" view-Fa bian a r-
g ued th at obj ecti vity in a nthropology needs a foundation in hum a n inter-
subj ectivity, and that such objectivity can o nl y be atta in ed through th e com -
mu ni cati ve inte rac ti o n that occurs in lang ua ge.48
We ca n alrea d y recogni ze Fab ia n's position as d ialec tical in characte r,
since it emphasi zes th e noti on o f interac ti o n. Of course, histo ri ans cha ra c-
teristica ll y deal w ith d ead people rat her than w ith th e li ve ones favo red by
anthro pologists, a nd thus it is not imm ediately cl ea r h ow hi sto ri ca l resea rch
and writing ca n be dial ectical. H oweve r, th e dial ecti cal interac ti o n that Fa-
bian emphasi zes is foc used on a probl em th at h as its close anal og in his -
to ri ca l in vestiga ti on : H ow do anthropologists turn th eir ex pe rien ces w ith a
g ive n culture into objects of anthropolog ica l investigation and refl ecti on? In
sho rt, Fabi a n's co nce rn is w ith objectiv ity as the making of objects-as "ob-
jectificatio n."4'' This is wh at histo ri a ns wort h their sa lt do all the tim e - they
make historical obj ects. For exa mpl e, F e rna nd Braud el's g reat ac hi evem ent
was to turn the Med iterran ea n, w hi ch he loved so mu ch, into a hi sto ri ca l
ob jec t (c h apte r 4).
Fabian came to be interested in obj ectificatio n as a res ul t of hi s ea rl y
fie ld wor k on a relig ious mo ve ment, th e Ja maa movem e nt in Katanga. Th e
probl em for the young a nthropologist was that Ja maa lac ked almost all th e
usual id entifyin g characteristics of a reli g ious mo ve m ent. It had none of th e
'' ritual pa raph ernali a, ... insigni a, bibli ca l attire, communal buildings, etc.,
typica l for so many Africa n relig ious mo ve ments"; its social activiti es we re
loc:ili zed a nd not es pec iall y d istin cti ve ; m embe rship was scattered, a nd its
d istributi o n unrevea lin g ; forma l orga ni zati o n was lacking; and the fou nder
and prominent fo ll owe rs den ied that th ey had fo und ed a movem ent.' 0 In
1 22 :} PART Ill: O HJE C TIVITY ,\ND S PE CU L A TION
this situati o n, Fabian did not find helpful the positivist assumptio n that ob-
jectivity is a product of co rrect method; indeed, he final ly conclud ed that
positivistic approaches concea l eve ryt hin g that is important about obj ectiv-
ity. Pos iti vism wrongly assumed th at soc ial scientific knowledge is based
o n facts that are simply "the re"; in consequence, it ig nored the problem
of how th e objects of ant h ropological investigation are constituted-how,
for example, we come to see a particular set of phe nom ena as "a reli g ious
nio ve m ent."
At first g lance, d ialectical objectivity may seem antithetical to absolute
ohj ec tivit y. But co nsid e r Kant, whose Critique of Pure Reason offe red a n ac-
count of how th e und e rsta nding, th roug h its im position of th e categories of
the understand ing (u nity, plurality, tota li ty, causa lity, and th e li ke) o n the
co nfu sed manifold of sub jective impressio ns, con fe rs obj ectivity on those
imp ressions. We ca n take this account in two ways. In sofar as we st ress the
universality of the catego ri es- their being comm on to al l rati onal beings-
we w ill see Kant as a theo ri st of absolute obj ecti vity, an obj ecti vity stripped
of eve ryth ing pe rsona l a nd idiosy ncratic. But insofar as we st ress th e active
cha racte r of the kn ow ing subj ect, K a nt appea rs as, despite himself, a th eo-
rist of dia lecti ca l objectivity." Thus, the re is a st range a nd te lling symbiosis
between absolute objecti vity and d ialec ti ca l ob jec ti vity. In deed, we m ig ht
eve n see absolu te ob jectivity as a special case of dia lectica l ob jectivity, re-
qu iring the construction of a particula r sort of kn ow in g subj ect, nam ely, a
subj ect w ho is absolutely autho ritative .
T HE PR OCE D URA L SENSE OF O BJE CT I V IT Y
Procedural obj ectivity, too, has a complex relation w ith th e oth er types. We
can rega rd it as a modificat ion of absolu te ob jectivity, but a m od ificat io n
th at focuses solely on impersonality of procedure, in abstraction from th e
hoped-fo r aim of truth ; thus, it w idens the gap between truth and obj ectiv-
ity that is a lready present in the discuss ion of absolu te obj ectiv ity. Proce-
dura l obj ectivity ca n also be seen as an appli cat ion in a particu la r d irec ti on
o f dia lectical obj ect ivity, o ne in wh ich a rule-bound m ode of action requires
the co nstru ctio n of subj ects a ppropriate to it-sub jects, that is, w ho can ap-
ply, and live by, rules. Yet the gove rnin g m eta phor of procedural obj ec ti vity
is not visu al, as in absolute obj ecti vity: it does not offer us a " view." No r does
it stress actio n, as d ialectica l obj ectivity does. Rath er, its gove rnin g meta-
phor is tactil e, in the negative se nse of" ha nds off!" Its m otto might well be
"untouched by hum an ha nd s."
To add Resh to these rat he r abst ract asse rtions, we ca n usefu ll y evoke th e
wo rk that th e hi sto ri a n of science Th eodo re M. Po rte r has do ne on bureau-
OBJEC TI V ITY FOR 1-ll S T OR l ,\N.'> + 12 j
cratic and sc ientifi c standa r dizat i on . 5 ~ Porter is o ne of a group of talented
historians of sc ience who in the 1980s a nd 1990s m ade it thei r business to
write the history-o r, pe rh aps bette r, th e hi sto ri es-of object ivity.' l Ex-
am ining modern burea ucratic adm ini st ratio n, Porter shows that objectivity
in the bureauc ratic sphe re is best seen as a se t of rul es for nar rowing the play
of subjectivity. Th e rul es provide a n altern ative to perso nal judgment ex-
ercised by b ureaucrats . (Th e less that bureaucrats a re res pec ted a nd tru sted
in a partic ular soc iety, th e m o re deta il ed th e rul es . And in societi es w here
judges a re not respec ted o r trusted, attempts w ill be made to redu ce them,
too, to the status of rul e-foll ow in g mi nor offic ials lack in g any ri g ht to m ake
judgme nts o n their ow n. ) The rul es substitute fo r persona l judg m ent in a n
enti rely nega ti ve way, appea lin g neither to transcendent va lue (as in abso-
lute ob jectivi ty ) no r to community standa rds {as in d isciplin a ry obj ect ivity) .
In a situati on whe re va lu es a re in conAi ct and consensus elusive, such rul es
may vvell be th e o nl y thin g that permits agreed- u po n public ac ti on to co n-
tinue at a ll.
Histo ri ca ll y, th e adva nce of impe rsona lity in sc ientifi c practice went
along w ith , and prom oted, th e progress of standa rdi zatio n (of m easure-
ments, catego ri es, etc.). O n th e o ne ha nd, sta nd a rd ization has an objective
side: catego ri es a re im posed o n th e wo rl d of ob jec ts, as in the creati o n of
uni form measures and of statisti ca l classificatio ns th at define homogeneous
classes of peop le. L ess obviously, standa rd izatio n of subject,· has also oc-
curred, throug h th e impos ition of constra ints intended to limit th e exe rcise
of personal judgment. For exa mpl e, rul es of statisti ca l infe rence a nd rig id
inter view protocols a re d es ig ned to mak e knowledge as ind epend ent as pos-
sible of th e peopl e in volved in producing it. H e re Porter's research run s
along a lin e a lso charted out by Dasto n a nd Ga li son, w ho have show n th at
suspicion of ce rtain aspects of subj ec ti vity-name ly, of " inte rpretation, se-
lectiv ity, artist ry, a nd judg m ent itself"-became in the nin etee nth centur y
a prom in ent feature of obj ectivity in science.'4
Porter brilliantly shows how ob jectivit y in the bureaucrati c sphere re-
places "t ru e" o r "bes t" w ith "fa ir." O ne ca n find a nal ogo us exa mpl es in sci-
ence , in those instan ces w he re " true" is replaced by "proced urall y co rrect."
Fo r example, resea rche rs often emphas ize th at they have fo llowed impe r-
sona l procedures (e.g., infe renti al statistics in ex perim enta l psyc hology)
witho ut claimin g that the proced ures g uarantee th e truth of th eir findin gs.
We should note the ove rlap, here, w ith d isc iplin a ry obj ectivity, for th e defi-
nitio n of "co rrect" procedure is ofte n d isc iplin a ry, a m atter of co nventi ons
arrived at w ithin a particular sphe re of resea rch (as when stati sticia ns a nd
othe rs talk abo ut "statistica ll y sig nificant" res ults) . Further, procedura l ob-
124 :j: PA ll°r Ill: OBJECTIVITY A ND S P E C ULATION
jectivity tries to maintain the lette r of absolute objectivity wh il e de nying its
spir it - using the impersona l mea ns that absolute ob ject ivity recommends,
but turning agnostic w ith regard to th e hoped-fo r end , th e atta inm ent of
truth. F in all y, procedura l objectivity has affi niti es wi th d ialectica l obj ectiv-
ity, in that th e standard izati on of ob jects also brings w ith it a sta nda rdiza-
tion of subj ects.
As read e rs may already have g uessed, procedura l obj ecti vity does not ex-
ist as a full-Aedged ori en tation in historical resea rch and w riting, but only
as a tendency. Good hi sto ri ans tr y to be as carefu l as th ey can abo ut their
procedures - go in g to properly ve ri fied p rim a ry sou rces, attendi ng to rele-
vant seco nd a ry w ritings, dea lin g in an a nalytic and expli citl y coun te rfac tual
way w ith matte rs of causation, puttin g their ev ide nce and reasoning on the
tabl e, and in d icating cl ea rl y the deg ree of certa inty o r specu lative ness to be
attribu ted to their claim s. But th e extreme of totally imperso nal procedure,
as exemplifi ed in the "do uble-blin d" procedures fo ll owed in clini ca l t ri als in
m ed ical science, is alien to hi sto ri cal in vestigatio n.
These, then, a re the fou r senses of ob jec tivity -absolu te, disciplin a ry, dia-
lectical, and proced ural- th at a re promine nt in current d isc uss ion . As I
have tri ed to show, th eir prom in ence is no accident, for they have a n inter-
related logic, eac h fo rm of objectivity beyo nd a pure and absolute God 's-eye
view de m andin g the prese nce of the other fo rm s as well. They a re con-
ceptua l types, but fo r the reaso n just noted th ey ove rl ap in practice. At-
tentiveness to these conceptual types ca n help historia ns think more clearly
about th e chall enges and limits of the work of histo ri cal description, expla-
nation, justifi cation, and inte r pretation. But note that I do not cla im that
the suggested typology offe rs some sort of " resoluti on" to "the problem of
objectiv ity." Those w ho look fo r such a resolutio n are either unaware of
th e theo retical comp lex iti es in volved in "the problem of obj ectivity" o r are
ove rconfident as to w hat th eo ry ca n accompli sh.
At the encl of the clay, historians must turn from theoreti ca l or quasi-
theoretical pronouncements to the hard work of hi storica l in vestigati on it-
self. They must stud y specific cases and derive from them w hat insig ht they
ca n. It is thu s approp ri ate that the next chap ter focuses on a specifi c case.
A Case Study in Historical Epistemology:
What Did the Neighbors Know about
Thomas Jefferson and Sally H emings?
CHA PTER SIX
by Steven Shepard, PhiLLip Honenbe1ger, and ALian Megilf
I n his O.u tlines of the Principles of.H isto1y- a. work , now almost fo rgotten,
that was 111 part a treatise on hi storica l epistem ology- th e nmeteenth-
century historian and hi sto ri ca l theorist J. G . Droysen (1808-84) contend ed
that history needs to mak e clea r to itse lf "its aim s, its means, its founda-
tions ." 1 Among th e many issues that interested Droysen was the relation
betwee n the criti ca l and the const ru ct ive dimensions of hi sto ri ca l resea rch
and writing. As M ichael J. MacLean has em phasized, in D roysen's view
hi sto ry is not just a matter of the criti ca l exam inatio n of sources (Kritik), fo r
source cr iticism yields on ly "scatte red empirical fragm e nts ." The problem
is to make the leap from such fragme nts to, as MacLea n puts it, "the d ura-
bl e coll ective ex pressions throug h w hi ch men, united in ... va ri ous ethi cal
comm unities .. . have manifested their co nce rted ac ts of w ill in hi sto ry." 2
Droyse n lived in a wo rld rad ica ll y different fr om ours - the wo rld of
German id ea li st ph il osoph y. His way of conceptuali zing th e problem of
m ov ing from fragmenta ry so urce materia l to a w ide r picture of past eve nts
ca n no lo nge r be ours. But th e problem itself, w hi ch he articul ates w ith
adm irabl e cla rity, is w ith us still. It is one of th e centra l concerns of this
boo k. Droysen holds that historians must specu late . Th e alternativ e is to
have no history at all , but on ly coll ections of facts . Acco rding ly, th e ques-
ti on to be as ked is not Should hi sto ri a ns spec ul ate? Rat her, it is H ow sho uld
th ey spec ul ate? O ur con tention -pe rhaps na ive in its sim plicity, a nd ce r-
tainly simple in its na'ivete - is that they oug ht to speculate honestl y and
intelligentl y. We a re persuaded that in th e long run it is more intelligen t to
be honest than decep ti ve or (wo rse) se lf-dece ived. O ur focus in the present
cha pte r is o n how to specu late intelli gen tl y; co nsid eratio n of the ethics of
hi sto ry w ill be defe rred to anot her wo rk .
126 :j: P A RT 111 : OBJ l:. C T I VITY AND SPE C ULATION
A DISPUTED CASE
On September 1, 1802, a journal ist a nd disappointed o ffi ce-seeke r, James
Ca ll end er, pub Iished all egati ons in th e Richmond Recorder that th e preside nt
of th e U nited States , Th omas Je ffe rson , was in volved in a sex u al relations hip
w ith a slave nam ed Sa ll y. In the two centur ies fo ll owing , th e qu estion as to
th e truth of th ese all egations was a matte r of intermitte nt di sc uss io n. Cal-
lend e r d id not furth er id entify th e pe rson he ca ll ed "thi s we nch Sa lly," but
she co uld onl y have bee n Sa ll y H emin gs ( 1773-1835), a h ousehold slave . It is
Ii k ely that she was th e ha!f-s iste r of Jefferson's deceased vv ife, Ma rtha Wayles
Je ffe rso n ( 1748-82}, whose fa th er, John Way Ies, h ad a lo ng-sta ndin g sexual
relatio nship w ith hi s slave E li za beth H em in gs. (In fac t, m ost hi storia ns who
have exa m in ed th e matter cons id e r it a ce rtainty that Sally H emings was
Ma rth a Jeffe rso n's h alf-s iste r. }
A m ong Sa ll y H emings's desce nd ants th ere was, and continues to be, an
o ral t rad iti on that she h ad been in volved in a sex ual relationsh ip w ith Jeffe r-
so n a nd that sh e had bo rne children by him . H oweve r, u ntil rece ntl y, almost
all histo ri ans w h o co nsid ered the matter rejec ted the notio n that th ere had
been any such relati o nship. Th ey dismissed th e idea o n a va riety of gro unds:
because Ca ll ende r was not a disinteres ted obse rve r but in fact wanted to
harm Jeffe rson; because th e accounts o f ex-slaves fr om th e Monticell o house-
hold were inherentl y unreliable gossip, hav ing no firstha nd foundat ion; be-
cause it wo ul d have bee n out of character fo r Jeffe rso n, a hig hl y m o ral ma n,
to have e ngaged in a n illi cit sexual rel ationship w ith a slave; and because Jef-
ferson was too much a racist to have ente red into a sexual relatio nship with
a wo m a n of African he ritage .
D iscuss ion of th e all eged re lati o nship betwee n H emings and Jefferso n
inten sifi ed in Nove mbe r 1998 w hen th e results of tests of the DNA of nine-
tee n know n ma le d escend ants of Sally Hemings a nd of Je ffe rson's uncle,
Fi eld Jefferson, we re publ ished . (The tes ting was o rganized by E ugene A.
Foste r, a pathologist, a nd was ca rri ed ou t by labs in E ngland and the Neth-
e rl and s.} Th e tests showed, to an extrem ely high level of probability, that
Sa lly H emings's las t so n, Eston H emings, was fat h ered by someone in the
Jefferson fam il y line.3 (It was not possibl e to test the fath erhood of Sally
H emin gs's oth er kn ow n children, fo r th e test req uired an unb roke n line
of kn ow n and surv iving m ale d escend ants.) A lmost a yea r before the DNA
test results we re publi sh ed, a law professor n amed Annette Gordo n-Reed
had publi shed :1 book in w hi ch sh e exa m in ed the hi sto ri ca l ev id ence for and
aga in st a H emings - Je fferson relatio nship, and co nclud ed th at th e ev ide nce
fo r su ch a relati o nship was much stronge r th an h ad usuall y bee n th oug ht. It
A CAS E S TUDY IN HISTORI CA L EP I STE~f O L OC Y :j: 12 /
is hardly surpri sing , the n, that in the wake of th e pu bli cation o f th e D A re-
su lts an acade mi c co nference was o rga ni zed (by Peter S. Onufofthe Univer-
sity of \ ' irg ini a) to discuss the sig nifi ca nce o f the apparent 1iaison betwee n
Jefferso n a nd H emings .4
This ch apte r bega n as a res ponse by She pard to a pape r prese nted by
Jos hua D. Rothm an at that confe rence, w ho a rg ued that the newfound ce r-
tainty of th e Jefferso n - H emings rel ati o nship obliges us to put g reate r fa ith
than hi stor ia ns had prev iousl y in th e re ports of Jam es Ca ll e nde r. Specifi-
cal ly, Rothman co nte nd ed that w e oug ht to beli eve Ca ll ende r's cl a im (in his
180 2 Richmond Recorder article) that "th e re is not a n in d ividu a l in the neig h-
bourhood of C ha rl ottesv ill e w ho does not beli eve th e sto ry; a nd not a few
who kn ow it.'" In fact, Rothman goes furth er th a n Ca ll end er, asse rting that
"some people in V irg inia " had know n eith e r of the relatio nship o r o f th e
sto ry abo ut th e relatio nship as ea rl y as 1790 , w hen Je ffe rso n and hi s dom estic
ento urage returned from hi s tour of duty as M ini ste r to France.6 D e ploy-
ing ep istemological cr ite ri a assoc iated w ith "in fe rence to the best ex pla na-
tion," we a rg u e in this ch a pte r that histo ri a ns o ug ht to remain agnostic as to
wh ether Jefferson's neig hbo rs reall y d id kn ow that Jeffe rson and H emings
we re sex ua ll y in volved w ith each othe r, because th e hi sto ri ca l reco rd is not
suffic ient to sh ow that Rothman's acco unting fo r th e hi sto rica l reco rd is
clea rl y th e best acco unting.'
We beca m e less sk e pti ca l of Rothman's claims in th e wake of read in g
his 2003 book , Notoriou» in the Neighborhood, wh ich in clu d es a chapte r on
Hem ings a nd Je fferson. Th e wea lth of ev idence conce rning interrac ial
sex in V irg ini a th at Rothman d isplays in hi s book to some extent m a k es
up fo r hi s lac k of ev id ence conce rning th e d issemin ati on of rumo rs of th e
H em in gs- Jefferson case in particul a r. But in both th e 1999 a rticl e a nd th e
2003 ch a pter Rothm a n does not m erely cla im that in pre-C ivil Wa r V ir-
ginia th ere was a "soc ial knowl edge" of th e ex iste nce of inte rrac ial sex; he
also cla ims that th ere was "soc ial kn ow ledge abo ut Jeffe rso n a nd H emings
in A lbema rl e County and amo ng the Virg ini a ge ntr y long before an ything
abou t th e coupl e appea red in th e press" (Rothm a n 2003, 16; see also 37). O n
this particul a r point we had - a nd co ntinu e to have-sig nifi ca nt doub ts
about Roth man's attenti ve ness to hi sto ri ca l e pistemology.
INFE R ENCE TO THE BEST EX PL ANAT ION
Su pposing that Th oma s a nd Sa ll y d id have a sexua l relat ionship, did th eir
neighbo rs kn ow abo ut th at relationship ? We believe that th e a ns we r to this
q uesti o n o ug ht to be construed as an attern pt to m a ke se nse of th e hi storica l
128 t PART 11 I: OB JE C TIV I TY AN D SPE C U L A T I ON
record, a nd that we oug ht to incline towa rd beli ev ing w hi cheve r a nswe r
best m akes se nse of th at reco rd. We fu rth e r conte nd that hi stori a ns a re un -
de r a n obli gati on to co nvey to th eir read ers a ny do ubts th at rema in co nce rn-
in g how th e ev ide nce is best interp reted . In o ur view, all hi sto ri ans oug ht
to have a commitm ent to see kin g the best way ofaccounting fo r the totality of
the historica l evidence, fo und o r findabl e, releva nt to the particula r issue in
questi on, as well as a commi tment to convey in g to their read ers som e se nse
of th e limits of thi s evide nce.
Som e perso ns of h ype rcriti ca l bent d em a nd th at all kn ow led ge be certain
kn owledge. Foll ow ing establi shed ph ilosop hi ca l trad iti on, th ey ta ke all
ce rtain knowledge to fa ll into o ne of two catego ri es. Th ese a re, on the o ne
ha nd, th e im medi ately ce rta in knowledge of o ne's ow n ex pe ri ence a nd , on
the other, the logica l ce rtainty th at is acco rded to va li d ded uctive reaso n-
in g . N either of th ese fo rm s of certainty is attribu ta bl e to hi sto ri ca l kn owl-
ed ge, howev er. O ne ca nnot eve n know so obvious a fact as that Na poleon
Bo na pa rte ex isted w ith absolute ce rtainty in eith er of these senses. Na poleon
him self is no longe r "he re" to be d irectl y ex peri enced by us, so we ca nnot
know him im med iately; and, at the sa m e tim e, th e re is no process of reason-
in g th at ca n establi sh hi s ex istence w ith logica l ce rtainty. Conseq uentl y, some
peopl e co ncl ude th at hi sto ri a ns do not reall y know an ything abo ut the past.
We ag ree with such obse rve rs th at our beli efs abo ut th e hi sto ri ca l past
ca nn ot live u p to the trad iti onal phil osop hi ca l conce ptio n of ce rtainty. Ac-
co rd in gly, we contend that ce rtainty in thi s se nse ought to be fo reve r re-
jected as a crite ri on of historical kn owled ge. In stead , inso far as hi sto ri cal
knowled ge is co nce rn ed , we prefe r to spea k of degrees of ce rtainty. The
degree of ce rtainty attributabl e to a se t of beli efs about the past co rrespo nds
to the degree to wh ich adopting those beliefs would serve to make J·en:;e of the
totality of the historical record (with a few sti pul ati ons to be ad ded below).
Alth o ug h hi sto ry ca nn ot ac hi eve certa in ty of eith er the "imm ed iately ex-
pe rienced " o r th e "logica ll y dedu ced" so rt, hi sto ri ca l acco unts ca n still be
judged as m o re o r less lik ely to be true o n the basis of how well they account
fo r the totality of th e ev ide nce as compared with alte rn ative accounts.
Wh ere a n account is fa r better at accoun tin g fo r th e totality of the data
tha n th e alte rnatives, th e histo rian has eve ry rig ht to cl aim th at such-and-
such waJ· the case. "Caesa r crossed th e Rubi co n" is so mu ch better a n ex pl a-
natio n of the d ata tha n its negati on {"Caesa r d id not cross th e Rubi con") th at
it m ay simpl y be sa id to be true, eve n tho ug h thi s ca n neve r be kn ow n im -
m ed iately o r logica ll y. In situ atio ns w here two o r mo re acco unts a re viabl e,
howeve r, th e respo nsible histo ri an w ill cl ea rl y in d icate th at the m atte r is not
beyo nd d ispute. The q uesti on of w hat the neigh bo rs knew about T orn and
A CAS E STUDY I N HI S T ORICAL EP I STEMOLOGY t 12 9
Sall y is, in our view, a n exa mple of such a situatio n. O f course, th ere w ill
always be g ray a reas. Th e rul es and procedures fo r deciding how we shoul d
ran k differing acco unts, howeve r, a re in ge nera l specifiabl e, a lthoug h we
may debate the specifi c a pplicatio n of th ese rul es. Th e good histo ri an looks
fo r the account that best "explains" the avail able ev id ence; sh e does not
jump to a conclusion o n the basis of personal commitments; she does not
see k to g ive th e impressio n that she kn ows m atters that sh e does not in fact
know; and if sh e chooses to wo rk on th e ba sis of an "a ng ular" interpretiv e
perspective {see chapte r 5, foll owing note 12 , a nd chapter 4 generall y), she
does so ex pli citl y a nd w ith co mpl ete attenti ve ness to th e ava il abl e ev ide nce.
Th e tec hniqu es fo r ra nking histo ri cal accounts as bette r o r wo rse have
bee n impli citl y recogni zed by histo ria ns fo r ce nturi es. All the sam e, these
tec hniques m ay be e ffecti vely a rti cul ated in a number of d ifferent ways . In
th is chapter, we wa nt to suggest {and show) that historical accounts ca n be
judged bette r or worse in accordance with wh at some phil osoph ers and com-
pu ter scientists have variously called "a bduction," "abducti ve inference," o r
"in fe rence to the best explanation." In this form of inference, we infer, from
the premise that a g ive n hypothesis better accounts for the ev idence tha n
does a ny oth er hypothesis, th e conclusio n that th e give n hypoth esis is tru e.8
Thi s fo rm of infere nce is comm o nl y empl oyed in natura l sc ience. In
The Origin of Species {1859), C ha rl es Da rw in suppo rted his a rg ument fo r
evolutio n by an inference to the best ex pla natio n: that is, he cl aimed th at
his theo ry m ad e sense of many m ore classes of bi ologically releva nt fa cts
tha n did special creati o nism , and did so mu ch more sirnply.9 Similarl y, th e
eighteenth-ce ntury French natural philosopher A ntoine Lavoisier d efend ed
th e theo ry of oxygen because with it "all the phenom ena are explained w ith
an as tonishing simpli city." 10
Th e A m eri ca n phil osopher of science C ha rl es Peirce called thi s type of
reaso ning "a bdu ctio n," suggesting th at it be add ed to deducti on and indu c-
tio n as a basic catego ry of logical a rg um ent. In hi s late r w ritings , Peirce
po rtrayed this form of reasoning as foll ows: "( r) The surpri sing fact, F, is
obse rved. {2) Bu t if H w ere true, F would be a m atte r of course. H ence, (3)
th ere is reaso n to suspect that His true." 11 H e re Peirce understands abduc-
tio n as an ex pl oratory m ethod , a logic of discovery that cannot actually se rve
to eva lu ate the truth-claims of th eori es. Abducti o n proposes a theory, de-
duc ti on d edu ces th e observa ble conseque nces of the theo ry, a nd inducti o n
empirica ll y ve rifi es (o r not) th e deduced co nsequ ences. In sho rt, in thi s view
abd ucti o n has a n exclu sively preliminary statu s in the co nduct of sc ience.
In the messy wo rl d of histo ry, how eve r, abd ucti o n has roles to pl ay th at
a re broad er th an th e rol e of a logic of d iscove ry. In hi sto ry, abducti on does
130 t PART III: OBJE C T I VITY AN D SPECU L A TI ON
m ore than me rely devise hypotheses fo r furth e r testing. Pe irce ex plicitly
pointed to o ne such role: the establishing of hi storica l facts. Notably, he
wrote that "numberless documents refer to a conq uero r ca lled Napoleon
Bonaparte. Though we have not see n the man, yet we ca nn ot ex plain what
we have seen, namely, all these docume nts and monuments, w ithout sup-
posing that he rea ll y existed ." 12 T o gloss this: We cannot conclude by de-
duction th at Napoleon existed (or that World War I bega n in 1914, to take
a nother exam pl e). No r ca n we a rri ve at such facts inductively, since they are
not empirically obse rvable. Rathe r, th ey ca n o nl y be establish ed abductively,
w he n we observe ce rtain facts about th e prese nt-day wo rld (most obviously,
the prese nt-day ex istence of " numberl ess docume nts" refe rrin g to Na po-
leo n) and th en postulate a cau se (namely, a rea ll y existing Napoleon) that
would explain these facts. In othe r words, the "best ex planation" of the mul-
titude of docu m ents referring to Na poleo n a nd his actio ns is that Napoleon
existed a nd that he actually engaged in these actions.
Th e computer scientist Joh n R. Josephso n relates the truth-establishing
species of abd uction to in fe rence to the best ex planation. H e schematizes
inference to the best ex pl a nation in the follow ing way: "D is a collecti on of
data (facts, observatio ns, givens). H ex plain s D (wou ld, if tru e, explain D).
No othe r hypothes is ca n ex pl ain Das wel l as H does . Therefo re, His prob-
ably tru e." 13 Of course, H might impl y other statements that we know to be
fa lse, in w hich case H wou ld be a bad hypothesis. But we need not re ject out
of ha nd a hypothesis that contrad icts prev io usly held beliefs- rathe r, we
might reject those other beliefs. The rejectio n of establi shed beli efs because
of the g reate r persuasiveness of a new hypothesis is a regul a r occu rrence
in hum a n life and hum an history. Galil eo's rejectio n of the ea rth-centered
view of th e unive rse in favo r of the " new" heliocent ric hypothesis proposed
by Cope rnicus is a n exa mpl e of a case w here a new hypothes is is so much
better th an the old that it is adopted even at the cost of re jecting a d eeply
esta blished set of beli efs.
In cases w here othe rw ise tenable hypotheses a re at som e point in con-
trad ictio n w ith each othe r, we need not wholly reject eithe r hypothesis.
It is possibl e (a nd quite common am ong intelli ge nt people) to subsc ribe
tentatively to two or more inco nsistent hypotheses while at the same time
acknowledging their inconsistency. We believe that such cases of inconsis-
tency a re fa irly common in hi sto ri ography. We a re inclined to suggest that
hi sto ri ans oug ht to rema in agnostic abo ut w hich of two otherwise tenable
hypotheses is in erro r until furth er resea rch and arg um ent hav e settl ed the
issue-if in fact they settl e the issue.
A CASE STUDY I N H I STORICAL EP I STEMOLOGY t IJ I
In a pplying th e logic of "inference to the best ex planati on" to hi sto ri ca l
inqu iry, we need to be atte ntive to th e d iffe rent se nses of the term explain.
In a broad and also rath er vague sense, to "ex plain" a set of data is to show
how it "makes se nse." In this sense, explain is more o r less sy no nym ous with
elucidate or clarify (a sense of explain that was noted, but put to one side, in
chapter 4, note 9). Since elucidation o r clarificati on is an elucidati on o r cla ri-
ficatio n for us, thi s se nse of explain is also akin to inte1pretation as d efin ed in
chapte r 4, w here a n inte rpretation is a n a nswer to th e question "W hat is th e
sign ifica nce ofX, for us, now?" H oweve r, to "explain" a historical eve nt o r
existe nt in a mo re specia li zed sense, th e hi sto ri an needs to do m o re th a n of-
fer a hypoth esis that mak es se nse of the prese ntly ex istin g body of ev id ence;
she needs to offer a hypothesis as to w hat caused this body of ev ide nce to
come into being, w hi ch usuall y mea ns that she needs to say what caused the
past state of affa irs . 1;
The meaning of explanation in the phrase "inference to the best expla na-
tion" sho uld be understood as akin to but not id enti cal with the meaning
give n to the term in chapter 4, w here an ex planation is a n an swe r to th e
question "What caused X? " Note also that chapter 4 distinguish es betwee n
expla nation, on the one hand, and a rg um ent o r justification on th e othe r.
Th is distin ction all ows histori a ns a nd their rea de rs to d iffe rentiate between
offering an explanation a nd claiming that the explanation is true. In this chap-
ter, too, we foc us on explanation in the sense of a proposal as to what caused
a particular eve nt or ex istent, H oweve r, in the slig htl y shifted pe rspective of
this chapter the explanandum (the thing to be explain ed) is as ofte n as not the
evidence itself. 15
In abductive infe rence we offer a po,·:sibly true account of one or anothe r
real ity (w hether, to take a traditional perspective, this is a supposed reality
in the past, o r w heth er it is a body of ev id ence ex isting in th e prese nt). Go-
ing one step furth e r, in attempting infer to the best ex planation, we offe r a
justification o r justifica ti ons fo r beli ev ing that one "explanation" (or descrip-
tion, o r interpretation) is better than its competito rs. Adm itted ly, "in fe rence
to the best expla natio n" is a wea ke r fo rm of justificati on than are ded uctio n
and se nse-ce rtainty. Moreover, it is difficu lt to establi sh fi xed guidelines fo r
dec iding w hen one "explanation" is better than a nother. The theory of in -
fe rence to the best ex planation is not a magic formula , a skeleto n key that
will open all doo rs . All the same, we be lieve that the theo ry has much to of-
fer the hi sto ria n. It provides a way of und erstanding processes of reasoning
that a re central to the practi ce of hi stor ica l resea rch a nd that good histo ri ans
al ready empl oy in an intuitive fas hi on. The "best ex pl a nation" is the best
132 t PART Ill: OB JE C TIVITY A ' D S P E C U L A TI O N
account as to what caused something in the past. Alternatively, the "best
explanation" offers the best answer to th e qu estio n "What caused the totality
of the ev id ence to be as it is ?"
THAGARD'S THREE CRITERIA
Th e philosopher of science Paul Thaga rd has proposed three criteria for de-
ciding which explanation, or which kind of explanation, is best in a ny given
case: consilience (the more data ex plained by an ex planation, the better);
simpli city (the fewer "auxili a ry" hypoth eses necessary to m ake the explana-
tion work, the better); a nd ana logicality (the more analogous an ex plana-
ti on is to othe r ex planatio ns we know to be tru e, the bette r) . 16 Th e last cri-
terio n- a nal ogicality - is somewhat weak er th an the others, and should
be used ve ry carefully in histo rical resea rch and writing. For instance: one
might suppose that Jefferson ate cornbread for brea kfast on the basis of the
known fact that many of his contemporaries ate cornbread for brea kfast,
but such a supposition can only offe r a rather low deg ree of certainty. Any
reasonably persuasive ev id ence to the contrary would blow this supposition
to pi eces, a nd a good historia n will rema in la rge ly agnostic about claims fo r
which analogicality is th e only support.
The criteri on of consili ence is useful when one wants to compare an ac-
count that expl ains data A, B, a nd C to a nother that explains data A, B,
C, and D (the second theory, all other things being equal, would be bet-
ter). H oweve r, consilience fails as a criterion when two competing accou nts
make sense of different ranges of data. For example, if we hypothesize that
Jefferso n fathered H emings's son Eston, this explains Eston H emings's de-
scend a nts carrying the Jeffe rson Y chromosom e, whereas if we hypothesize
that it was one of Jefferson's nephews who father ed Eston H em ings, this
explain s the testim ony of Edmund Bacon and T. J. Rand olph (Jefferson's
ove rsee r a nd grandson, res pectively), both of whom denied th at a sexual re-
lati o nship existed between Jefferso n a nd H emings . (Conversely, the first hy-
pothesis fails to explain Bacon's and Ra ndolph 's testimony, and the second
fa ils to explain the D A ev idence.) Comparing competing explan ations is
a matter of deciding which evidence matters more, and this decision cannot
be based on a quantitative comparison alone.
Th e criteri on of simplicity favors expla nations that need fewer auxiliary
hypoth eses to fit explanations to th e circumstances. Auxiliary h ypotheses
a re required whe neve r we posit past eve nts o r ob jects without ev idential
support, solely in order to mak e our theory work. The simplest ex plana-
ti ons usually do not req uire any auxili a ry hypotheses. For exa mpl e, Madi-
A C ASE STUDY I N HI STOR I C AL EP I STEMO L O G Y t 133
son H emings stated in his 1873 memoir (refe rred to in note 4, above) th at
he had a n old er sister named Harriet. The best explanation of thi s action
(namely, Madison's stating of thi s claim) is that Madison H emings believed
that he had an old e r sister nam ed H a rri et, and that it was this that caused
him to make this statement. 17 Our knowledge of Madison H emings's cir-
cumstances justifies assigning him this belief: according to Jefferson's Farm
Book and other sources, Sally H emings gave birth to a daughter nam ed
Harri et in i 8o r. 18 In this simple exa mple, Madison H emings's action a nd
his circumstances both point to the same state of mind. Therefo re, no auxil-
iary hypotheses are needed to ex plain this pi ece of ev id ence.
Madison H emings's memoir also desc ribes Thomas Jefferson as hav ing
"little taste or care for agricultural pursuits," a nd yet we know fro m othe r
sources t hat Jeffe rson took g reat inte rest in fa rming. Therefore, a hi sto-
rian interested in establishing the reliability of Madison H emings's m em-
oir must introduce auxiliary hypotheses- that is, hypotheses that we have
no independent basis for taking to be true - in o rd er to make Madison
H em ings's beliefs about Jefferson fit in w ith what we know to have been
true of Jefferson. Gordon-Reed suggests that Madison Hemings may have
bee n refe rring to Thomas Jefferson in th e yea rs when he (Hemings) "came
of age" at Monticell o. In 18 19, Madison was fourte en, just app renti ced to
hi s uncl e Jo hn, a nd th erefore "would have bee n old eno ugh to pay serious
attenti on." At that time Jefferso n was "obsessed , not w ith his farm, but with
bu ilding hi s unive rsity" (22). Gordon-Reed has no tex tual basis for ass um -
ing that H em ings was referring onl y to his formative yea rs; she makes this
assum ption only to remove the contradiction between , on the one hand , her
desc riptio n of Madison H emings's m emoir as co ntaining stateme nts that
Madison beli eved to be tru e a nd, on th e othe r, our knowledge of what was
ac tuall y true. H e re Go rdo n-Reed empl oys a n auxiliary hypothesis. She pos-
its a historical ex iste nt (Mad ison's state of mind) that can not be ve rifi ed o n
the basis of th e ava ilabl e hi sto ri ca l reco rd. If there we re a nother ex planation
of Mad ison H emings's statement that accounted for the same data without
appea l to an auxiliary hypothesis, this second explanatio n would have to be
prefe rred, all other things being equal. In the absence of such an explana-
tion, Gordon-Reed's account, while far less than certainly true, may be en-
te rtained as th e best available ex planation.
Thaga rd 's third criteri on for judging the quality of a n ex planation,
a na logicality, is weak but sometimes usefu l. For example, in a rg uing for
the ex iste nce of a sex ual relationship between Thomas Jefferson a nd Sally
Hem ings, we might be tempted to d raw a n analogy betwee n Jeffe rson a nd
the hundreds of his white contemporaries who had sex ual relati o ns with
134 t PART Ill: OB JE C TIVITY AND SPECULAT ION
female slaves . But w hil e such an a nalogy might help us to interpret the al-
leged Hemings-Jefferson relatio nship - that is, to see it as making sense
with in the la rge r context of pre-Civil War Virgini a-which would then
also make th e existe nce of the all eged relatio nship more plausible than
would otherw ise be the case, it cannot explain th e relationship, in the sense
of saying what caused it. Nor, indeed, can it establish , beyond the level of
m ere suppositio n, th at such a relati onship ex isted in th e first place. For re-
m ember th at we a re co nce rned he re with the behav io r of a specific historical
acto r (o r, at most, of two historical acto rs). Accord ingly, unl ess we a rgue
that Jeffe rso n altered hi s actions in o rder to make them cong ruent with the
acti o ns o f the m any white Virginia slave-ow ners who had sex with slaves,
we cannot make use of th e analogy in explaining Jeffe rson's acti ons (assum-
ing, for the sa ke of the argum ent, that he actu all y did have a sex ual relation-
ship with Sal ly H emings) . An ove rl ap betwee n the categori es of"w hite men
who ow ned slaves" and "white m en who had sex w ith slaves" does not, in
and of itself, establish a causal relationship, any more than wou ld an ove rlap
betwee n "w hite men whose surnames bega n with J" and "white m en who
spoke French." Thus, a nalogicality is fo r from a foolproof way of establish-
ing th e best explanati o n of th e hi sto rica l reco rd . All th e same, it appea rs
to have som e usefu ln ess fo r hi stori cal thinking, alth oug h infe rences based
solely o n a nalogica lity clearly a re ev id entiall y weak .
A FOURTH C RITERION
T o the useful criteri a of consilience and simplicity and the mo re problem-
atic crite ri o n of analogicality, we add a fourth. Since we human beings a re
much better at esta bli shin g causes th a n we a re at predicting th e future-es-
pecially w he re the motivations of oth er human beings a re conce rned- we
oug ht to ex pect hi sto ry to be firmly rooted in seeking ou t the causes of
know n eve nts rather than deducing the conseq uences of some set of eve nts
in abstracto. Imagine someone attempting to deduce what would hap pen in
1938 solely o n the bas is of her knowledge of the eve nts a nd ex istents of 1937
and ea rlier. Give n the contingency of hum a n histo ry, it would be highly
surprising if such a person were to succeed in any sig nificant way. O n the
oth e r ha nd, a histo rian in a pos iti on to ask the qu esti on "What we re the
causes of such-and-such a n event th at actu all y occ urred in 1938?" wo uld be
able to ex pl oit the hi sto ri ca l reco rd in her sea rch for a nswe rs . The histo rian
is doing hi story, w hereas his im agin ed competito r is engaging in futuris-
tic specu latio n. (This point is further illu strated in chapte r is discussion of
"v irtu al hi sto ry.")
A CASE STUDY I N HISTOR I CAL EP I S TEM OLOGY t 135
As our treatm ent of auxili a ry hypotheses has show n, th ere is nothin g
wrong with pos itin g the ex iste nce of a hi sto ri ca l particu la r of w hi ch o ne
cannot be complete ly ce rtain - a particular that is not well suppo rted by
evidence. l n our op ini o n, of course, a hi sto ri an is obliged to indicate w here
he has m ade a g uess. We suggest - in accordance with our fourth crite-
rion-that where histo rical particulars are posited without knock-down-
drag-o ut ev idence, we oug ht to prefe r those g uesses th at posit cause:; ove r
those that posit effects . A histo rica l ex planati on th at sta rts from a kn own
historica l pa rticul ar (say, th e ex istence of Madison H em ings's m emoir) a nd
then seeks o ut th e causes of that particular is in ge neral to be preferred to a n
expla nation that sta rts from a kn ow n hi sto ri ca l particu la r and th en deduces
the supposed effects of that fac t (as in the a rg um ent th at "Jefferson could not
have had sex w ith Sa ll y H em in gs because he was too much of a racist"). As
has been shown ove r a nd ove r again, histori a ns ' deductions te nd to be fa r
less ce rtain tha n th ey beli eve them to be. Thu s it seems to us that histo rian s
ought in ge neral to abduce (posit causes on the basis of effects) rathe r th a n
deduce (pos it effects on th e basis of causes). We ca ll the first kind of g uess
an effect-to-cause hypothes is, w hil e the seco nd we ca ll a cause-to-e ffect hy-
pothesis. The first procedure amo unts to proposing ex planations, w he reas
the seco nd is akin to predicting th e future. The first procedure is preferable
to the second in that it keeps th e hi stori an rooted in th e rea l ev id ence; co n-
sciously practiced, it encourages the histo ri a n to be cl ea r about w hi ch parts
of his account a re less th a n certa in .
O ur fourth crite ri on , the n, is simpl y this : that in judging histo ri ca l ac-
counts we oug ht to rem ember th at expla nati o ns in which th e reasoning is
from effects to causes are preferabl e to those in which the reasoning is from
causes to effects.
Causa li ty in hi sto ry is a n extremely tricky subj ect. Consider the differ-
ences between the fo ll owing three types of hi stor ica l rea lities that might
be employed in exp laining aspects of the hi stor ica l reco rd : (1) ac ti ons by
histo ri ca l acto rs; (2) states of mind of hi sto ri ca l acto rs; and (3) hi sto rica l
ci rcumsta nces. Each of these is hig hl y releva nt to the hi sto ri a n's practice
of recounting th e past. For exa mpl e, we have before us a letter, putative ly
w ritten by Jefferson . In inferring that Jeffe rso n was in fa ct th e author of the
letter, we mi g ht in voke some o r all of the following:
r. Action-o ri ented cause: Jeffe rson's act of letter-w riting caused the letter.
At this point we might introd uce a handwriting a nalys is, the letter's
provenance, a nd so o n, to establish that it was in deed th e product of hi s
act of letter-writing and not of some othe r act, such as that of a forge r.
136 t P A RT III: OBJE C TIVITY AND SPE C ULAT I ON
2. State-of-m ind cause: Jeffe rso n's beli efs a nd des ires caused the letter. To
establi sh th at the letter was indeed th e produ ct of Jefferson's state of mind
a nd of no o ne else's, we mig ht a rg ue that the letter contain s information
that onl y Jeffe rson could have kn ow n, o r argume nts that onl y Jefferso n
was putting fo rward at the time. 19
3. C ircumstance-oriented cause: The hi sto rica l circumstances caused Jef-
fe rson's state of mind (which in turn caused him to w rite th e letter). Here
we might co nn ect a poor ha rvest on Monticell o to the lette r's request fo r
a n extensio n of credit. 20
A rough-a nd-ready way to think of the poss ibl e impact of th ese three
types of histori ca l realities is to rega rd actions as explaining what hap pened,
states of mind as expla ining why it happened (taking "why" in thi s instance
to be a questio n as to purposes o r intenti ons), and the evocati on of hi stori-
ca l circumstances as helping to ex pl ain why we believe that such-and-such
explanations in term s of actions o r states of mind are true. Insofa r as the h is-
tori an d ecides to treat a histo rical pe rson as a n agent o r actor on the historical
sce ne (that is, as a "c haracter," in the sense th at this term has in cha pter 4),
rather th a n as a res ultant of one o r m o re determin isms, she is obli ged to
desc ribe w hat th e person's pu rposes were in acting, a nd to do so by in voki ng
his o r her beli efs and des ires at th e time of the action as an ex pl a natio n of the
action in question. Altho ugh this chapte r is conce rned w ith th e e pistemol-
ogy in volved in describing what was the case (Did Jefferson a nd H emings
have a sex ual relationship ? Did th eir neig hbo rs know?), establi shing the
truth of these desc riptions depends in pa rt on the associated expla nations as
to w hy the historical actors in questi on acted as they d id.
We beli eve that this point can be ex pand ed into a rul e of thumb: a par-
ticul a r desc ripti on of the past w ill be better justified to the degree that the
desc ri ptio n also offe rs an explanatio n of the states of mind of th e historical
acto rs in volved . Fo r exam ple, Edmund Bacon stated that o n Jeffe rso n's or-
de rs he gave Harriet H emings (Sa ll y's youngest daug hte r) $so a nd helped
her run away from Mo nti cell o (Gordon-Reed, 27). If we ass um e th at Bacon
was telling the truth, then we mig ht expla in Jefferson's o rders by in fer ring
that Jefferson had some attachment to H a rriet o r some commitment to her
m other, a nd kn ew that H a rri et wanted to leave Monticello. This wo uld be an
ex planatio n that reasons from effect (Jefferso n's orders) to most likely cause
(Jefferson's beliefs and desires). A cause-to-effect expla nati on, on the other
ha nd, wo uld posit Jefferson's state of mind , both on the basi s of his oth er
actions (e.g., hi s strongly racist asse rti o ns in Notes on the State of Vi1ginia
A CAS E ST U DY I N H I S T O RI CA L EPI S TEMOL OG Y t 13 7
[referred to in note 4, aboveJ and hi s demonst rated relucta nce to free slaves,
especia ll y fema les) and on th e basis of hi s circum sta nces (e .g., hi s mounting
fin a ncia l hardships), a nd wou ld the n a rg ue that Bacon's testim ony must be
wrong, because Jeffe rson wo uld neve r have done such a thing . Thi s is rea-
son ing from putative cause (posited belie fs a nd desires, plus circumsta nces)
to unobserved effect (acco rding to which Jeffe rson gave no orders, and Bacon,
for some unkn ow n rea son, lied). Cause-to-effect ex pla nati ons a re wea ker
than effec t-to-cause explanations fo r th e same reasons that our predictions
of anot her's actions a re less acc urate than our und e rstanding of her inten-
ti ons afte rwa rd. ft ca n be ex trem ely d ifficu lt to kn ow w hat a par ti cul a r hu -
m an being is thinking, fee ling, a nd wanting at any g ive n m om ent. In m a ny
cases, we ca nnot pred ict the acti o ns of o ur best fri end, much less th e acti o ns
of a long-dead histo ri ca l fi g ure.
O ur fo urth crite ri on applies in th e fo ll owing way to w hat we have ca ll ed
state-of-m ind causes: ex planations th at posit beliefs and desires th at, on th e
bas is of recorded actions , could cred ibl y have bee n held by th e histo ri cal
acto rs in questi o n are ge nerall y better than ex planatio ns that predict un -
reco rded acti o ns o n the bas is of posited be!iefs a nd des ires. It is usefu l to nam e
th ese two contrasting types of exp la natio n (w hich wi ll beco m e cl ea rer to th e
rea de r when we app ly them to th e Jeffe rso n - H emings case) "bottom- u p"
a nd "top-dow n." O ur cl aim is that, a ll othe r things bein g eq ual, botto m-up
ex planati ons (w hich reason from know n effect to in fe rred cause) ge nera ll y
beat top-down ex pl anations (w hi ch reason from a putatively known cause
to a postul ated effect). Sin ce we a re mu ch bette r at unde rsta nding oth er
people's past actio ns than at predicting their future actions , a good historical
expla nation w ill tend to build up fro m the data - that is, it w ill constru ct
cred ibl y att ributabl e beli efs and desires as a basis fo r explaining reco rd ed
actio ns, rather th an positin g unreco rded acti ons that supposed ly fo ll owed
from a hi sto ri ca l acto r's postul ated be liefs a nd desires. In other wo rds, it is
bette r for expla nati ons of histo ri ca l acto rs' behav iors and states of mind to
be bottom-u p (sta rting w ith w hat we plau sibl y know to have been th e case
and seek ing out the pri o r causes) th an top-dow n (mov ing fro m a ge nera l
asse rtion to a n in fe rred posteri or res ult). 21
INFERR I NG THE REL A TIONSHIP
In Thomas Jeffenon and Sally H emings: An American Controversy, A nnette
Go rdo n- Reed ex hausti vely lays o ut th e ev idence co nce rnin g Mad ison
H emings, James Ca ll ende r, T. J. Ra nd o lph (w ho cla imed th at Jeffe rson's
138 t PART Ill'. O BJE C TI V ITY AND S PE CU LAT I ON
nephew Peter Ca rr was the father of Sally H emin gs's childre n [254- 56]),
and finally Thom as Jeffe rson a nd Sally H emings themselv es. A lthough
Go rdon-Reed says nothing in he r book abo ut inference to the best ex plana-
tion, it is in fact a n extend ed argument of prec isely this type. On th e basis
of the available ev id ence she posits beli efs and d esires for each releva nt fig-
ure , and th en she suggests that an account of what happened that assumes
a Jefferson - H emings relatio nship is ev identia ll y stron ge r than a compet-
ing account that assum es a rel ati onship between Hemings and either Peter
Ca rr o r his brothe r Sa muel Carr. (Again, bea r in mind that Gordon-Reed
reached thi s co nclu sio n befo re th e appea rance of the D 1A ev id ence, wh ich
dem onstrated to an ex trem ely hig h degree of ce rta inty that neith er of the
Ca rr broth ers could have fath ered Eston H emings, since they were not in
the Jeffe rso n ma le line.)
Gordon-Reed showed that th e Jefferson - H emings ex planation is more
consilie nt (that is, ex plains more data) than does the Ca rr -Hemings ex-
planation. Th e Jefferson - Hemings explanation acco unts fo r such things
as Jefferson's favorable treatment (and ultimately his freeing) of H emings's
children; repo rts as to the rese mblance of Sa ll y H emings's children to Jef-
ferso n; Madison H emings 's claim to be th e so n of Thomas Jeffe rso n; a nd the
fact th at H emings's co nce ptions all occurred at times wh en Jeffe rson was
prese nt at Monticell o.22
Gordon-Reed also argued pe rsuasi vely that th e Jefferson - H emings ex-
planati o n is simple r (that is, mak es less use of unsuppo rted auxiliary hypoth-
eses) than is the Ca rr - H emings ex planati o n. The Ca rr - H emings explana-
tion has to assume that Mad ison H emings and Israel Jefferson (Thomas
Jefferson's m a nservant, no fami ly rel ation) li ed when they spoke of the
Jeffe rson - H emin gs relati onship to S.F. Wetm o re, th e aboliti onist publ isher
w ho interviewed the m in 1873, o r th at they all owed him to put words into
the ir m outh s. The Jeffe rso n - H emings ex planation, o n the other hand,
must assume that Edmund Bacon and T. J. Ra nd olph spoke inaccurately
whe n they den ied th e Jeffe rson - H emings relati o nship. Go rdon-Reed
showed that this second h ypot hesis is m o re supportable than th e first, for
sh e was able to question the accuracy of Bacon's know ledge (he arrived at
Monticello fiv e yea rs after the events he den ied) and to impeach Ra nd olph 's
reli ability (he gave two different accounts of how he came to know that
the Ca rrs were in volved). She also noted that both m e n had a perfectly un-
derstandable interest in preser ving Jeffe rso n's reputation, w hil e neither Is-
rael Je fferso n no r Madison H em in gs had mu ch to ga in by fabricating their
sto ry.
A C ASE STUDY I N HI S T O RI CA L EP I S T EMOLOGY :j: 139
Fi nall y, in a n ex tensiv e d iscussion Gordon-Reed ex posed the weakness
of the top-down expla nati o n that Jeffe rso n's cha racter rende red him in -
capable of a relati onship w ith H emings (107-57, 228-34). Agree ing with
Gordo n-Reed , we a re inclin ed to reduce the probl ems with th e "charac-
ter" a rg um ent to two. First, those who deploy th e cha racter argument are
appealing to something that is completely unobse rvabl e, namel y, a posited
"inn er Jeffe rso n," to w hich they att ribute such -a nd -su ch cha racteristics on
w hat ca n onl y amount to hig hl y subjective g rounds (hence grounds that
a re likel y to be infected , w itting ly o r not, by th e hi storian's ow n unstated
and und efe nd ed id eologica l p refe rences). Second, these pe rso ns are also as-
sum ing that the said cha racter structure wou ld hav e m ade it imposs ibl e for
Jeffe rson to engage in such-and-such actions-in this case, to have sex with
a slave. In ass uming th at Jeffe rso n's actions wou ld have had to be co nsistent
'
they igno re (o r at least discount) the high degree of obse rva bl e inconsistency
in the acti ons of human beings.
In An A merican Controversy Go rdon-Reed did not purport to estab-
li sh that Thomas Jefferson had a sex ua l relationsh ip w ith Sally H emings.
Rather, her claim was that "th e quantum of ev ide nce that ex ists to support
the notion /th at Jeffe rso n and H emings did have sex / has been seriously
underestim ated ." Sh e also co ncluded th at th e ev id ence fo r what was the n
the dominant alte rn ative th eory, nam ely, that the Ca rr broth ers were re-
spo nsibl e, "has bee n ove restimated." (210) [n th e te rminol ogy of in fe rence
to the best ex plan ation, Gordon-Reed found that the Jefferson - H emings
explanation was not sufficientl y better than th e competition to justify ac-
cepting it as true unrese rved ly. She succeeded in demonstrating, howeve r,
that th e Carr-Hem ings explanation was clea rly not th e best.
INFE RRIN G K NOWLEDGE OF THE R E L A TI ONS HIP
IN ALBEMARLE COUN TY
We now a ppl y the epistem o logica l criteri a associated with infe rence to
the best ex pl a nati o n to Joshu a Ro thman's cl a im th at th e accuracy of Jam es
Ca ll e nd e r's all egatio ns concern in g th e Jeffe rso n house hold are "remark-
abl e testimony to th e ex tent and transmission of social knowl edge abo ut
pri vate inte rracial sexual affa irs in Virginia commu niti es" (Rothman 1999,
ro3; Rothman 2003, r 6 [see note 6, abovel). Mo re particularly, Rothman
cla ims t hat Ca ll end er's reports testify to the broad circul ation in A lbemarl e
County of know ledge conce rning th e all eged Jeffe rson - H emings rel ation-
sh ip. Rothman's cl a im, if tru e, would m ake se nse of two types of histo ri -
ca l data: repo rts of, and appa rent ev ide nce for, pre- 1802 rumo rs about a
140 t PART 111: OBJ E C TIVJTY A ND S PE C ULAT I ON
Jeffe rson- H emings rel ati o nship, and the mi x of fac t a nd fi ction in what
Ca ll ende r says abo ut the all eged relati onsh ip. Rothman explain s these data
by refere nce to the beli efs a nd desires of Jam es Ca lle nde r and of (unna med)
residents of Albemarle County. His accoun t in volves fo ur h ypotheses:
Hr. Before September 1802, many Albemarle County residents believed
that Jeffe rso n was involved in a sexual relatio nship with an enslaved woma n,
Sally H emings, a nd had had children by her (Rothman 1999, 95).
H2. These resid ents also beli eved details about th e relationship that we
now know to be fa lse, such as the ex iste nce of a yo un g black "President
T om " (purpo rted ly the eld est child of Jeffe rson a nd H em ings, purportedly
born abo ut 1790) (Rothma n 1999, 102).13
H 3. Ca llender thought that the beliefs described in H 1 a nd H2
were true.
H+ Callender desired to report the truth , and des ired not to report false-
hoods (Rothm a n 1999, 89 [see also l 00-10 1]; Rothm a n 2003, 16)."
If we are to consider Rothm an's account of the situation plausible, we
must be able to think of the above-noted beliefs and desires as caused by
what we know to have been true about the hi sto rica l ci rcumsta nces. Roth-
man mentions such data (o r alleged data) as the fo ll owing: the proved ex is-
tence of a Jefferson - H emings relationship (Rothman 1999, 89); the publ ic
actions (that is, statements) of Jeffe rson related to miscege nation; circum-
stances at Monticello related to miscege natio n; a nd common fee lings about
interracial sex a mo ng white residents of Albemarl e County.
In the following sections we engage in our ow n examinatio n of th e data.
We believe that the data suppo rt an account of w hat people believed o r sa id
abo ut the all eged Jefferso n - H em ings relatio nship prior to 1802 that is dif-
fe rent from Rothman's account. Here a re the ce ntral elements of our alter-
native accoun t (AA):
AA r. Before September 1802, almost no residents of Albem a rl e Co unty
had any reason to believe that Jefferso n had fathe red any of H em ings's
children or had any special relationship with he r. Indeed, few would have
know n who Hernings was .25
AA2. Res idents of Albemarle County knew that Jeffe rson was circum-
sta nti all y assoc iated with miscegenation, and therefore may have been will-
ing to believe (suspect?) that he was in volved with an enslaved wornan .26
AA 3. Ca llende r thought that he had reaso n to believe that Jeffe rson was
the fa the r of H emings's ch ildren.
A Ct\ S E S T U DY I N HI S T O R I C AL EP I S TEM O L OG Y :f: 141
AA4. Aware of AA2, Ca ll ende r desired to persuade his reade rs that Jef-
fe rson was the fat her of H em ings's children.
AA5. Ca ll ende r beli eved that in o rd er to persuade hi s reade rs of a Jef-
fe rson - H emings relatio nship, he needed to m a ke some stateme nts he kn ew
to be false. Specifically, he needed to conve rt AA2 to the stronger H 1 and
to fa bricate H2.
O ur alternative account does not ex plain how o r why Ca ll end er th oug ht
he had reason to beli eve th at there was a Jeffe rso n - H em ings rel ati onship.
H e may have had in side in fo rmation - o r, he may merely have guessed
correctly o n the basis of w hateve r circumsta nti al informati on he could
gathe r. Either way, Ca ll ende r might have thought he had reason to suspect
a relationship eve n if ve ry few people in A lberm a rle county did .
DIRECT REPORTS OF ANO EVIDENCE FOR THE RUMOR
Rot hman has fi ve pi eces of ev id ence that directly support his hypoth esis
H l, na mel y, that it was widely beli eved among Jeffe rson's neig hbors pri or
to Ca ll end er's first published accusation in the Richmond R ecorder of r Sep-
tember 1802 that th ere was a sexual relati onship betwee n Jeffe rso n a nd
"this wench Sally." First, Ca ll end er himself accompa nied his all egation
with a n asse rti o n that the re was "not a n individu al in the neighbo rhood of
C harlottesville th at does not believe the story, a nd not a few who know it"
(Rothman 1999, 87). In the Recorder of October 20, l 802, Callender referred
to a n unn amed "gentleman" who came into the Ri chmond district court
and offered to bet anyone a su it of new clothes th at th e story was true.27 In
November he added (false) information about H emings's children, which
he tempered w ith the phrase, "it is sa id, althoug h we do not give it as gos-
pel" (Rothm a n 2003, 35, 254, n. fo). Finally, in December he cl aimed to be
able to prove hi s cl aim s in court w ith "a dozen witnesses" (Rothman 1999,
99, 111, n. 39; Rothman 2003, 34, 254, n. 59). H oweve r, repo rts postdating
September 1, 1802, a re hi g hly suspect in this contex t, because rumo rs of a
Jefferson-Hemings relatio nship ce rtainly would have ex isted after Ca lle n-
de r's first accusations were published .
A second piece of evidence that Rothman cites for believ ing that the rela-
tionship was bruited about befo re Septembe r 1802 is th e existence of a piece
of doggerel that appea red in Port Folio, a Fede ralist news paper published
in Phil adelphia in July 1802. Th e imagin ed bl ac k poet proposes sw itching
w ives w ith Jeffe rso n, so that Jefferson wo uld hav e a "blac k w ife" a nd the
black poet a w hite wife. But nothing in the doggerel suggests that Jeffe rson
was already sleeping with a "black wife." 28
1.f2 t PART I ll : OBJE C TIVITY AND S PE CU LATION
Third , William Rind , ed ito r of the Vi1ginia Federalist, apparentl y alluded
to Jeffe rso n's "de pravity" in Jun e 1800. (We have not see n this refe re nce, and
Rothman cites it fro m Cal lend er's September 1, 1802, a rticl e rather than di-
rectl y IRothm an 1999, 94, 11 0, n. 22; Rothm a n 2003, 30, 252, n. 421; thus we
have not in vestigated the context in wh ich this assertion was made -nor,
apparently, has Rothman.)
Fourth , afte r Ca ll end er's first pi ece appea red, th e Gazette of the United
State:; all egedly stated that wh il e it did not hav e th e corrobo ration to publish
its own story about Jeffe rson, it had "hea rd the same subject freely spoken
of in Virg ini a, a nd by Virginia Gentlemen" (Rothman 1999, 95, 11 0, n. 24;
Rothman 2003, 30, 253, n. 45).29
Finally, H enry Ra nd all , an ea rl y bi ogra ph e r of Jeffe rso n, wrote in private
co rres pond ence in r 856 that Ca ll e nd e r was "he! ped by som e of Je fferson's
neighbors" (Rothman 1999, 99, I I 1, n. 40; Rothman 2003, 34, 254, n. 60).
Ca ll end er's testimony is suspect because it appea rs that he wo uld have
had a cl ea r motive to inAate a small numbe r of sou rces into a scandalous
rumor in ord er to bolster his claims (this is our AA4 and AA5). As Roth-
m an notes, Ca ll end er was "an ang ry, bitter, a nd cynica l man who made a
ca ree r by specia li z ing in in vective and characte r assass in ation" (Rothman
1999, 88; Rothman 2003, 14). It is tru e, as Rothman notes, that sometimes
Ca ll end e r may hav e been concerned th at his statements actuall y be true.
Afte r all , some of his statem ents w e kn ow to be true (e.g., that th ere was
a slave nam ed Sally at Monticello; and it is also reasonable to suppose that
she had had fiv e ch ildren by th e time Ca ll ender wrote). Further, o n one
occasion, when he thought that new in fo rmation might be false, Calle nder
stated that he did not "give it as gospel." Ca llender's biographer, Michael
Ourey, and Go rdon-Reed both assert that Ca ll ende r had a good reco rd (fo r
his tim e) in repo rting the basic truth of m atte rs (this is furth er justification
for Rothman's H4 , nam ely, that Ca ll end er desired to repo rt the truth and to
not re po rt fa lsehoods). 311
But did Ca ll end e r view the all eged common knowledge as another fact
to be repo rted , o r did he fabricate it as a tool to heig hten th e scanda l and
convince his readers ? Afte r al l, he fab ricated insulting (and in accu rate) de-
scriptions of Sally Hemings, perhaps in orde r to aro use the stereotypes of
his day, 31 and for all we know he may have inv ented H emings's twelve-
yea r-old son, "President Tom ," for w hose ex istence th ere is absolutely no
ev id ence. When did Call ender conside r himself to be reporting fact, and
when was he all ow in g him self to exagge rate in order to ril e up hi s read-
e rs? Evid ence of pre-Septembe r 1802 rumo rs conce rning Je ffe rso n's sex ual
activ iti es is very thin. Som e in stances of rumor-spreading a re reported only
A CASE S T U DY I N H I S TOR I CA L EP I STEMOLOGY t 143
by Ca ll end e r, a nd thus a re without confirmatio n. The Port Folio doggerel
is quite inconclusive as ev id ence of rumo rs of Jeffe rso ni a n miscegenati o n.
The ve rses caricature a black slave who wants to " make all lik e" and " nab"
his mJster's white wife (Jefferson's wife had d ied in 1782). Could the poe m
have bee n m ea nt as a m oc kery of the enslaved population ? O r as a north e rn
gibe at southern miscegenation? Both seem as likely as the suggestion that
the piece is a jo ke aimed spec ifi call y at Jeffe rso n and alluding to his sexua l
relationship with a slave. What satiri st, w ith rea l in format ion about a sit-
ting pres ident, would menti o n him o nly as a n aftertho ug ht to musings o n
a slave's desires? 3' In add iti o n, Ra nd all 's testim o ny in 1856 is hi g hl y suspect
fo r seve ral reaso ns. First, it is of late date. Seco nd , his cl a ims a re uncl ea r.
Did he mea n that th e neig hbo rs helped Ca ll e nd e r d iscover th e sto ry, o r did
they help by fue ling speculat io n a nd rum o r ? Third, Ra nda ll said that o ne of
the Ca rr ne ph ews was the father of H ernings's chi ldren (Gordon-Reed, 80-
82). Acco rdingly, any a ll egations that Jefferso n's neig hbors might have mad e
to Ca ll end e r to the effect that Jefferson had fathe red ch ildren by H emings
wo uld hav e contrad icted the story th at Rand all told in 1856. If Randall be-
li eved hi s ow n story, then he could not have held that Jeffe rson's neig hbo rs
knew that Jeffe rson had fathered children by H emings (since one ca nno t
know something th at is false, but can o nly mistakenly believe it).
Ove ra ll , we find th at the best ev id ence for th e pre- September 1, 1802,
sp read of rum o rs about Jeffe rson's all eged sex ual activiti es a re th e lin es in
the Washington Federalist of Septembe r 14, 180 1 (see our note 29, above),
stating th at "a man ve ry high in office" had fath e red "a number of yell ow
children" and was "addicted to golden affections." (Rothman introduces this
ev idence in his 2003 chapter; he did not discuss it in his 1999 article .) The
a nonym o us author a ppea rs to be doing obeisance to the w id ely held ethica l
ta boo aga inst spread ing defa matory goss ip, g ive n that he tempers his m en-
tio n of th e a ll egatio ns by declaring that "if they are false and m alici o us th ey
oug ht to be co ntrad icted."
T HE QUA LIT Y O F CA LLE N DER 'S REP O RTS
Ro thman argues that common knowl edge of th e (a ll eged) Jefferson -
Hemings relati onship best explains the mix of fact and fiction in Call en-
de r's reports (H 1 a nd H2) . Afte r all , someone must have told Ca ll end er a
lot: H emings 's nam e, her status as a house servant, he r trip w ith Jeffe rson
to France, he r (a ll eged) first pregnancy, and the five children she had bo rn e
by 1802. But Ca ll end er a lso see ms to have m ade mi sta kes, particularly with
rega rd to hi s fictitious "P res id ent To m ," th e purported ly twelve-yea r-old
so n of H e rnings who, C all ende r cl a im ed, looked like Jeffe rson and li ved at
I 44 t PART Ill '. O BJE C T I VITY A ND S PE CU L ATION
Mo nticel lo. To Rothma n, Ca ll ende r's mi x of fact and fic tio n is proof that he
was tapping into a gossip m ill in w hich "the possibiliti es fo r exagge ration
to becom e h yperbole as the Jeffe rson - H emings sto ry passed fro m person
to pe rson ... we re e no rm ous" (Rothman I999, I 03; see also Roth ma n 2003,
37). But thi s explanatio n see ms q uestionabl e. O ne pe rson could have been as
wrong as twe nty. O r C all ender might have added his ow n hyperbole.
Rothma n notes a noth er statem ent by Ca ll ende r: in D ece mber 1802 the
journali st offered to prove his all egati ons in court w ith "a d ozen w itn esses."
Rothm a n, see king to locate the rumo r a m o ng th e A lbem a rle ge ntry, seizes
on the bl us ter: "if !Ca ll ende r J was se ri ous ... hi s w itnesses wo ul d have to
have bee n w hite"- because Call ende r's "d isgust for Africa n- Am eri ca ns"
(Rothm a n 1999, 99; Rothm an 2003, 34) wo ul d have disinclined him to speak
to slaves (a lso, slaves we re not pe rm itted to testify in court). But th e only
contem pora ries of Jeffe rso n a nd H emings w ho we ca n say unquestionably
knew (or believed they knew, o r purported to know) of the relatio nship
were Mo nti cell o slaves : Madison H emings a nd Israel Jefferson (a nd Israel,
a lth oug h Jefferson's personal se rva nt fo r fo urtee n yea rs, stated th at he did
not "positively know" about th e relati onshi p, but bel ieved it onl y "from
circum sta nces").
H ow wo ul d whi te people have lea rned the deta il s of the all eged rela-
t ionshi p? Rothm a n specu lates th at "give n Ca lle nde r's d isgust fo r Africa n-
A m e rica ns, it is unlikely that he spoke d irec tl y to a ny A lbema rl e slaves ." A
sim il a r a rg um ent was a pplied fo r yea rs to Jefferson : Dum as Ma lone, Vir-
g iniu s Da bney, a nd John Miller rul ed o ut Jeffe rso n's hav ing had a sexual
relationship w ith H emings in part on ground s of hi s racism (Gord on-Reed ,
133-34). Such to p-down ex pl a nati ons a re much too weak to prove eith er that
Jeffe rson wo ul d not have had sex w ith H emings o r that Call e nd er wo ul d not
have spoke n w ith slaves. If we pe rmit ourselves to imagine that Ca ll ende r
spok e w ith slaves, then we no lo nge r have to ass ume com mon knowledge
a m o ng Jeffe rso n's w hi te neig h bors in o rder to explai n Ca lle nde r's repo rts.
Afte r all , the o nl y w hi te "witnesses" kn ow n to have comm ented on the m at-
ter (Edm und Bacon a nd T. J. Ra ndolph, noted above; and o ne oth e r pe rso n,
Jefferson's g randdaug hter Ell en Coolidge) all stated that som eo ne else was
the fath e r of H emings 's children (Go rdon-Reed, 28, 79). We have no proof
that these "w itn esses" kn ew th e actual truth . Th ere is much reaso n to be-
lieve that Jeffe rso n a nd H emings wou ld have bee n ve ry, ve ry di sc reet about
their all eged relati onshi p. (Note that Israel Jeffe rson, in the 1873 m emoir
publi shed by S. F. Wetmo re, is sa id to have sa id that he "bel ieve Jd J fro m
circu m sta nces" that the H emings chil d re n had bee n fa th ered by Jeffe rso n,
but that he "d !id J not positively k now" it !"Appe nd ix C," in Go rdo n-Reed,
A CAS E S T U DY I N HI S T O R I C AL EP I S T E MOL OG Y t I 4)
253J.) Pe rh aps the "w it nesses" w ho de ni ed that Jeffe rso n had fat hered Sa ll y
Hem ings's chil d ren rea ll y d id honestl y beli eve th at someo ne else was the
fath e r. It is even poss ible to im agine th at H em ings had a relations hi p w ith
one o r both of the Ca rrs as well as w ith Jeffe rson. We do not know one way
or the othe r.
T he cl a im that Ca ll end er "probably reli ed es pecially on m embers of the
Virgini a ge ntry from A lbem a rl e a nd coun ties nea rby" fo r hi s in fo rm ation
(Rothma n 1999, 99; Rothman 2003, 34) lacks sup po rt from a nything Ca l-
lende r sa id , fo r Ca ll ender di d not m entio n th e soc ial status of hi s sources
(a lthough the all eged Gazette citatio n does me ntio n the rum o r am ong "V ir-
ginia Ge ntl em en"). Roth ma n g uesses: "These men .. . mig ht have ove r-
he::ird t hei r slaves d iscussing the H em ings sto ry" (Rothm an 1999, 99; Roth -
man 2003, 34) . And Ro th ma n notes that they "woul d have bee n the w hi tes
most likely to have visited Jeffe rso n at Monti cell o . . . (a nd to have see n Sa ll y
Hem ings a nd pe rhaps her chil d ren )" (Rothm a n 1999, 99; Rothm an 2003,
34). But H emings's oldes t child to sur vive ea rl y in fa ncy, Beve rl y, was just
four yea rs old in r 802, and H emings he rself was probabl y em ployed as Jef-
ferso n's pri vate cham be rma id and pe rh a ps as ::i seamstress . o good reason
ex ists fo r us to imagine that she o r her yo ung chil d ren wo ul d sta nd o ut to
white visito rs, especiall y at Monti cell o, w hi ch was hom e to a la rge num ber
of lig ht-skinned house slaves (Roth ma n 1999, 7- 88). Even if t hey had bee n
noticed, it does not seem cred ibl e to im agin e t hat they o r Jeffe rson wo ul d
have g iven to w hite visito rs a ny indi cati on of th eir relatio nship, especia ll y
whe n we rem em be r th at Jefferson's ow n m anse rva nt beli eved in the rela-
tio nship onl y "fro m circumstances." Nor does it seem lik ely that a ny of th e
wh ite people cl osest to Jefferso n and H emings wo ul d have give n away th eir
al leged sec ret, eve n ass uming (w hi ch we have no tex tual basis fo r doing)
that they possessed the kn ow ledge to do so.
C IR C UMSTA C ES AT MONT I CELLO: AN NJ UST I F I ED
EQUA TI NG OF RUMOR W IT H K NOWLEDGE
Ro thm a n, hav ing ex hausted th e textual ev ide nce, and hav ing attem pted
to explain the q uality of Ca llende r's reports by reference to the quality of
the alleged common knowled ge am ong white res id ents of A lbem arle, has
a furth er a rg um ent, namely, that th e Jeffe rson - H e mings relati onship was
comm o n kn ow ledge because circumstances made it easy to beli eve. In Roth-
ma n's words, "Jeffe rso n's pa rticu la r acti ons a nd associations also gave resi-
d ents of Albema rl e Co unty reason to beli eve the H em in gs sto ry" (Roth ma n
I999, 103; Rothman 2003, 38). Rothma n cites the fo ll ow ing circumsta ntia l
matte rs: the longsta nd ing presence of "whi te slaves" at Monticell o; Jeffe r-
14 6 t P A RT 11 I: OBJECT I V I TY AND SPECULATION
son's fathe r-in-law's long relati o nship with Betty H em ings, Sa ll y's mother;
Jeffe rson's nephew Samuel Ca rr's repu ted miscegenation (wh ich seems to
hav e been first wr itten about in 1874); and Jeffe rson's sa le, in 1792, of Sa lly
H emin gs's siblin g Mary H emings to her wh ite lover, Colonel Thomas Bell
(the result of a request by Ma ry H em ings that Jefferson accommodated).
A ll these circumsta nces lead Rothman to co nclude that "many people
w ho lived in Jefferson's neig hborh ood believed the H emings story because
V irg ini a's slaveholde rs and Jefferson him self had prepared them to believe
it" (Rothman 1999, 104; Rothman 2003, 38). At this point Rothman 1s no
longer argu in g bottom- u p (from observed effect to hypothes ized cause), but
top-down (from inv isible cause to h ypothesized effect). In the abse nce of
any reco rded actions by A lbemarl e res ide nts that are both (a) independe nt
of Ca ll ende r and (b) best expla in ed by hypoth esis H 1, nam ely, that th e re-
lati onship was commo n know ledge, Rothman is a rgu ing that th e reside nts'
environment caused H1: "G iven what V irginians already knew abo ut sex
and slave ry in their society in ge neral , they did not need to have heard the
details of Jefferson's relatio nship w ith Sall y H emings to believe he mig ht be
sexua ll y in volved w ith he r" (Rothma n 1999, 103 \emphasis added \; Roth-
man 2003, 37-38 has a sli g htl y different wo rding).
H e re Rothman is in tri cky territory. As Edmund Gettier showed in a fa-
mous a rti cle (" Is Ju stified Tru e Belief Kn ow ledge?"), a justified true belie f
is not necessarily knowl edge. On the contra ry, it is knowledge attr ibutable
to the person making the assertio n in questi on if a nd onl y if, in ma king
th e asse rti on, that person has kn owledge of the asse rti on's act ual justifica -
tion.33 W hat if a white resident of Albem a rl e County, steeped in V irg ini a's
culture of miscege nation, noti ced Monti cel lo's lig ht-skinned slaves, w inked
at hi s ne igh bor and sa id : " I bet the re a re some you ng mulatto Preside nt
Toms running around u p there." Such a beli ef is not knowledge of the
Jefferson-Hem ings relationship (H 1), because the belief cou ld have occu rred
w ith or withou t Sa ll y H emings. This is what we are suggesting in AA2,
above.
In his account Rothman in vo kes th e anth ropologist's notion of "social
knowledge." What constitutes :;ocial knowl edge? We take it that social
knowledge is kn owledge of the cu stoms of a particular society ga in ed from
living within that society. For exa mpl e, even Virg inians w ho had littl e con-
tact with the worki ngs of the slave system cou ld not help but in fe r, from the
visibl e ex iste nce of many light-skin ned slaves, th at a lot of "sex across the
colo r lin e" was going on. But to apply the designation "socia l knowl edge"
to the cla im that one particul a r couple-w hich in this case woul d have had
to have been remark ably disc reet -was having sex is a misapplication. We
A CAS E S T U DY I N H I S T O RI CA L EP I S TEMOL OGY t L\ 7
beli eve that Rothman has a plaus ibl e, alth ough far from ev id entially we ll -
fou nd ed, case fo r his claim that rum o rs of a H emings - Jefferson relation-
sh ip circul ated in th e "ne ig hborhood" that was A lbema rl e Cou nty. But in
our view Rothman unju stifi ably equates rumor and belief w ith knowledge. It
may wel l be that some of Jefferson's neig hbors had in fo rmati o n that wo uld
have justified th e central rum or in questi on (na m ely, that there was a sexual
relatio nship betwee n H emings and Je ffe rso n). Such in fo rmati o n wo ul d
have co n ve rted rum o r into know ledge. But Ro thman has no ev id ence at all
that Jefferson's neig hbors had such in fo rm ati on. Mo reove r, he knows that he
does not h;:ive such ev idence, yet fa il s to recogni ze the im pli cat io ns fo r hi s
;:i rg ument. 34
A SUMM I NG UP OF THE DATA
The data to be accou nted for ca n be stated as fo ll ows:
D 1. In September 1802 Call end e r asse rted th at th ere was a sexual re-
lationship betwee n Th om as Jefferso n a nd Sally H em ings and that it was
"well kn own" that this was so.
D2. The "blac k w ife" poem appea red in th e Port Folio and the lin es about
"Mr. J." in the Septe mbe r 14, 1801, Washington Federa/i:;t.
03 . H enry Randall stated in 1856 that Ca ll ender was helped by "some of
Jeffe rso n's neig hbors."
D4. Ca ll end e r m ade correct statements abo ut Sally H emings.
D5. Ca ll end e r mad e som e false and exagge rated statements about Sa ll y
Hem ings.
D6. O n occas ion, Ca ll ende r was careful to repo rt th e "basic truth."
07. There is no reco rd of an y w hite co ntempo ra ry of Ca ll ende r a nd
Jeffe rson claiming to know of the a ll eged Je fferson-Hemings relatio n-
ship prior to 1802 (w ith th e possibl e exce ption of th e September 14, 180 1,
Wa:;hington Federalist lines) . Seve ra l reported (long afte rwa rd) that they d id
not beli eve such a relationship ex isted.
We note the fo ll ow ing circumstantial data that may help ex plain som e of
the preceding data:
D8. Jeffe rson was publicly associated w ith mi scege nati on: lig ht-skinn ed
slaves lived at Monticel lo; Jefferson's father- in -law appa rentl y had a sex ual
relationship w ith a black woma n, Betty H em in gs; one of Je ffe rso n's neph-
e ws may have had sexua l relations w ith bl ac k wo m en; and Je fferson sold
one of hi s slaves to her w hite love r.
148 t PART II I: OBJECT I VITY A ' D SPECULA TI ON
0 9. Jeffe rson a nd H emin gs we re discreet (infe rred from Israel Jefferson's
state m ent and from 0 7).
010. The ethical no rms of w hite Albem a rl e society prohibited ope n dis-
cussi o n of miscege nati o n.
THE CASE FOR OUR ALTERNATIVE ACC OUNT
Recall Ca ll ende r's la nguage in his first accusation: "There is not a n ind i-
vidual in the neig hbo rhood of C ha rl ottesv ill e w ho does not beli eve th e story
and not a few who know it." Call end er draws a distincti o n betwee n knowl-
edge and belief. Why? What d id he mea n to impl y about those Albemarle
resid ents who m erely "beli eved" in th e relatio nship without "knowing" it?
Did any of Jefferson's A lbemarl e Coun ty neig hbo rs in fact know a nything
at all , or were they simpl y ready to believe w hateve r rum o rs mig ht come
their way?
After all , aside from Callender's asse rtions (Di ) we have no textual evi-
dence that suppo rts Rothman's claim (Hr ) that the Jefferso n - H emings re-
lati onship was com mo n kn owledge. Th e Port Folio poem , the assertions by
Rind and the Gazette, H enry Randa ll's recoll ections, a nd eve n the lines in
the Washington Federalist can all be explained just as well by ass uming a
common mental assoc iatio n betwee n Jefferson and mi scege natio n (AA2,
above) . Furthe r, the circumstantial data (08), when expand ed to include
the demo nstrated secrecy of th e relati onship (D9), would surely at m ost have
caused speculation that Jeffe rso n was in volved with a n enslaved wom an, not
common knowledge (H 1) th at he was so involved.
Furth er, Rothman's cl aim th at Ca ll end er d esired to report th e truth (H4)
does not explain Call end er's demonstrated willingness, indeed eage rness, on
other occasions to use exagge ratio n a nd in ve ntion to achieve hi s goa ls (D5).
If we im agine Ca ll e nde r as willing to use fa lse statements as a m ea ns of con-
vincing others of th e truth (AA5), thi s would ex plain both D1 a nd 05.
Our alternative account would also ex plain w hy no details of the alleged
relationship, ass uming that there actu all y was a relationship, were reported,
anywhere, before 1802 (D 7): the details simply were not know n to anyone
besides, perhaps , a few people at Monticell o (AA 1 and AA2) . This is a sim-
pl e bottom- up explanati on: lack of action (D7) caused by lack of knowledge
(AA i ). Rothm a n mu st explain D7 (namely, the lack of [any reco rd of! a ny
w hite co ntem pora ry of Calle nd er and Jefferson cl aimin g to know of the al-
leged Jeffe rson - H emings relati o nship p rio r to 1802) from the to p clow n:
that is , he ass umes that the ethical norms of Albemarl e society (010) caused
people to desire not to d iscuss their knowledge of the relationship ope nl y.
A CASE STUDY I N HI STORICA L EP I STEMOLOGY t 149
. Both our account a nd Rothm an's account empl oy auxiliary hypotheses
in o rd e r to expla111 how knowl edge of th e presumed Jeffe rso n - H em ings
relat1onsh1p sp read from Monti cello. Rothman ass umes (without ev id ence)
that knowl edge sp rea d from Montice ll o slaves to th e enslaved population of
Albemarle, a nd fro m the ensl aved population to th e white gentry (Hi ), and
th.at somewhere along the line it beca m e corrupted (H 2). We assume (a lso
w ithout ev 1denc_e) that James Ca ll end er, desirin g to cause Jefferso n politi -
cal harm, in vestigated a publicly know n association between Jeffe rson and
m1scegenat1o n (AA2) and in doing so somehow got wind of all egati ons that
were unAatte ring to Jeffe rson, as well as of a few pi eces of true in format ion,
most notably th e first name of Sa ll y H emings .35 H e th en repo rted AA 2 as
H 1 (.namely, that many A lbemarl e County resid ents believed that Jeffe rson
was 111vol ved 111 a sex ual relati o nship with a n ensl aved woman) in o rder to
co nvin ce his readers that his account of th e relati onship was true (AAs) .
How does our auxiliary hypothes is compa re to Rothm an's? We assume
that Ca llende r somehow m anaged to lea rn ce rtain (true) details about Jeffe r-
son's domestic establi shm ent, which he used as the basis for his story abo ut
Jeffe rson and "thi s wench Sally." We do not claim to know how he lea rned
these deta il s. Rothma n ass um es that the reside nts of Albema rle Co unty
so mehow lea rn ed a nd transmitted spec ifi c kn owledge of a close a nd sa la-
cious sec ret w ith out leav ing a ny reco rd at all o f doin g so. Roth m a n's account
prov ides a simpl er expla nation of D1; our accou nt better explains D 7. What
we know of th e Albemarl e en vironm ent (D8 and D 9) seems more likely to
have caused o ur AA2 than Roth man's Hi. We beli eve that neith e r account is
clea rl y bette r, and that we oug ht to remain agnostic about w hich hypothesis
(A A2 or H1 ) offe rs the truer account of the states of mind of Albemarl e
res ide nts.
Historians a nd other reade rs a re of course free to d raw their ow n conclu-
sions-but if they w ish to asse rt th em as true, th ey a re obliged to lay out
the g round s fo r beli ev ing them to be tru e. Th ey a re also obliged to indicate
as clearly as possibl e w here the boundaries (admitted ly sometim es va ri able)
a re betwee n fact and specu lati on . Finally, th ey are obliged to just ify-as
speculatwns- the spec ul ati o ns that they offer.
Historia ns are sometimes careless of the distinction between fact and
speculatio n, a_ ca relessn ess that tends to lead them to present as un equivo-
ca ll y_ true cl a un s that a re not unequi voca ll y tru e at all. For exa mpl e, we
co nsid e r It a_mi sta ke, in the lig ht of t he current state of th e data, to assert
as an. un equivoca l truth that Jeffe rson had a sexual relationshi p with Sa ll y
Hem ings. At th e same tim e, all three of us beli eve that he in fact did have
such a relati o nship, fo r we fi nd th at the hypothes is th at there was such a re-
1)0 f PART 111: OBJE C TI V ITY AKO SPECULAT I ON

lati o nship o ffe rs a "better ex planation" of th e totality of the extant ev idence Counterfactual History: On Niall Ferguson's
than does th e contrar y h ypot hes is. As fo r th e claim that Thomas Jefferso n's
all eged relatio nship with Sa ll y H emings was common kn owledge in the Virtual History and Similar Works
neig hbo rh ood of Monticel lo prio r to Se ptember 1802 (when Ca ll e nde r pub-
CHA PT ER SEVEN~--
lished th e first of his a rticl es o n th e subj ect in th e Richmond Recorder) , unless
m o re ev id ence comes to lig ht, we mu st rega rd this not as unequ ivocal truth
but as a rrant speculation. We a re o f course not aga inst specu lati on (since
th e re is a speculative d im ension in all hi story); we a re o nl y aga in st specula-
ti on that is not id entifi ed as such.

We hope th at this chap ter ha s helped to sho w the releva nce of infere nce to

R 1s,
th e best ex planatio n a nd of intellige ntl y employed th eory ge nerall y to the ece.ntl,~, th ere has bee n a min o r boom in "counte rfact ua l hi story," th at
proj ect of reading, w ritin g, and th inking a bout hi sto ry. In regular histori- in hi story that neve r ha ppened ." T o mak e se nse of thi s phe nom-
cal \-Vorks - as d isting uished from d em onstrati on pieces in hi sto ri ca l epis- eno n, we need to get cl ea r about th e th eo retica l iss ues that counterfactu ali ty
temol ogy, such as this chapter - the scaffolding of th eo ry is pe rhaps best ra ises. We also need to mak e som e distinctions . I wo uld begin w ith a d is-
k ept in th e bac kground. But the hi sto ri ca l rea d er and critic shou ld always tinction betwee n two types of counter fac tua l history, " restrained" and "ex u -
have th e sense th at the histo ri an has thoug ht clea rl y and well a bout these be rant." "Rest ra in ed " counte rfactua l hi story in volves a n ex pli cit ca n vass in g
issu es , eve n if she chooses to offer only hints of the co nceptual th inking that of a lte rn ative poss ibiliti es th at ex isted in a rea l pa st, w he reas "ex ube ra nt"
has gone into th e con stru ction of the hi sto ri ca l wo rk in qu estion. W hen cou nter fac tu al hi sto ry dea ls in pas t hi storica l outcom es th at neve r in fact
such thinking is abse nt, we have littl e reason to have co nfid ence in th e truth came to be.
of the stori es that histo ri a ns tell , howeve r interesting, exc iting, edifying, or "Ex ube rant" counte rfac tu al hi sto ry d ive rges radically fr om no rmal hi s-
politi ca ll y use ful th ose sto ri es may appea r to be. to rical resea rch a nd w riting . This is th e kind of counterfactua l hi sto ry that
tries to imag ine w hat m ig ht have resulted if Brita in had interven ed in th e
A m eri ca n C ivil War, if a n Iri sh H om e Rul e Bill had passed the British pa r-
liament in 19 12, o r if Ge rm a ny had in vaded Britain in 1940. A ll three of
t hese im agined situ ations appear in N iall Fe rg uson's ed ited volum e, Virtual
1
History. This sort of counterfactu al hi story is ind eed bette r ca ll ed "v irtu al
histo ry" to emph as ize th at it add resses no actual past-o r "im agina ry his-
to ry," to emphas ize its lac k of ground ed ness. "V irtua l hi sto ry" evo kes "vir-
tua l rea li ty." It a lso evok es th e wo rl d of hi storically based ga m e- play ing : one
t hinks, fo r exa mpl e, of the well - kn ow n board ga m e Axis & A llies, now ava il -
a ble in a computer ve rsio n, wh ich attempts to simul ate World Wa r II fr o m
1942 onward." Such ga m es all ow playe rs to go back to some chose n point in
histo ri ca l tim e a nd mak e d ecisions th at di ve rge from th e d ec isio ns mad e by
t he rea l hi sto ri ca l ac tors. What th en eve ntuates, d ifferent from what act u -
all y ha ppened , res ults fr om chance, a nd also (thi s is no sma ll m atte r) from
ass umpti ons embed led in the game by its makers. Th e re is no p rete nsio n
he re to be replay ing histo ri ca l rea lity, at least no ne that a grow n-up could
ta ke se riousl y. ft is a game, d ressed up w ith ce rta in features of a rea l pas t.
152 t PAltT Ill'. OBJE C TIV IT Y AND SPE C UL A TION
When professional historians w rite virtual hi story, we ought to treat thei r
claims concerning "what might hav e bee n" with about the same d ista nced
skepticism with which we would treat the p laying out of World War II by
a group of fifteen-yea r-olds . O ne can ce rtain ly speak of plausibilities, but
the plausibilities a re far harder to judge than normal historical plausibi lities,
which a re ti ed down to a wo rld that act uall y existed. When historians imag-
in e w hat might have h appened if John F. Ke nnedy had not been shot or if
the USSR had avoided collapse, they are on shaky epistemologica l gro und.
Historians must always specul ate (chapter 6), but specu lations conce rning
virtua l history are far m o re deeply permeated by und er-s u ppo rted assump-
tions about the rea l nature of th e wo rl d than is the case whe n th e normal
canons of historical m ethod operate. Indeed, quite apart from the specific
id eologica l p refere nces of th e histo ri an or ga m e- mak er, virtua l hi story ca n-
not be in ven ted nor the game played w ith out a set of rul es that are in large
measure arbitra ry. These assumptions constitute a "theory" about how the
world normally ope rates that may or may not be true. To make inferences
on the basis of such ass umptio ns is to engage in "top-dow n" in fe re ntial rea-
son ing, w hi ch, as noted in chapte r 6, is epistemologica ll y much more prob-
lematic than "bottom-up" in fe rence.
It wi ll cla ri fy matters if we look at virtu al history in th e light of issues of
tempora lity. The virtual hi sto ri an cuts into the rea l past at some pa rti cular
moment - normally just befo re one of the historical acto rs in volved made
a we ig hty decision . The virtual hi sto ri an conceptu ali zes thi s moment as
o ne of contin ge ncy, in w hi ch the decision could have been rende red d iffer-
entl y and from w hich , subseq u entl y, matters might h ave gone in a particu lar
other d irection. The virtual hi sto ria n exploits the supposed contin gency at
the beginning in o rder to laun ch hi s counterfactua l history. But conti ngency
cuts two ways. Continge ncy and the freedom entailed by the very idea of a
human capacity to dec ide g ive virtual histor y its ope ning. But the same con-
tinge ncy th~n makes virtual history poss ible also und ermines it. If we have
contin gency in its beginning, we must sure ly have contingency in its ea rly
middle: to paraphrase the sociologist Max Weber, continge ncy is not a train
one can get on or off at w ill. This m ea ns that virtual hi sto ry cannot fo ll ow
a ny definable course at all. More precisely, it ca n fo ll ow a definable course
o nl y until the next co ntinge ncy arises. A lth oug h the virtual histo ri an may
well try to get away w ith claiming a normal hi sto rian's autho rity, once past
this mome nt of renewed contingency, he is bette r thought of as a w ri te r of
imaginative li terat ure. This is not necessa ril y bad, but it is not histo ry.
Virtua l history ought not to be confused w ith counterfactua l hi story in
ge ne ral. Virtua l hi story starts out from a moment in the real past w here
C OUNTERFA C TUAL HISTORY :j: 1)3
things might have worked out d iffe rentl y, and then moves forward in time,
getting eve r further from a wo rl d th at existed. To p ut th is in the terms sug-
gested in ch apte r 6, it engages in "cause-to-effect" in fe rence, moving from
invisible cause to h ypot hesized effect. As noted in chapte r 6, this d irection of
inference is epistemologica ll y far more questionable than "effect-to-cause"
inferen ce, w herein one moves from obse rved effect to hypoth es ized cause.
(Cause-to-effect in fe rence is o f course o nl y a special case ohop-dow n in fe r-
ence, and effect-to-cause inferen ce a spec ial case of bottom-up in fe rence.)
"Restrained" counte rfactu al histo ry m oves from obse rved effect to hypot h -
esized causes. It starts out from an actua l event, such as the E ng lish C ivil
War, and th en look s back in time, ca nvass ing how it might have come to
pass that th e C ivi l Wa r might not have occu rred (o r might have occu rred in a
sharply d iffere nt way). In Ferguson's anthology, John Adamson's essay "En-
gland w ith out Cromwell: What If C h arles I Had Avoided the C ivil War?"
is in large measure an exercise of this sort. Adamso n ca nvasses a va ri ety of
co unterfactuals in the yea rs preceding 1642 a nd speculates as to how things
might have wo rked out differently but did not. S uch an effort is quite differ-
ent from positing a counterfact ual at the beginning (H itl er does not in vade
the USSR) a nd then im agining a w h ole new hi sto ry that wou ld have fo l-
lowed as the effect of that cause.
W hereas the virtu a l hi sto rian is fo rced to move eve r fu rt her into the
imagin a ry, th e specu latio ns of the rest ra ined co unterfac tua list are pinned
dow n by w hat act u ally d id h appe n in the end. In im agining how things
might have been different, the restra ined cou nte rfactualist tries to under-
sta nd better w hat act uall y did happen. The restrain ed counter fac tualist
moves from kn ow n effect to hypo thes ized cause; the virtual hi stori an exu-
berantly moves from in visible (but su pposed) cause to an effect that neve r
act ually happened. The restrained counterfactuali st mov es from th e bottom
up, from known ev id ence to a theory as to w hy it happened that way; the
virt u al histo rian moves from the top clown, d ed ucing a hypot hetical effec t
fro m a specu lative theo ry con ce rning how the wo rl d functions. The less
likely the virtu al hi storia n is to have thought se ri ously about this theory, th e
more likely it is that he w ill ho ld it to be indubitable truth.
In his introduction to Virtual Hist01y Ferguson spends much effo rt tr ying
to sh ow th at counte rfa ctual hi sto ry amo unts to an attac k on hi sto ri ca l de-
term ini sm (most n otably, o n the dete rminism all eged ly promoted by Marx-
ists). Acco rd ing to Ferguson, counterfactua l hi sto ry hig hligh ts the possibil -
ity of human age ncy in history. In a critica l discuss ion o f Virtual H istory, the
histo ri an of modern Ge rmany, Richard Evans, contends that we need to pay
mo re attention than Ferguson does to underlying structu ral dete rminants .3
154 t PART Ill: O BJE C T I VITY AND SPE CU LAT I O N
But both hi sto ri ans are surely focusing o n the wro ng issu e, fo r the question
" Hum a n beings: do they have freedom o r not ?" is not a histori a n's ques-
tion. Hi sto ri ans can offe r no m o re th a n stale banalities concerning this
question, because their disciplinary proj ect already assumes a pos iti on, itself
a banality- nam ely, that human beings are both determined and free, both
subordinate to external forces and capable of creating and exploiting such
forces, both m atte r and spirit, both beast and angel. No genuine determ inist
could eve r be a true histo rian: such a person should rather study neuro-
chemica l, ph ysica l, or other forces. The same is true of a nyo ne who be-
li eves that hum an beings soar above their circumsta nces lik e transcendental
meditators: such a person w ill neve r be fou nd contend ing with the archival
muck th at histo ri a ns so av idl y explo re.
In fact, the fundamental point at issue in th e m atte r of counterfac tual
histo ry is the characte r of historical explanatio n. (Both Evans and Fergu-
son see this, but in their eage rness to joust with political opponents-al-
legedly deterministic leftists on th e o ne hand , a nd th e "New Rig ht" on the
other-they tend to bury the point.) To return to my discussio n in chap-
ter 4, I m ea n by a n explanation a n attempt to say why something is the case
(why it ex ists o r ex isted, why it happe ned). O ne ca n eq uall y well say that an
expla natio n is a n attempt to a nswer the question, "W hat causes (o r caused)
E?" This second wordi ng raises a difficulty, sin ce eve n at this late date many
people-including m a ny histo ri a ns -ad he re to a "regul a rity" view of cau-
sation, according to which our saying that C is the cause of E needs to in-
volve a "consta nt co njuncti o n" (Hum e's te rm ) of some so rt connecting C
and E. Reacting against the "regularity" view, which was cl osely associated
with the rise of natural science, R. G. Collingwood cl aim ed in Th e Idea of
History that historians do not (o r at least should not) in voke causes at all.
Rath er, histori ans' explanations, Collingwood contended, a re a matter of
telling a sto ry: the hi sto ri a n says that this happened and this happe ned and
thi s happe ned, and from the sto ry an expla nation arises . In Collin gwood 's
formulation: "Afte r the historia n has asce rta in ed the facts, there is no fur-
ther process of inquiring into th eir causes. When he knows what happened
he already knows why it happened." 4 A nd alth oug h Collingwood does not
discuss the matte r explicitly, his argument in The Idea of History strongly
impli es a rejecti on of counterfactuality. 5
As Carl H empel showed with brilliant clarity in hi s 1942 paper, "The
Function of Ge ne ral Laws in Hi sto ry," histo rians ca nnot offe r explanations
that confo rm to the regularity view.6 Without goi ng into the complex ities
of the discussion that fo ll owed the publication of Hempel's paper, let me
simpl y assert that the o nl y view of explanation that work s for histo ri ans is
C O U NTERFA C T U AL HI S T O RY t 155
one that focuses o n co unterfactua lity a nd that a ll ows the regu la rity criterio n
to recede into the background. For histo ri a ns in principle ca nnot subsume
their explanati ons under regul a riti es: H empel was rig ht about this. Rather,
when a histo ri a n suggests that, for example, "impe ri alism caused [o r helped
cause] World War I," she is really saying (if she is saying anything intelligent
at all ) something like "all other things being equal, if there had been no im-
peria lism, th e re would have bee n no World War I." Of course, th e histo ri an
is proba bl y also saying more tha n this, for history is a held where multipl e
causes, at different levels , are assumed to ope rate . Thus the counte rfactu al
reasoni ng that the hi sto ri a n depl oys must often be quite compl ex.
In the final section of hi s 1940 book , An Essay on Metaphysics, Colling-
wood himself offered a pragmatically o ri ented acco unt of causatio n, o ne that
has a strong ly co unterfactual resona nce, for he suggests that what we can
m ost read il y im agine as otherwise, in th e situation that actually ex isted, we
tend to prom ote to the status of a cause. Thus we te nd to take as "th e" cause
of, say, a ca r acc id ent whatever we, from our own pa rticular perspective, ca n
most read il y imagine as something that could have been different. Think
how man y possible causes th ere mi g ht be: the faulty camber of th e road, the
too-h ig h speed limit, the driver's ca relessness in driving so fast, the driver's
drink ing, th e Aawed design of the ca r. Imagining away one o r a nother ele-
m ent, we im agin e the acc id ent not happen ing - w hi ch thus es tabli shes that
element's causal cha racter. This is a promising lin e of thinking that Co llin g-
wood conspicuously did not pursue in The Idea of H istOJy. 7
The fact is, hi sto ri a ns must engage in counterfactual reaso ning (a point
that I have particularly emphasized in the introduction to this book and
in chapters 4 and 6). Yet I note with dismay th at I have encountered, m o re
often than I would have lik ed, histo ri ans to w hom this fac t appea rs to be
news . But perhaps this is not so surprising. If a historia n sees his project as
prima ril y o ne of describing or inte rpreting some past hi storica l rea lity and
is not in te rested in explor ing causa l relations, there wo uld be no need fo r
counterfactuals used for expla nato ry purposes (howeve r, as chapte r 6 shows
in its discussion of "inference to the best explanation," this does no t by a ny
mea ns banish all co unterfactuals). Some famous historians in the traditio n
of th e French Anna/es school were of this sort, much more interested in d e-
scripti on and in suggestive ju xtapositi ons than in causal a nal ys is. The same
te nds to be t ru e of the m ost rece ntl y dominant hi sto ri ographic "pa radigm,"
cu ltural histo ry. O ne res ult is that w hen hi sto ri a ns ope rating in these frame-
wo rk s do try to make causa l cla im s, th ey som etim es fa il completely to under-
sta nd w hat kind of reaso ning is requ ired fo r doing so. Likewise, hi sto ri a ns
w ho maintain a deep com mitm ent to som e particular theory of histo ry (e.g .,
156 t P A RT III: O BJE C T I V I TY AN D SPECULAT I ON

doct rinaire hi sto ri cal materia li sm, and especiall y "dialectical materialism")
will also be incli ned to bypass counterfact uals: he re, t he th eo ry tells them
that w hat d id happen pretty much had to happen. Nor does it seem likely
that historians who see th emselves as "j u st telling a sto ry" w ill normally be
inclined to think abo ut how the story might have proceeded diffe rently. In
short, large numbers of historians in the rece nt past have avoided confronta-
tion w ith counterfactual reasoning. Som e of th em, because of other, better
as pects of their work, have been quite distinguished. We should therefore
be g ratefu l to the new counterfact uali sts fo r fo rcing us to think about the
important role of counterfac tuality in histo ry.

P A RT IV - --

Fragmentation
 Fragmentation and the Future
of Historiography: On Peter Novick's
That Noble Dream
CHAPTER EIGHT~~-

M y aim in this chapte r is to point out som e implications of Peter

Nov ick 's wid ely noticed book, That Noble Dream: The "Objectivity
Question" and the American Historical Profession. 1 In particular, let us think
abo ut th e fourth a nd final pa rt of Novick's book, entitled "Obj ec tivity in
Crisis." Th ere are four chapters in Novick 's part 4, bearing the following
desc riptiv e titl es: "The Collapse of Com ity"; "Eve ry G roup I ts Own Hi sto-
rian"; "The Ce nter D oes Not H old "; a nd "The re Was No King in Israe l."
Most professional hi sto ri ans, in reading these headings and the accounts
to w hi ch th ey apply, will be inclined to see Novick as po rtray ing a situ ation
that is primarily negative in its implications . Fo r exa mple, in a long rev iew of
That Noble Dream, th e American intell ectual hi storia n James Kl oppenberg
asse rted that "i n hi s co nclusion , Novick laments th at by the r98os, 'there was
no king in Israel,' and, as a res ult, 'e very man did that w hich was rig ht in
2
h is own eyes."' In a draft response to Kloppenbe rg that Novick sent to m e
in February 1990 afte r I wrote to him as king fo r a list of the most recent
rev iews of That Noble Dream, Nov ick conceded that in quoting Judges 2:25
he had comm itted a "se rio us rh eto ri ca l gaffe," fo r hi s actual assessme nt of
the situ atio n in profess io nal hi sto ri ography was not "apocalyptic,'' no r d id
he mean to suggest that present-d ay professi onal hi storiog raphy was in a
state of" individuali stic a na rchy." In fac t, w hil e "th ere was no king in Israel"
characterized quite well the state of th e histo rical d isciplin e at the time that
Nov ick wrote, "every m an did that which was rig ht in his own eyes" did not.
A ca reful reading of Nov ick 's book does not suggest that he had an a poca-
lypti c view of th e fragme nted state of hi sto riograp hy, no r does it suggest that
he "la mented" that state. If anyth ing, th e lament was Kl oppenbe rg's; it was
not ov ick 's.3
I am profound ly suspicious of attempts to ove rcom e disciplinary frag-
mentation. In their most benig n fo rm , these atte mpts usually a mo unt to a
I 60 :j: PART JV : FRAGMENTAT I ON
promoting of one o r a nother visio n of hi stori ca l sy nthesis, o ne o r another fa-
vo red (but ungroun ded) paradigm .4 Belief that sy nthes is is a virtu e a nd frag-
mentation a vice is deeply ingra ined in the culture of acade mic historians.
Every few yea rs proposa ls a re adva nced fo r some new sy nth esis or other.
L et us be warned, howeve r: all calls for synthesis a re attempts to impose an
interp retatio n. It is fa ir enough to a rgue for a particular interpretation as an
inte rpretation. But it w ill not d o to prese nt a particular inte rpretation as the
synthesizin g m agic thread. I find no justification -certainly no articulated
justificatio n -fo r takin gfragmentation as a d isp raising term a nd synthesis as
a praising o ne. We ca n hope to attain clarity of mind o n such issues o nly if
we rega rd th ese te rm s as neutral.
Such is the power of academ ic professionali sm that eve n in those fields
that have most contr ibuted to fragmentation, schola rs continue to pay lip
service to the ideal of unity. For example, in a comme nta ry on a set of five
a rticl es dea ling with "women's history," published together in a n issue of
the American Hi;·torical Review, Kathryn Kish Sklar points to the " notable
assets" that have come w ith the growth of women's history and then ob-
se rves that "we must neve rtheless recognize that our current situation con-
tain s all the li abiliti es associated with rapid g rm.vth , especiall y in adeq uate
integration." But is "inadequate integration" a li abi lity, as lo ng as in sig ht
is adva nced in other ways? It is not surpri sin g to find th at Sk la r fo ll ows
th is obse rvatio n wi th a plea fo r her ow n "paradig m " fo r und ersta nding
wom en's m ovements in diffe rent countries.' Sk la r's way of explaining the
eme rge nce and development of women's move ments may well serve to "in-
tegrate" (we might equally well say "synthesize") people's und erstanding of
those m ove ments. But "sy ntheses" a nd "integrati ons" never accommodate
all possibly sig nifi ca nt hi stori ca l phenomena: that is not th e way th e world
is - o r, spea king more prec isely, we have no adeq uate reason fo r thinking
that th at is th e way the wo rl d is. The re mu st surely be issues that Skla r's
proposed syn thesis fa il s to accommodate. Other histor ia ns may be pre-
occupied by other issues. Accord ingly, th e questions to ask of th e work of all
these histo ri ans a re H ow inte resting are th e issues with which each histo-
ri an chooses to deal? and H ow well are these issues add ressed? Judg m ents
of quality will depend on the answers to these cr itical questions and not
on the proximity (or not) of th e work being eva luated to Sklar's o r anyo ne
else's "paradigm." 6 O ne of the articles that Sk la r comments o n, by Daniel
Walkowitz, deals with the eme rge nce of a professiona l id entity amo ng fe-
ma le social wo rke rs in the U nited States in the 1920s. Wa lkowitz suggests
in hi s piece that "to tell the full sto ry of twe ntieth -century social wo rkers'
FRAGMENTATION AND THE F UTUitE OF HI STOR I OGRA PH Y t 16 1
searc h fo r identity, histo ri ans need to draw o n the li te ratures of consump-
tion, wo rk , and p rofessionali zati on, fo r the deve lopment of social wo rk as a
profess ion was shaped by cultural conventions and limited by th e material
real iti es of the ho me a nd the workplace." i Walkowitz ide ntifi es elements
that historia ns would certainly want to find in an account of "social workers'
sea rch fo r id entity." But what justifies the claim that these el em ents woul d
lead us to "the full sto ry" of that sea rch ? The justification, I suggest, li es
deeply embedded in th e professio nal identity of hi storians. Walk owitz's use
of th e phrase "the fu ll sto ry" is almost ce rtainl y offha nd ed, but th e offh a nd -
edness mak es hi s use of it all th e mo re sig nifi cant, all the more a marker of
a widely sha red hi sto ria ns' bi as.
The bias needs to be cha ll enged . Novick's remarkable book helps us to do
th is, fo r hi s w id e- ra ng ing, ironi c, dispassio nate- ind eed, in seve ral senses of
the term, objective- account of the American hi storical profession calls into
q uestion th at "absolute" sense of obj ectivity (see chapte r 5 in this volum e)
according to wh ich there is a "fu ll story" that we historia ns can uncove r.
The most sophi sticated observers of the histo riogra phic scene understand
we ll eno ug h the continge ncy of the fa ith s that hold professional histo riogra-
phy togethe r. With contingency comes th e a ll eged threat of fragm entation.
The sophi sti cated response to th e all eged threat is the pragmatic, Peircea n
appea l to "communiti es of the competent." 8 But th is won't quite do. A dis-
ciplinary blindness preva il s w ithin th e m ode rnist academ y, and not o nly
among histo rians - the blindness of histo ri ans w ho argue on ly w ith other
h istorians, phil osophe rs who a rg ue o nl y with oth er philosophers, econo-
m ists w ho a rgue onl y wi th other economists, and so on. When the unive rse
of arg um ent is restricted in this way-and th e disciplina ry structu re of th e
un ive rsi ty ce rtainl y encourages such restriction - it is easy to imagine that
we kn ow w hat competence is.
H oweve r, th ere is no sing le competence, a nd the re is even less an au-
tho ritative consensus among those w ho a re supposed ly competent. A n a r-
g ument deemed acceptable by the consensus of competent histo ri a ns may
well be deemed unacceptable by the consensu s of competent phil osop hers
o r economists-a nd vice ve rsa. Many hi storians have in fact never entered
into serious argum entative relation with econom ists or philosophers or lit-
era ry th eo ri sts o r stud ents of rh eto ri c (th e conve rse is also true: practiti o ners
of other d isc iplines ra rely engage with the argum ents of histo rians). H ence
the multifariousness of competence is obscured. Th at the "community of
the competent" a rgument has bee n take n se riously is o ne marker of th e
firmness of disciplinary divisions w ithin our inst itutions of hig her lea rn -
162 t PAHT IV'. FRA C M ENTAT I ON
FK AC MENT A TI O N A ND T H E F U T U RE O F H I ST O RI OG R A PHY t 163
9
ing . lov ick 's accou nt of raging controve rsies among histori a ns, and of the
kept Ranke's well - kn own conce rn w ith hi sto ri ca l in d ividua lities ancho red
now-disc:irded assumptions of earl ier gene rations of historians, needs to be
within the large r framework of uni ve rsa l history. 13 It was Lord Acto n's view
set w ithin this wide r socio-intellectua l context.
and J. B. Bury's as well. It was also, I suggest, the view of that vast major-
Still , professio nal id entity has been impo rtant fo r the development of
ity of historians who neve r reAected o n uni ve rsa l history hut no netheless
histo ri cal knowledge. As one part o f his ve ry la rge sto ry, Nov ick shows that
wrote o ut of a fundamental faith in th e va lidity of Western culture as th ey
th e repudiatio n in the post -Wo rld War II period of the relativist critique unde rstood it.
of obj ectivity offe red by C harles Beard and Ca rl Becke r in the r93os was
In a late r phase of professional histori ograph y, after World War I, there
closely connected with the conception of hi sto ry as "a n autonomom profes-
was yet anoth e r change . Now historians became m o re distanced in their
sio n." 10 Autonomy, like synthesis, is a no th e r of those wo rds to whtch most
comm itm ent to g rand na rrati ve. Th ey co ntinued to believe in the ex istence
professiona l hi sto ri a ns, without a rticul ated justificati on, attribute positive
of a grand na rrative, but it was a peculiar g rand narrative-a purely ideal
va lue. Thus w hen ov ick obse rves that for most wom en's histo ri a ns, "the
na rrative, a narrative that coul d never ac tu a ll y be told. Under thi s dispensa-
fe mini st comm unity was at least as sa li e nt a refe re nce group as was the pro-
tion, autonom y and sy nthes is we re impo rtant va lues-pos itive terms in the
fess ion," 11 he is likely to be read as saying somethin g bad about women's his-
profess iona l historian's lexicon -but no particular synthesis could eve r win
tory. But such a reading of Nov ick seems quite wrong to me. ov ick does
the approva l of any mo re than a fraction of the profession. Today, there a re
not approve of "autonomy," no r does he disapprove of it. On the contrary,
signs of a fourth phase o r attitude. Novick 's book both describes th e precon-
here a nd elsewhere he see ms determinedly neutral on the matter. If he IS
ditio ns for a new attitud e and, in part, exem plifi es it. Whethe r it comes to
not neutral, he o ug ht to be, for nothing in That Nobie Dream supports the
full blossom rem ains to be seen. In th e fourth, "postprofess ional" phase, th e
g ranting of positive value to autonom y-o r negati ve va lue, eith e r. .
dom ina nt view would re ject g ra nd na rrati ve entirel y- but ironi ca ll y (fo r
A story w ill perhaps help to link together these issues of sy nth esis and
an unironic rejection of gra nd narrative wou ld e nd up reconstituting it in
autonomy. The sto ry is a n encapsul ated hi sto ry of the ente rpri se of profes-
its preprofessio nal fo rm ). I im agine, here, hi sto ri ans who wo uld no longer
sional historiography. It is not the o nl y sto ry that ca n encaps ul ate that his-
see te rm s lik e synthesis, paradigm, a nd autonomy as possessing positive va lu e
to ry, but it is, I think, an importa nt one. In its broad o utlin es, my sto ry g~es,
(but such terms wou ld also not possess negati ve va lue). I im agin e histo ri ans
the histo ry of professional histo riograp hy is cl osely connected to d 1ffen ng
who would not in any way think that th ey were telling "the full story." I
attitudes towa rd what we might ca ll " th e project of grand narrati ve." By
imagine histo ri a ns who could turn themselves into econom ists or philoso-
"grand na rrative," I mean the story that the world would tell if the world
phe rs or literary critics, and who could shift bac k a nd forth between such
itself coul d tell its storyY
conAicting fi elds (for co nflicting th ey most certain ly are). I im agine histo-
"In the beginning"-! mean, of course, in that ben ig hted time before
rians who wou ld a lso be intell ectua ls, spea king w ithin the field of histo ri -
professional hi sto ria ns walked the earth -E uropea n intell ectua ls believed
ography a nd outsid e it as well. These histo ri ans would at the same time be
that there existed a g ra nd na rrative a nd that it was possible to tell the g rand
epistemologica ll y respo nsibl e in their w riting of history, rather tha n care less
na rrative now. More precisely, it was possibl e to retell the narrative, fo r the or de li berately tenden tious.
na rrati ve in question was th e story offe red in Jud aeo-C hri stian Sc ripture.
As someone who has see n, in more than o ne context, the eros ion of pre-
Professio nal historians, w ith thei r commitm ent to finding the narrative,
viously unqu estio ned co nsensus, I see fragmentation as in some ways pro-
we re unn ecessary.
foun dl y disturbing. Yet, if the soc iological transformation of the academy
Somewhat later than the beginning, faith in the sc riptural g rand narra-
continues (and I am inclined to think that it wi ll ), consensus of the old so rt
tive dimi nished. Professional histo ri ans a rrived on the scene. In the ea rly
will have a hard tim e surviving. Unity on th e substantive leve l- th e unity
phase of professional histo riograp hy, the dominant view was that a g rand
prov ided by th e telling of a single story-can onl y serve to exclud e. Like-
narrative exists but that it ca nn ot be told now: it can onl y be told in the
w ise, when disciplines become fragmented and when th e cross-cu ts between
future, afte r "fu rthe r research" has been done . Such was Ra nke's view-at
them begin to take o n li ves of t heir own, unity on the broad methodologi-
least most of the time. As the late Leonard Krieger pointed out, this view
ca l leve l is und ermin ed . Perhaps the on ly way, finally, of holding togeth er
164 t PA RT I V : FRAGMENT A TION
w hat o nce was seen (somewh at mi slead ingly) as a unifi ed ente rpri se would
be th ro ugh susta ined atte nti o n to the histo ri es, sociologies, rh eto ri cs, a nd
normative commitme nts of histo rica l stud y- that is, through exam ining
precisely the diversities that have shadowed histo ri og raphy fro m the begin-
ning and subjecting them to sympathetic but also critical analysis. In short,
un ity would come only at a refl ective level - if it would come at all.
In th e fourth phase, works lik e Novick's, which fall within the hitherto
professiona lly despised fi eld of histo ri ography, o r "historiology," would_as-
sume a n impo rta nt integrative role. O ne ca n think , too, of other works ma
refl ective mode, by such writers as R. G . Collingwood, Loui s Mink, Michel
de Ce rteau , Hayden White, Paul Veyne, a nd F. R. Ankersmit, which all
offe r refl ective exa min atio ns of the historia ns' project. Consid er, howeve r,
the character of the integrati on -fo r hi stori ans ge nerall y would be united
mainly by a common recognitio n of the impossibility of their unio n (al-
thoug h historians specifically might be tempo rarily united in more substan-
tive ways). The deep teaching of Novick's wise and lea rn ed book is that
integration is impossibl e except through force o r forgetfulness, and in con-
seq uence is not to be desired.
"Grand Narrative" and the Discipline of History
C H A PTER NINE
ntroducing a_ coll ection of essays entitl ed Ne~u. Perspectives on Historical
I Wntmg published m the ea rly 1990s, the Bnt1sh hi storian Pete r Burke
noted that "in the last generation or so the unive rse of historians has been
expanding at a di zzying rate." 1 In this chapter I wish to point out limits to
the claim ed expansion. L ong before the rise of the various "new histo ri es"
that proliferated in the twenti eth century, the m ythology of the hi sto ri ca l
d iscipline included the id ea that histo ry is a n abso rptive ente rprise-that it
is capable of embracing all subjects a nd is peculiarly open to whatever use-
fu l methods a nd approac hes it finds in other fields. 2
I show in thi s chapter that th e discipline's abso rptiveness a nd openn ess
a re g reatl y constrain ed . A particul a r ass umption - at base, an ontological
ass umptio n - und e rli es and gives force to the belief in histo ry's abso rp-
tiven ess. In bri efest terms, the assumption might be cha racteri zed as an as-
su mption of ultimate world unity. Such an assumpti o n lies behind the g rand
na rratives th at have prevailed in Western hi sto ri ograp hy. 3 In this chapte r I
survey the va rious m od ifications of the conception of g rand na rrative that
have a ri sen in the tradition of mode rn Western professional hi storical w rit-
ing a nd resea rch. I do so with a view to cas tin g some lig ht on the current sit-
ua tio n of histori ca l w ritin g and thinking. The situation in question has both
a diachronic aspect, linked to this continuing tradition, a nd a sy nch roni c
aspect, linked to th e particular conditions of present-day life and culture.
My aim is to offer an account of the deep intell ectual bases for the disci-
plini zati on o r departmentalization of histo ri ca l resea rch and writing. What
is produced by the histo rical discipline is not the whole of huma nity's le-
g itimate engage ment w ith the past, but it is a n importa nt part of that en-
gageme nt. Because the hi storica l d isc ipline claims a special autho rity in the
inte rpretatio n of the past- a n autho rity that, eve n now, is still most often
couc hed in cognitive terms, as based on bette r method and sounde r in sig ht -
it sta nds in need of epistemological refl ectio n. Disciplines (hi story includ ed)
166 t PART I V : FR ACM ENTAT I ON
have boundaries. Schol a rs who a re firmly w ithin a disciplin e m ost ofte n do
not th ink abo ut its boundaries. Instead, th ey fee l its co nstraints as simply
those of good schola rship gene rall y.
Th ere a re in stitutional reasons w hy this is so. It is a matter of commu-
nity a nd of modes of sociali zati on into comm unity. Except, sometim es, in a
few multi-disciplinary fields, participants in o ne discipline in the huma ni-
ties and social sciences usuall y lac k se ri ous engageme nt w ith participants in
other disciplines. A lth ough they m ay on occas ion borrow fro m o ther d isc i-
plines, th ey usually do not have the expe ri e nce of ente rin g into the mod es o f
a rg um ent of those d isc iplin es, let a lone of producing wo rk that amo unts to
a co ntributio n to a no th e r d isciplin e. It ofte n appea rs that the la rge r o r m o re
prestig ious th e academic in stitutio n, the hi ghe r th e bar ri ers. Th e in stitu-
tio ns in quest io n are m ost often set up in a heav il y d isc iplin a ry way, and so
is the la rge r schola rl y wo rld. T he hi storian's d e pa rtmental sem in a r ope rates
in isolatio n from other hum ani ties and socia l-sciences semi nars, and each
of these ope rates in isolation as well. Indeed, the depa rtm ental sem in a r is
ofte n itself hig hl y fragm ented, d raw in g participants on ly from a pa rti cu la r
geograp hi cal, temporal, o r thematic spec ia lty o r from a pa rticular m ethod-
ologica l approac h. Often, true sem in a rs do not take place at the departmen-
ta l level at all , but onl y w ithin specifi c subfi eld s of hi sto ry. G la ring er ro r ca n
eas il y rem a in unco rrected when th e debate among hi sto ri ans occurs only in
such specia li zed a nd rat he r provincial com muniti es.
In this chapter I delibe rately operate at a hi gh level of ge nerality. I ac-
knowledge that acco unts of th e hi storical disciplin e ca n be o ffered at other
levels, yielding much more complex a nd historically specific views! I ope r-
ate at this "high" level because my a im is to refl ect on the conceptua l foun-
dations and ge ne ral cha racter of the d iscipline of hi story. Mo re precisely, I
refl ect o n the foundat ions and cha racter of the d isciplin e that em e rged in th e
ea rl y ninetee nth ce ntury in Germany. T o a remarkabl e degree, th e concep-
tua l underpinnings that we re establi shed then rem a in in place - althoug h
th ey a re clea rl y un de r cha ll enge-eve n today. I apologi ze in advance fo r th e
abs traction that results fr om thi s broad attempt at co nceptua l history. H ow-
eve r, I put thi s hi story forwa rd in th e context of a d isciplin e that pays practi-
call y no attenti on to conceptua l un derpinn ings at all. I urge the reade r to
attend ca refully to the d efinitions that are o ffered: th ey a re both precise a nd
importa nt. Reflection of the sort that I attempt here-w hil e obvio usly o nly
a small pa rt of what hi storia ns can a nd shou ld do-is ind ispensable because
it b rings to lig ht what would otherwise rema in unexamin ed prejudice.
Such refl ection obvi ously has a theo retical sig nifica nce. But it also has
im plications fo r the actual resea rch and writin g of hi sto ry. Fo r exa mpl e,
th e qu estio n of histo rica l synthesis came up as a seriously d iscussed hi sto-
.. G RA 1 0 NARRATIVE '' AND THE DI SC IPLI NE OF HI S T ORY t 167
riog rap hi c iss ue in th e 1980s, in respo nse to a grow ing se nse that histo ry
was becom in g fragme nted. 5 The place of sy nthesis in hi sto ri ca l wr iting con-
tin ues to be a live issu e tod ay. So also are m atte rs of li te rary form: think ,
for example, of questions about th e role of na rrati ve in histo ry a nd abo ut
the legitimacy o r not of a ficti ve elem ent in historical w riting . T o see how
histo rical synth es is needs always to be proposed but at the same time called
into do u bt, to see how na rrati ve is und e rpinned by "interested" ass umpti o ns
that are often not recogni zed, and to see how ficti ve ness is both necessa ry
to the hi sto ri an's pro ject and a source of g reat dange r - th ese "see ings" all
requ ire a g ra sp o f theo reti ca l unde rpinnin gs a nd im pli catio ns. My hope is
that th e conceptual d ev ices offered in th is chapter a nd in th is book w ill be
take n seri ou sly both by those w ho a re atte mpting to rea d works of histo ry
in a criti ca l frame of mind a nd by those engaged in the d ifficult task of writ-
ing history in a n epistem ologica ll y res ponsible m ode w hile trying not to be
so pa ralyzed b y the uncertainties of histo rical knowledge that the h isto ri ca l
imaginatio n a nd the w riting hand a re impaired.
O bviously, an im portant issue here, perh a ps the crucial one, is th at of co-
here nce. We can not ex haust the subject in a sing le survey, b ut we ca n at least
ma ke so m e important distin ctio ns. It see ms usefu l to think of "coherence"
as occupying fo ur distinct levels o f conce ptu ali zatio n. These a re (1) narrative
prope1~· (2) master narrative, o r sy nth esis, w hi ch cla im s to offe r the ;:iuthor i-
tative account of some pa rticular segment of hi story; (3) grand narrative,
w hich cla im s to offe r the autho ritative accou nt of hi story ge nerall y; and
(4) metanarrative (m ost comm on ly, beli ef in God o r in a ratio nality som e-
how imm anent in the wo rl d), wh ich se rves to justify the g rand narrative. In
the p rese nt chapte r I focus spec ifi ca ll y on the level of g ra nd na rrative . I do
so because thi s all ows the d evelop m ent of a framewo rk that helps us make
se nse both of the mo re specific issues a nd of the fac t that they have a risen as
iss ues in the particula r tim e th at we inh abit. In esse nce, m y conce rn is w ith
the claim that "professional" o r "d isciplin a ry" historiograph y makes to ape-
cu li a rl y auth oritati ve role in th e un de rstand ing o f th e past-that is, its claim
to "objectivity" in the broades t sense of that term. 6
L
FOU R ID EAL-TYP I CA L A TTIT UDES T OWAR D
THE OVERALL COHE R E CE OF HISTORY
U ntil fa irl y rece ntly, observe rs of and participants in th e trad ition of m od-
e rn, Western, professional, hi sto ri ca l researc h a nd writin g ge ne rall y held
that eve ry part icula r work of hi story oug ht to o rient itself to history ge ner-
a ll y-that is, to a single hi sto ry, w hi ch I shall here desig nate as History.7 We
ca n pl ausibl y view this tradition as connectin g hi sto ry-w riting to H isto ry in
168 t PART IV: FR A GMENTATION
fo ur d iffe rent ways. In so doing, it manifested fo ur "attitudes" toward His-
to ry. We ca n orde r these attitud es chronologicall y, although they a re also
coex istent, a nd I would a rgue th at in the best hi sto ri ca l w riting we ca n find
at least traces of all fo ur attitud es. They a re conceptual types. First, one finds
commitment to a pa rticular "g rand na rrative" that claims to make sense of
history as a whole. The gist of "attitude 1 " is that there is a single coher-
ent H istory and that it ca n be told (o r retold) now. "Attitude 2" holds that
the re is a single cohe rent Histo ry, but defers its telling to a later date, after
"further resea rch " has been done. "Attitude 3" holds that th ere is a single
cohere nt Hi story, but that it ca n never be told. Obv iously, if we think in
na rrativist terms, we will find a paradox he re, fo r a g ra nd na rrative that ca n
neve r be told has nothin g at all of th e form of na rrative. Instead, it m a nifests
itself in the comm itment of hi stori ans to the autonomy of th eir discipline, a
commitm ent that purports to maintain the discipline's purity and coherence
in the absence of any single story to which it converges. "Attitude 4" calls
even this form of coherence into question.
It has bee n largely invisible to historians themsel ves that professio nal
hi sto ri og rap hy has presupposed the ex iste nce, althoug h not necessa ril y the
telling, of a visio n of coherence. Of course, hi sto ri ans a re generall y well
aware of the problem of coherence at more specifi c levels, w hethe r it is a
matter of co nstructing a sin gle (by definition coherent) na rrative, o r a m at-
ter of addressing the implicit o r explicit " maste r na rrati ve" of som e specific
histori ca l field (as Geyer and Jarausch have done; see note 5). The issue here,
howeve r, is cohe rence at a "world" level. Because th e a rticul ati on of concep-
tual pres umpti ons is a theoretical rather than a histo riographic task, o nly
rarely do histori ans a rticulate them. Moreover, in vestigato rs, including his-
torians of hi sto ri ograph y, tend tom iss precisely those features of a situation
that a re most " natura l" to them .
St ill , some hi sto ria ns of historiography - in va ri ably in formed by ext ra-
disciplinary stud ies - have see n w hat is here pointed o ut. Reinh a rt Ko-
sell eck, a histo rian acu tely se nsitive to the hi sto ry of concepts, noted the
em erge nce in late eig htee nth-ce ntury Germany of what he called the "col-
lective singular" use of the te rm Geschichte, a word that m ea ns " hi sto ry"
or "story." O nl y in the late eightee nth century, Koselleck contended, did
people com e to think o fG eschichte as a singu lar rather tha n as a plural term.
Mo reove r, on ly then did th ey begin to use it to mean histo ry in general, as
distinguished from the hi sto ry ofX, Y, o r Z. This "coll ective sing ul a r" sense
of hi story, accord ing to K osell eck, "establisheJdl the terms of all possible
individ ual histories ." 8 A read ing of lite ra ry th eo ry led Robe rt F. Be rkhofe r
Jr. , to find in professiona l hi sto ri ans' conce rn w ith context the ass umption
"G R A ND N A RR A TIVE " AN D THE D I SC I PLINE OF HI S T O RY :f: 169
that the past is "a complex but unifi ed Aow of events," a "Great Sto ry." 9
The ph il osop her Louis Mink fo und that the eightee nth -centur y notion of
"un ive rsa l hi sto ry" sur vives in twenti eth-century histo ri ograp hy. 1° Finally,
wo rking from a Kantia n sta ndpoint, Leonard Kri ege r emphasized profes-
sional histo ri ograp hy's persistent search fo r coherence. 11
Krieger's acco unt is especially telling . H e showed that when historians
lack fund a mental agreement co nce rnin g the cha racte r of human history,
the cohere nce of th e histo ri ographic enterprise is threatened-a nd vice
ve rsa. Developing Kriege r 's point, fro m a present-day view point we ca n see
that professio nal hi sto ri ograph y as it em erged in the nin eteenth ce ntur y was
rema rkabl y unified in its attitud e towa rd hum a n hi sto ry. Whatever their
diffe rent national and ideological standpoints, a lm ost all profess iona l hi s-
to ri a ns ag reed that history was political, European, and male. But in recent
yea rs professional histo ri ogra phy has fo und itself driven into a g reate r plu-
ral ism. This change strains the hope of atta inin g a unified view of the past,
even as it chall enges the former homogeneity of th e enterprise. It also strains
the view that histo ri og rap hy ca n and oug ht to be autonomous in relation to
oth er enterpri ses. Kri ege r was a professional hi sto ri an's professional hi sto-
ri a n, deeply comm itted to the autonomy of the discipline. He held that the
histo ri a n, a lthough he sho uld ce rtainl y lea rn from neig hbo ring disciplines,
ought noneth eless to function as a "pu re hi sto ri a n" (th at is, as a hi sto rian
unco ntam in ated by oth er disciplines' modes of thinking), fo r th e cohe rence
of a "d istincti ve ly hi sto ri ca l know led ge" underwrites "the coherence of the
past." 12 Yet Kri ege r's own emph asis o n th e relation betwee n the subj ective
and the obj ective aspects of history calls into doubt the prospects for a coher-
ent disciplinary vision in any time of social disjunction.
A T T 1 T u DE r. There is a single History, and we ab-eady know what it is.
Attitu de 1 is embod ied in th e tradition of "universal hi sto ry." Univer-
sa l history is relevant to the issue of disciplinary boundaries because in its
secu la ri zed fo rm it had a n immense impact o n profess io nal hi stori ograp hy.
A lth oug h its roo ts a re to be found as ea rl y as the Pat ri stic period , it first
beca me a continuing trad iti o n of scholarship and teachi11ffe in Protestant
Germ a n unive rsiti es a fter the Refo rmation humanist Philipp Melanchthon
lectured on th e subject at the University of Wittenberg in the mid-sixtee nth
ce ntury. In a n age w hen a nation-state did not develop in Ge rm any, as it did
in F ra nce a nd Britain, universal hi sto ry provided fo r Protestant Ge rm a ns a
visio n of unity a nd g lo ry that they othe rw ise lac ked . 1l
C hri stia n uni ve rsa l hi story emphasized the Hebrews a nd took its ch ro-
nology a nd perioclization from the Bibl e. In the course of the ea rl y modem
1 70 t PA RT I V : FRAGMENT AT I ON
peri od , th e bibli ca l focus was chall enged , a nd ultim ately aba ndo ned. But
th e un de rmining of C hri sti a n uni ve rsa l history di d not des t roy t he id ea of
uni ve rsa l hi sto ry itsel f, w hich continu ed in secu la ri zed (i.e., no n-biblical)
fo rm. In Ge rm an y, of course, th e id ea was su p po rted by the ex istence of
uni ve rsity cha irs devoted to it.
Th e secularized tradition of uni ve rsal history is the true beginning of the
sto ry that I tell he re. Alth ough the sec ul a ri zed traditi on acco rd ed no spe-
cial privilege to the Bibl e, th e bas ic idea of the ea rli er, bibli ca ll y based con-
ce ptio n rem ained in pl ace- na m ely, the idea th at the re is fin all y a single
hi sto ry, w hose unity is g uara nteed by God . Co nceptuall y, a new p robl em
em e rged in the m ove fro m uni ve rsa l hi sto ry based on sac red Scripture to
o ne th at, a lth oug h pres upposed by th eism , g ra nted no special p ri vil ege to
Sc ri pture. In the fi rst case, we ca n tell the g ra nd na rrative now because our
tellin g is actuall y a re telling, wh ereas in the seco nd case th e tellin g has no
preexisting m ode l. H ow a re we to d iscove r w hat th e g rand na rrati ve is,
since it is no longe r presc ribed by th e Bibl e? Ca n we in fa ct know the g rand
na rrati ve? To w hat d egree, a nd by w hat m ea ns ?
Imm a nuel K a nt offe red o ne answe r. Hi s essay " Idea for a Uni ve rsal
Hi sto ry fro m a Cosm opolita n Point of View" ( 178.+) expli citl y contributed
to th e uni ve rsa l hi sto ry traditi o n, a nd Ka nt returned to th e m atter in "An
O ld Q uestion Raised Aga in: Is th e Hum an Race Co nstantl y Progressing ?"
( 1795) . 14 In the ea rli e r essay, Ka nt suggested t hat a "phil osophi cal hi sto ry"
of m a nkind could be w ritte n. A phil osophi ca l histo ry woul d show how the
appa re ntl y chaoti c wo rkin gs of in d ivid ual hum a n w ill , w he n viewed "on
a la rge scal e," m ay be see n as m a ni fes ting "a regul a r p rog ress io n am o ng
freely w illed acti o ns," the outcom e of w hi ch w ill be "a perfec t civil union
of m a nkind ." In deed, the w ri ting of such a hi sto ry wo ul d help to ac hi eve
the desired end . 15 But K a nt kn ew th at such a hi sto ry coul d not be empiri-
ca ll y justifi ed and d iscl aim ed a ny w ish "to su pe rsede the tas k of hi sto ry
pro pe r." 1"
In hi s r 795 essay Ka nt aga in emphasized th at " th e probl em of progress
ca nnot be solved d irectl y from ex peri ence"; ye t he a lso co nte nd ed th at "th ere
mu st be som e ex peri ence o r oth er" th at " mig ht suggest th at m a n has the
quality or powe r of being the cause and .. . the author of hi s ow n improve-
m ent." 17 In co nside ring his ow n tim e, K ant fo un d just such an empirical
indi cato r in "the atti t ude of th e o nl ooke rs" of by fa r th e g reatest eve nt of his
tim e, th e F rench Revoluti on. O bse rve rs w ho had nothing to ga in fr om the
Revoluti o n g reeted it w ith nea r enthusias m -eve n in P ru ss ia, w he re such
enthu sias m s we re da ngerous. Th eir sy mpath y fo r th e Revoluti on, Ka nt
held, coul d have bee n caused o nl y by a " m o ral d ispos iti o n w ithin th e hu-
"G RA ND N :\RRAT I VE .. AND THE D I SC IPL I NE OF H I ST O RY t 17 1
ma n race," the p rese nce of w hich g ives g round fo r beli eving th at hum a n
18
histo ry is p rog ress ive . H ege l, too, cl aim ed to be abl e to d isce rn a nd to tell
th e esse nti al sha pe of hi sto ry, w hi ch he saw as a progressive rea li zation of
freedo m: first o ne person is free, then so m e, th en a ll. 19 C..
Yet th e telling of th e g ra nd na rrati ve ca rries ri sks, fo r future events may
d ive rge fro m the sugges ted sto ry lin e. Fo r exampl e, in May 1789 Friedrich
Sch ill e r d el ive red hi s inaug ural lecture as professo r o f hi sto ry at th e U ni -
ve rsity of Jena. In spired by K ant's " Id ea fo r a U ni ve rsa l Histo ry," he spo ke
on the topi c "What is uni ve rsa l history and w h y do we stud y it ?" Schill er
reco un ted ::i m ovem e nt from ba rba ri sm , still visibl e in primitive races, to
the civili zati on o f eig htee nth-ce ntur y E urope, whe re truth , m o rality, and
freedo m we re g row ing eve r m o re pow erful. In hi s view, "th e E u ro pea n
society of states seem s tra nsfo rm ed into a g reat fa mil y," w hose me mbe rs
"may have their feuds, but no longe r tea r each othe r limb fr om limb." 20
Schill er appa rentl y neve r commented on the di sc repan cy betwee n his com-
place nt acco unt of Eu ro pea n history in th e in aug ura l lecture and th e wo rld-
shatte ring eve nts unl eas hed o nl y two m o nths later in France.21
A related probl em conce rn s the leve l of d eta il to be inclu ded in th e g ra nd
n::ir rative. In a rev iew of 1 772 of Aug ust W ilh elm vo n Schl oze r's Un iversal-
Historie, Jo ha nn Gottfri ed H e rd er criti cized Schl oze r fo r not hav ing impl e-
m ented th e pl a n o f uni ve rsa l hi sto ry th at hi s book pro posed. Res ponding,
Sc hl oze r ag reed w ith H erde r 's obse rvation th at it is easier to p ro pose som e-
th ing th an to do it [dass sich etwas leichter sagen als th un lasse l, but co ntend ed
that "where it is a m atter of wo rl d hi sto ry ... it must be proposed lgesagt]
befo re it is done . .. a plan, a theory, a n ideal of thi s sci ence must be drawn
22
up." In other wo rd s, Schloze r held that the outline of the sto ry ca n be to ld
now, bu t he d efe rred its complete telling until late r. Schloze r clea rl y must
have th oug ht o f th at later telling as a me re a mplifi catio n of th e outline. But
w hat, we m ig ht as k, if the late r tel ling we re less a m pli fica ti on th a n co rrec-
tio n ? In such a case, we coul d not be sa id to know alrea d y what th e sing le
Hi sto ry is.
A T T 1 T u o E 2. There is a single H istory, but we can know what it is only after
fu rther research has been done.
Attitude 2 d efers th e te lling of the sto ry. Ga ining promin ence hi sto ri call y
as a res ponse to th e u pheava ls of th e Revoluti ona ry and Na poleoni c Wa rs,
atti tude 2 was intim ately con nected w ith th e em e rge nce of p ro fessiona l hi s-
to riogra ph y. Th e ca non ica l fo un de r of the d isciplin e, Leopold vo n Ra nk e,
was criti ca l o f such uni ve rsa l hi sto ri a ns as J. C. Gatte rer, Johannes M ill-
ie r, a nd F ried rich C hri stop h Schl osse r.'i H e was eve n mo re critica l o f such
172 t PART IV'. FRAGMENT A TION
phi losophers as H egel, who attempted to posit a priori the course of human
history. But he was not critical of uni ve rsa l hi sto ry as such ; on th e contra ry,
it remained a continuing preoccupation fo r him. 24
Consid er the fo ll ow in g passage, from a fragment that Ra nke wrote in
the 1860s:
Th e in vesti gati on of the particul a r, eve n of a single point, is of va lue
if it is done wel l. ... But the in vestigatio n of the pa rticul a r is always
related to a large r context. Local histo ry is related to that of a cou ntry;
a biography is related to a larger eve nt in state and church, to an epoch
of national or ge nera l history. But all these epochs themselves a re, as
we have sa id, again part of the g reat w hole [Ganzen I wh ich we ca ll uni-
ve rsa l histo ry. The greater scope of its in vestigation has cor respond-
ing ly g reater value. The ultimate goal, not yet attained, wi ll always
remain the conception and compositi on of a history of m ankind ....
Comp rehend ing the w hole and yet doin g justice to th e requirem ents
of resea rch will , of course, always rem ain a n ideal. It would pres up-
pose an und erstanding on a firm foundation of the totality of human
history. 25
Ra nk e here envisaged th ree d istin ct levels of histo rica l co nce rn. T he first,
"the in vestigation of the particula r, even of a single po int," evokes w hat his-
torians tod ay ca ll micro-history. The second, w hi ch shows how the particu-
lar is related to a "la rge r co ntext," is also visibl e in present-day hi stori ogra-
phy. The third level, concerned with "th e totality of human history"-with
"comp rehending the w hole"- is hi dden, but th e idea of it is fam ili a r to us:
it is the idea of gra nd narrative, of a unified hi story of humankind.
In his refe rence to "the ultim ate goa l, .. . not yet attained," Ranke ac-
knowledged a defe rral of the telling of such a history. Sim il ar statements
appea r elsewhere in hi s co rpus; fo r example, in a lecture sc ript of 1867, he
wrote that "the science of histo ry is not yet m at ure enoug h to reconstruct
universa l histo ry on new fo undations." 26 In fact, insistence on a d efe rral of
the telling of g rand narrative was necessa ry fo r history's em ergence as a
d isciplin e. Kant, Schiller, and H egel believed that th ey already kn ew the
basic outlin e of hum an hi sto ry-or at any rate they beli eved that they knew
which outline of huma n hi story it was best to posit as true. H oweve r, their
conviction dep ri ved hi storical resea rch of its rati o nal e, fo r, persuaded by
such accounts, one wou ld "seek o nl y to know to what extent th e ph il osophi -
cal principle can be demonstrated in history; .. . it wo uld be of no inte rest
"G RAND N A RR ATIV E" AN D TH E DIS C IPLIN E O F H I S T O RY + 173
at all to delve in to th e things that happe ned . .. o r to wa nt to know how
m en lived and th oug ht at a certain time." Furthermore, "we re th is proce-
dure [of co nstructing "the w hole of histo ry" o n a n a priori basis] correct,
history JHistorie] wou ld lose all autonomy JSelbstiindigkeitl." 2i If throu g h
sacred Scripture, o r through knowl edge of human nature, o r in some oth er
way we a re able to tell the story now, w hat need is there for the supposedly
distin ctive m eth ods of professi onal histori ca l resea rch ?28
Ran ke's justifi cation fo r continuing to beli eve in the reality of a single
History eve n in the absence of its prese nt telling was relig ious. God created
the wo rld a nd ove rsees eve rything in it, o ne God creating o ne Histo ry. Hints
of thi s view a re to be found in Ra nk e's " Idea of Universa l Histo ry," whe re,
in referr ing to the "conception of totality" (Auffassung der Totalitiit ) th at is
one of the features of uni ve rsal histo ry, he asse rts th at it is impossibl e fo r us
to g rasp unive rsal histo ry completely: "Only God knows world history." 29
But the con nectio n between th e id ea of God and th e idea of Histo ry's unity
was pe rh aps stated m ost cl ea rly in a letter that the yo ung Ranke wrote to his
brother in r 820:
God dwell s, lives, a nd can be know n in all of hi story. Eve ry deed at-
tests to Him , eve ry m om ent preac hes His nam e, but most of all , it
seem s to me, th e co nnected ness of hi story in the large. It Jthe co nn ect-
ed ness] stands th ere like a holy hieroglyph . .. . May we, for our pa rt,
dec iph er thi s holy hi eroglyp h! E ven so do we se rve God. Even so a re
we priests. Eve n so a re we teache rs. 30
The re is thus a manifest co ntinuity between Ra nk e and ea rlier, C hristian
conceptio ns of uni ve rsa l histo ry.
Adherence to the noti o n of g rand na rrative by no m ea ns required reli -
gio us faith, fo r fo rm s of secula r faith could also serve . Consider J. B. Bury's
inaug ura l lecture of 1902 as Regius Professo r of Modern Histo ry at Ca m -
b ridge, entitl ed "The Science of History." H ere Bury suggested that
the idea of the future d evelopm ent of m a n ... furnishes . .. the justifi-
cation of much of the labo rious historical work that has been don e and
is being done today. Th e gathe ring of m ateri a ls bea ring upon minute
local eve nts, the coll ation ofMSS. and th e registry of their sma ll va ri a-
ti ons, the patient drudgery in a rchives of states a nd municipaliti es, all
th e microscopic resea rch that is ca rri ed o n by a rmi es of toilin g stu-
dents . .. .Thi s work, the hew ing of wood a nd the draw ing of wate r,

174 :f: PART I V: FR AGMEN T A TI ON
has to be do ne in fa ith - in the fa ith th at a complete assemblage of
th e small est facts of human histo ry w ill tell in the end. The labour is
31
perfo rmed fo r poste rity-for remote posterity.
The justificatio n for Bury's faith lay in the late ninetee nth-centur y global
expansion of Western civilization and in the ideals of scie nce and coope ra-
tion th at he tho ught had made the expansio n possible. Bury's stance was
structurally identi ca l to Ranke's, despite its secu la r focus. Like Ra nke, Bury
ad hered to attitude 2, deferring the telling of the g ra nd na rrati ve to the
future. Bur y's fo il was an explicit ad herent of attitude 1 , Thomas A rnold
(father of Matthew Arn old), who in hi s inaugural lecture of 184 r as Regius
Professo r of Mode rn History at Oxfo rd had suggested that the " m ode rn
age" coincid ed w ith " th e las t step" in th e story of m an, bea rin g m a rks "of
32
the fuln ess of tim e, as if th ere would be no future histo ry beyond it." Bury
demurred, but not because he obj ected to the id ea of a single Histo ry per se.
H e believed that it was too soon to kn ow the shape of histo ry, not that there
is no single sha pe to be known.
We might be tempted to think that defe rral of its telling wo uld d ramat-
icall y red uce the releva nce of beli ef in a single History to the writing of
hi sto ry. But its releva nce rem ain s, fo r belief in uni ve rsal hi sto ry (a lbeit a
uni ve rsa l hi sto ry that is as yet untell able) has a n impo rta nt e pistemologi-
cal co nsequence. Th e belief all ows histor ians to ma intain that th e histo ri-
cal acco unt is a n obj ectiv e re presentati on, conn ected to the standpoint of
Hi sto ry itself. As Kriege r noted, Ra nke's "assura nce about th e histo ri an's
objectivity" was pred icated on belief in "a single process" linking pas t a nd
present. 33 In "The Science of Histo ry," Bury mad e p recisely this point. He
34
bega n by insisting that histo ry is a scie nce-"n o less and no m ore." "Sci-
ence," fo r Bury, implied purely objecti ve representation: it "cannot safely be
controll ed or g uid ed by a subj ective interest." 35 Re jecting a relati on to his
ow n time a nd place, the hi sto ri an cl aim s to relate him self to the hi sto ri cal
process as a whole. "Principl es o f unity a nd continuity " exist with in hi sto ry,
Bury beli eved. 36 Th ese principl es suggest th e id ea of man's future d evelop-
m ent, wh ich serves as a "limiting controllin g co nce ptio n" telling the histo-
37
rian w hat belongs in a historical accou nt a nd w hat should be excluded.
AT TITUDE 3 . There is a single H istory. H owever, it can never be told. ft exists
only ideally, as the unreachable end of an autonomous discipline. Coherence is
now located not in the told or anticipated Story, but in the unified mode ofthink-
ing of the discipline.
"" G RAND NARRATIVE .. AN D TH E DIS C IPLINE OF HI S T O RY t 175
Attitud e 3 g ives u p the notion that the sing le History w ill eve r be told,
w ithout g iving up the notion that the re is a "sing le hi sto ry"- that is, a sin-
g le auth o ri zed mode of in vestigating the past. The histo rian and theo ri st of
historiography Joha nn Gustav Droyse n, who from 1852 to 1882 taug ht the
theo ry and m ethodology of h istory, came cl ose to a rticulating this attitud e.
Droysen maintained in hi s lectures that th e g ra nd na rrati ve could neve r
be told, at least no t o n the basis of hi sto rical in vestigation. "Th e hig hest
end" of hi sto ry, he asserted, "is not to be d iscovered by empirica l in vesti ga-
tion." 38 As the m ention of a " hig hest end " suggests, Droysen believed that
a cohe re nt Histo ry ex ists. But w hereas Rank e a nd Bu ry beli eved that the
histo rian coul d d iscove r cohe rence wi thin the ob jective hi stori ca l process,
Droyse n shi fted atte nti o n to th e su bj ecti ve sphe re. Without denying the
existence of an objective cohe rence, he chose "to establi sh, not th e laws of
objective History but th e laws of histo ri ca l in vestigatio n and know ledge." >9
O ne implicati on of Droysen's position is th at hi stori ogra phy must itself be
a coherent enterpri se-fo r ho w else could th ere be laws of histori ca l in ves-
ti gation and knowl edge? A further impli cati o n is that histo riograph y must
be cl ea rl y separated from cont ra ry enterpri ses a nd co nce rns. With som e jus-
tification, Hayde n W hite has suggested th at Droyse n offe red "the m ost sus-
ta in ed a nd systematic defe nse of the auto nomy o f histo ri ca l tho ug ht eve r set
fo rth." iU
W hil e Rank e also emphas ized the auton omy of hi sto ry a nd d efended
the subj ect aga in st those w ho wo uld approac h it w ith a ready-made g rand
nar rative borrowed from philosophy, Droysen's insistence o n autonomy had
an add itiona l role: it protected histori ograp h y not o nl y from the first, pre-
professiona l con viction that the story is already kn ow n but also from th e threat
o f multiplicity and fragme ntation. Fo r a mid -nin eteenth-century hi sto ri an,
Droysen (a P russian nationa li st of liberal bent) was remarkably se nsiti ve to
the idea that hi storica l rea lity ca n be descr ibed, explained, a nd interpreted
in vastly d iffe re nt ways. Fo r w hateve r reaso ns, he seems to have bee n awa re
that ad he rents of competi ng iden titi es wo ul d be inclin ed to cl aim legitim acy
fo r the ir histori es just as he claim ed legitim acy fo r Prussia's.4 1Ra nk e, o n the
othe r ha nd, was protected from com ing to g rips with such threats by hi s
co nviction that Europe constituted a unified politica l system and by his be-
lief that the tas k of histo ri ograp hy is to w rite the history of that (Europea n)
system .4 2 Mo re se nsitive, it ap pears, to th e conA ict of interests and id entiti es
Droysen was co rres ponding ly m ore abl e to see multiplicity as a problem,'.
he recogni zed multiplicity as legitimate, but at the same tim e in sisted on
co ntainin g it.4 ;
176 t PART JV : FRAGMENTA TI ON
Attitud e 3 aband ons th e hope of eve r a rticul ating a n ob jective g rand nar-
rative (that is, a n auth o ritati ve acco unt of Hi story as a w hole), while retain-
ing commitment to coherence at th e level of the hi sto riog raphic enterprise
itself, w hich is see n as united by ad herence to common methods a nd aims.
Attitude 3 is an idealized version of w hat seems to have been the dominant
stance of the histo rical profession in the twentieth century c.r 9 r4-r991. 44
A fter the slaug hter of World Wa r I-ca rried out, it seemed, for naught-
most professional histo rians no longe r saw th eir tas k as the deciphering of
a holy hieroglyph or as the telling of a g reat story of prog ress . Even if many
continued to beli eve that hi sto ry was fundamentally benevole nt, th ey no
longe r saw it as th e historian's task to portray this benevolence. 45 Attitude 3
has the adva ntage of allowing ad he rence to a sin g le idea l, w ith out requiring
that th e ideal be embod ied in a spec ifi c hi sto rical content.
Yet attitude 3 is deeply paradoxical and tensi on-l ade n, for behind com-
mitment to historiog raph y as a single, coherent enterprise the g host of a
hope for an obj ective g ra nd narrative persists-yet the g ra nd narrative
cannot be to ld. Because Droyse n was deeply influenced by Ge rman ideali st
philosophy, especiall y H egelian phil osophy, and co ntinued to beli eve in a
" moral world ... moved by m a ny ends, and finally . . . by th e supreme end,"
we ca nn ot fin all y see him as embody ing attitude 3 in a fo rm that is clea rl y
marked off from attitud es 1 a nd 2.4 6 A m ong theorists of histori ography,
R. G. Collingwood best exempl ifi es attitude 3, and thus best displays its in-
herent contrad ictions. (Admittedl y, one might also look to Wilhelm Dilthey
or Michael Oa kesh ott, w ho, like Droyse n and Collingwood, focus attention
on th e subj ective dimension , that is, on historians' thinking ." But Colling-
wood is the cl ea rest thinker of th e lot, and his cl arity revea ls w hat remains
hidd en elsew here.48
Collingwood made two crucial "third-attitude" claims about histo riog-
raphy. Professional hi sto ri ans read il y embraced these claims, fo r they con-
fo rm ed to how hi sto rian s in the twenti eth ce ntury "a lways a lready" con-
ceived of their ente rprise.
First, Collin gwood claimed th at histo riogra phic coherence has its roots
in the mind of the histo rian. In a gene ral sense, Collingwood's position on
this issue was Kantian . Kant accepted David Hume's assertion that we can-
not perceive causatio n (althoug h we can pe rceive th e spatial contiguity, tem-
pora l succession, and constant conjuncti o n th at a re no rm all y assoc iated w ith
causation). Hume's view ra ised the threat of a tota li zed skepticism , to w hi ch
K a nt res ponded by asse rtin g that causation is not something empiri ca ll y
discoverable but is a n o rga ni z ing principl e in th e mind. When , fa m ously,
"GRAND NA RR A TI VE .. AN D THE DI SC IPLINE O F H I STORY :f: 177
Collingwood in Th e Idea of History attacked a passive "scissors-and-paste"
history and a rg ued that th e hi sto ria n w ho depends o n th e documents to
provide coherence w ill wait fo reve r, he was fo ll owing out the impli cati ons
for historiography of K a nt's "Cope rni ca n Revolutio n" in philosophy. 49
Seco nd, Collingwood repeated ly emph as ized the "auto nom y" ofh isto ry.50
In invoking autonomy, he was actually referring to two different notions.
In the first place, he was concerned to emph as ize that th e hi sto rian oug ht to
have autonom y in relati on to " the sources," m akin g up h is ow n mind about
the past rath er than rel ying on the supposed auth o rity of" th e sources." Thi s
first emphasis is simpl y another way of saying th at cohe rence is rooted in
the m ind of the histo rian. But "autonom y" in Collingwood a lso denotes a
rather different cla im , namely, th at histo ria ns o ug ht to have auto no m y in
relation to othe r disciplines. H ere, Collin gwood's a rgum ent is th at histo ri-
ograp hy is an independent discipline with its ow n rul es (different from th e
rules of other disciplines) that have been worked out ove r tim e throug h a
process of trial a nd error. 51 We ca n see w hy he would want to emphasi ze the
autonom y of histo ry in relation to other disciplines , for only if we hold that
histo ri ograp hy is a cl ea rl y bound ed field w ith its own distinctive set of ru les
can we expect histo rical thinking to prov id e cohe rence. In othe r wo rds, the
subjectivizatio n of cohe rence- that is, its relocati o n into th e mind of th e
histo ri a n - placed a premium on the claim th at hi sto riograp hy is a n au-
tono m ou s enterpri se.
Yet at va ri ous points Collingwood und e rmined , and eve n directl y de-
nied, the noti on that historiography oug ht to be an autonomous enterprise
in the sense just noted. For exam pl e, in his Autobiography he asserted that
his life's work , as seen from h is fifti eth year, "has been in the m ain a n at-
tempt to bring abou t a rapproc hement betwee n philosophy and hi story." 52
C ollingwood's philosophical op po nents of th e tim e m ade a sha rp distinction
between hi sto rical questions (e.g., What was A ri stotl e's theory of duty?) a nd
philosophical questions (e.g., Was it tru e?), a nd saw onl y th e philosophical
ques tions as important (59) . Collingwood attacked th e sepa ratio n of th e two
enterprises. Further, he co ntend ed that "the ch ief business of twenti eth-
century philosophy is to reckon w ith twentieth-century histo ry," a contenti on
that connected with another rapprochement he wanted, namel y, betwee n
theo ry and practice (79, 147-67). Hi s positi on was not o nl y that phil osoph y
should become histori cal, but also that hi sto ry should become philosophi-
cal, a nd that both shoul d be w ritten out of a profound conce rn w ith present
problems-for eve nts, he asserted, had broken u p hi s "pose of a de tac hed
professio nal thinke r" a nd had moved him toward engagem ent (167)."
178 :f: PART JV: FRA Ctvl ENTAT I ON
[n Th e Idea of H istory Collingwood's un de rcutting o f the auto nom y of
hi sto ri ograp hy is less ev id ent.5 4 Yet t he unde rcutting is cl ea rl y there. It . is
m a ni fes ted, fo r exa m ple, in hi s otherw ise q uite puzz lin g co ntenti on th at his-
to ry is " re-e nac tme nt of pas t ex pe ri e nce," " a wo rd ing that seem s intended
to emph asize, to a g reater d egree th a n m ere " re-thinking," the ac ti vism .o f
the historian. Similarl y, his contenti o n that "eve ry present has a past of Its
ow n, a nd a ny im aginati ve reconstru ctio n of the past aims at reco nstru ctin g
the past of this present," h as subve rsive impli cati ons th at potenti aUy d em ol-
ish hi s m o re conse rva ti ve asse rti o n th at "a ll hi sto ry mu st be consistent w ith
itself. " '>h
A T T 1 Tu 0 E
4 . Th e a:;sumption that there is a single History cannot be main-
tained, either subjectively as an ente1prise or objectively as an actual grand nar-
rative to be told now or in the f uture. Accordingly, a responsible historiography
will call the assumption ofa single History into question. Yet w e may still enter-
tain attitudes 1, 2, and 3, w hich assume a single History: regulatively, in the case
of attitude 1; heuristically or ironically, in the caseo· ofattitudes 2 and .3 ·
Atti tud e 4 both embraces these oth er attitu des a nd ca lls them into ques-
tion. Attitu de 4 is pe rh aps best ap proach ed by reAection on fi g ure 9.1 , w hi ch
suggests the prox imity of eac h attitu de to th e oth ers. As ideal types, the
fo ur atti tudes a re d istinct fr om each other. In rea lity, howeve r, they shad e
off fr om one to the othe r; th ey ca n also coex ist w ith each other, w ith the
"later" views taking account of th e "ea rli er" ones. O nl y a slig ht incredulity
towa rd the present tell ability of Histo ry is need ed fo r attitude I to sh ad e o ff
into attitude 2 , as th e exchange betwee n H e rde r a nd Schlozer, noted above,
sh ows.57 O nly a slight incredulity towa rd th e futur e tell ability of History is
needed fo r attitude 2 to shad e off into attitu de T recall Ranke, w ho wro te,
in the sa m e frag m ent, both that the tellin g of Hi sto ry was "th e ultimate
goa l, not ye t attain ed," and th at "com p rehending the w hole . .. w ill always
rem ain an idea l." 58 Simil a rl y, in Collingwood, em phasis o n th e auto nom y
of histo ri og ra phy, w hich prese rves subj ecti ve cohe rence eve n in the face of
the perm anent unreli ability o f a n obj ective g rand na rrati ve, tip.s ove.r, w h en
pushed ha rd enough , into the n oti o n th at the time within w hi ch hi sto ri cal
thinkin g is being d one is as impo rtant as the tim e of the past-to such a d e-
g ree th at pas t tim e gets reconfig ured , at eve ry m om ent, fr om th e viewpoint
of the prese nt. In sho rt, the re is a conce ptual in stability pushing one type
ove r in to one o r m o re of the oth er types .
Mo re acc urately, beyond attitude 1 th ere is a co nce ptual in stability. Atti -
tude 1 is th e o nl y self-co n sistent pos iti o n. It a ri ses ou t of hi sto ri ca ll y local-
ized and sc ripturall y auth o ri zed m onoth eism (J uda ism , C hristi ani ty, Islam),
"G R AN D NARRAT I VE " AND T H E D I SC IPL I NE OF H I S TORY :f: 179
AT T I T U DE I . T here is a sing le A TT I T U DE 3 · T he re is a single
Hi story, and we know it now. H isto ry, namely, the auto no mous
a nd cohere nt disc iplin e of hi story.
A T T IT UDE 2. T he re is a single A TTI TU D E 4· A sin g le Hi sto ry is
Hi sto ry, to be kn ow n o nl y a fte r unju stifi ed, but may be e nterta ined.
fu rthe r resea rch has been clo ne. Bo rde r-cross in g an d met hodo logica l
breac hes may have justi fica ti on.
F1 cu RE 9 . 1. Four atti tudes towa rd hi story
and th ere is no reaso n fo r it to coll apse as lo ng as its relig ious justifi cati on is
secure. But th e oth er attitud es a re different. A ttitude 2 teeters between th e
possibility that "furth e r resea rch " will never yield a n obj ective uni ve rsal his-
to ry, and th e heuristi ca lly or d ogmatica ll y maintained view that w e already
kn ow, at least in outline, the obj ective uni ve rsal hi sto ry. Attitud e 3 is caug ht
betwee n prid e in th e procedures of th e histo ri ca l di sc iplin e and th e un easy
wo rr y that the p rocedures w ill neve r revea l a n obj ec ti ve uni ve rsa l hi sto ry.
As fo r attitu de 4, it occupies th e diffi cult pos iti on of Pyrrh onia n o r Mon-
ta ig nea n sk e pti cism , whi ch stri ves to be ske pti ca l a lso of its ow n ske pti cism.
Fro m the point of view of attitud e 3, attitud e 4 contradi cts the coh erent way
of thinking th at is legitimate histori ograph y. From the point o f vi ew o f atti -
tud e 4, on th e o th e r ha nd , we oug ht not to exclud e a ny m od e o f und ersta nd -
ing the past on a priori g rounds, wheth er those g rounds are m ethod olog ical
o r o ntologica l. Thus attitude 4 is not an a rg um ent against (for exa mpl e) atti -
tud e 3, exce pt in sofa r as attitude 3 see ks to d ismi ss attitud e 4. Yet attitud e 4 is
con stantl y in d a nge r o f fa lling into o ne ve rsio n o r a nother o f d ogm ati sm -
eith er throug h d ogm ati c adh erence to the view th at "th ere is no sin g le Hi s-
to ry" (whi ch is itself a statem ent about the ove rall cha rac ter of Hi sto ry), o r
thro ug h d ogm ati c rejecti o n o f di sciplina ry stand a rd s and conve nti o ns.
My fo cus is o f course o n conceptual pres umpti o ns. In vestig ati o ns of th e
instituti onal bases of the disciplin e of hi sto ry would yield a more variegated
picture; ho weve r, m y ce ntral arg ument seems justified on an institutional
level as well. Th e instituti ona l structures of intell ectua l life in clud e, a m o ng
oth e r things, professio nal o rga ni zati ons, di sciplin a ry jo urnals, a nd the d e-
pa rtm enta l o rga ni zatio n o f uni ve rsiti es, all of w hi ch fin d intell ectu al justi -
fica ti on in th e pres ump tio n th at hi sto ri a ns ::i re e ng::iged in a sing le p roject.
My a rg um e nt here is that in the current situ ati o n we o ug ht to see both th e
instituti o na l stru ctures and the presum pti o ns justifying them not just as
I 80 t PART IV: FR ACM ENT AT I 0 N
supports for th e production of knowledge, whic h they manifestly are, but as
limits as well , and, further, that we o ught to cons ider se riously the character
of those limits.
The presumption that histo ri ography is fina ll y a single project has the ef-
fect of establishin g a bias in favor of work written out of the convicti on that
there is a single, autonomous, historical m ode of thinking-an approach,
eve n a method, that aspires to "u nifi cati on" in "histo ry and the historical
profession" in spite of a manifest disunity at the levels of subj ects and subject
matters. (I evoke he re the theme of the American Histo ri cal Association an-
nual meeting of December 1992. 5'1) The aim is to "h istor icize" history's ob-
jects-that is, to sub ject them to the methods of a single hi sto rical thinking.
The presumption of unity establi shes a bias aga in st work w hose refl ecti ons
on the past involve commitments to other modes of understanding than
the autonomously historical. Insofar as history so practiced relates to other
modes of und e rstanding, it does so by way of "appropriating" them for his-
tory. I do not reject such work, for that would be inconsistent with my re-
jection of a priori crite ria for judg ing schola rl y wo rk. Rather, I suggest that,
because we hav e wo rked fo r so long from the stand point of the "autonomy"
view-attitudes 2 and 3-we mu st reckon with d iminish ing marginal re-
turns and consider that in som e ways it becomes d ifficult therein to produce
new and surpri sin g knowledge. This is a suggestion, not a solid asse rti o n as
to fact, fo r the future of any science is by its nature unpred ictable. 60
We might advance other arguments as wel l for the partial "de-
disciplinization" of history. The other a rg um ents have for the m ost part
already been developed, sometimes in considerable detail, although most
often in co ntexts th at histo rians do not attend to. Looking specifically at
historiography, the hi stor ian and theorist of hi sto riography F. R. A nk e rsmit
points to what he ca ll s "the present-day ove rp roduction in our discipline ....
We are all fam iliar with th e fact that ... an ove rw helming number of books
and articl es is produced ann uall y, making a comp rehens ive view of them
all impossibl e." 61 The result, An kersm it a rgues, has been a m ove away from
"the esse nti ali st tradition within Western historiography," which focused at-
tention on "the trunk of the tree." Instead, o ne can now see a "pull " toward
the margins , m anifested in forms of historiograph y that no longe r focus
on "mea ning" (in French, the word is sens, w hi ch also means "direction")
but instead add ress themselves to aspects of the past (suc h as mentalities,
gend er, and the like) that we re fo rme rl y seen as mere " notations," w ith out
sign ifi cance fo r the genera l plot ofh isto ry. 1'2
Beyond historiography, there exists a philosophical lin e of arg ument,
preeminently represented in certain aspects of the ea rl y writings of Jacq ues
" GRAND NARRATIVE " AND Tl-IE DIS C I PLINE O F HISTORY :f: 181
Derrida, wh ich cl ea rly has implications for th e unity-claims of disciplin es
gene rally (I th ink especiall y of Derrida's notion of "o rig in a ry difference,"
or "differance," wh ich we ca n take as part of an arg ument aga in st conver-
ge nce).63 The analytic philosopher Nicholas Resch er, argu in g fo r th e le-
gitimacy of an "o ri entati onal pluralism" in philosophy, advanced a notion
that seems as applicable to concerns with synthesis in historiography as it is
to concerns w ith co nsensus in philosophy. 64 The political scientists Mattei
Doga n and Robert Pahre argue, on the basis of empiri ca l study, that "hy-
brid izati on" between disciplines, not specia li zatio n w ithin them or unifica-
tion between them, is currentl y the most rel iable route to new knowledge.
The Dogan and Pahre arg ument implies mixed o r h ybrid modes coex isting
with con tinu ed disciplinarity. 65
A ll the a rg um ents point toward somethi ng much broader than histori-
ography, o r eve n than the human sciences generall y. They point towa rd a
cultural condition that in the i 98os was widely id entifi ed as "postmodern."
Th is is not the place to survey the immense literature that eme rged in an
attempt to expli cate just what the term a nd the rea lity of "the postmodern"
mea nt.<>6 The term itself was obviously unsatisfactory, and yet at a certa in
moment it was a lso in d ispensable. A global definition does not seem possi -
ble. Nonetheless, o ne feature of the still cu rrent social a nd cultura l situ atio n
see ms sa li ent to w hat was o nce thought of as "postmode rn. " This featu re is
the juxtapos iti o n of diversities-of competing id entities. It is quite possibly
not true that the social and cultural situation is markedly more "d iverse"
tha n it was before. o netheless, contempora ry modes of commun ication
br ing the diversities into cl ose r proximity than eve r before, so that the gen-
e ral feeling, at least in th ose societies whe re the diversities man age not to go
to wa r w ith each other, is of an amazing ly ri ch var iety and disjunctiveness.
There is a close parall el between juxtaposed socia l diversiti es and juxta-
posed disciplines. In both cases we a re dea ling with boundaries-bound -
a ries, I contend, that shou ld not be w ished away. In cred ulity toward the
d iscipline's claim to autonomy (for that is w hat "in credu lity toward g rand
narrative" finally amo unts to) means a questioning but not a denial of bound-
aries. In short, my argument is not an a rg um ent fo r inte rdisciplinary unifi -
cation -fo r th ere are limits to "openness." The more we lea rn about how
practiti o ners of othe r d isciplines a rg ue, through the experience of hav ing
argued w ith them on their own grounds, the less likely we a re to think that
the d iffe rent modes of a rgument are compatible enough fo r any one person
to practice th em at the same time.67 And yet these other mod es of argument,
w hen well done, also contribute to knowledge. My argument is rather for
the crorn'ng of boundaries, fo r temporary res id ence in other domains, fo r
182 + PART JV : FR AG!l. tENTAT I ON
attempts to spea k or at lea st to und ersta nd th e fore ig n language (a different
ente rprise from translation), and fo r ex plicit recogniti o n of th e desirabil ity
of such projects within th e historical disciplin e, to replace misguid ed views
abo ut the wonderful absorptive ness of profess io nal historiogra phy. 68 It is
also a n a rg um ent for in ve ntio n of hybrid states , possibly temporary Andor-
ras, betwee n the extant ones.
FOUR POSTULATES SUGGESTED
BY THE PRE CE DING ACCOUNT
Since th e sto ry offe red he re e nds not in the past, however rece nt, but in the
prese nt a nd futur e, it acquires in ev itably a p resc ripti ve dim ension. To be
sure, th e only rea ll y satisfactory answer to the qu esti o n "How sh ould science
and scholarsh ip be do ne now ?" is to do it, fo r the a nswer is always a wager.
But severa l prescriptive postulates do seem to follow from the story. They
also hav e, to a g reater o r less degree, an embedd edn ess in the present situa-
tion (although it is not m y a im to articul ate an auth oritative d esc riptio n of
th e present situ ati o n, an impossibl e task in any case).
TH E Mu L TI PL 1c 1TY POST u L A T E . "Never assume that there is a single au-
thorized historica l method or subject matter."
A pheno me no n o f third-attitud e hi sto ri ograph y in its m ost intell ectu-
all y compelling fo rm vvas th e ca ll for "tota l hi sto ry," a call m ost closely as-
sociated w ith th e nam e of Fern a nd Braudel. Braud el saw his monumental
Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World as "an attempt to w rite" such a
history. 09 But th e aspiratio n towa rd "total histo ry" in ev itabl y generates its op-
posite.711 Th e g reatest m o num ent to this fa ilure of unity is th e journ a l Anna/es:
Economies, Sociites, Civ1"/i:;ations. O ne thinks also of The Mediterranean and
th e Mediterranean World itself, wh ich is fi nall y h eld togethe r by a m ass ive lit-
era ry co nceit.71 One thinks too of Braud el's later Civilization and Capita lism,
a vast coll ection of loosely- related disparates .72 ot surprising ly, it became
commo npl ace fo r observe rs of th e historiographic scene to point to the
"multiplication" or " proliferation" of history, its conversion fr om " history"
into "h istories." 73
Multiplicity ga ined steam in part because of sociological changes bring-
ing into the histo ri ca l profession people w ho we re inclined to see as interest-
ing hith erto neglected subj ects of in vestigati on. For exa mpl e, in the Un ited
States th e em e rge nce of social histo ry was prompted in va ri o us impo rtant
ways by th e entr y into th e profession of peopl e fr om non-WASP ethnic
gro ups, people w hose parents had bee n excl ud ed fr om th e exe rcise of politi-
··cRAND NAR R AT I VE " AND THE DIS C IPLI NE OF HI STORY + 183
ca l power a nd had d evoted th eir energ ies to assimil ati o n into and success
w ithin American society. The em e rge nce of a gend er o ri entati on in his-
tory had a n ob vious connection w ith the entr y into the profession of m o re
wo m en. 74 Prev iousl y exclud ed or discouraged groups we re able to find new
subj ects of in vestigati o n interesting in pa rt because personal and fa mily ex-
periences made them rece ptive to suc h subj ects, whereas ea rlie r histo rians
had focused on a relatively sm all range of privil eged politi ca l ac to rs.
In vestigators have several st rategies ava il able to th em for coming to g rips
w ith th e fac t that they a re engaged profess io nall y w ith subject m atte rs co n-
nected in a now "obv io us" way to th eir ow n social in te rests a nd exper iences
(ea rli er conn ections we re ge nerall y not "obv ious" because of th e lesser de-
g ree of socia l div ersity) . O ne strategy is assimil ati o n. H ew ing to the "third-
attitude" standa rd of autonomy, hi sto ri a ns may ind eed ac kn owledge th eir
social commitments, but claim th at in their histo ri ograph y "obj ectivity " and
profess io nali sm hold sway. H e re nothin g changes, at least not m ani fes tl y. A
bolder strategy in volves continued ad he rence to pro fess ionali sm, but strives
to ch ange the "grand" o r at least th e " master" na rrative, imp roving it by
including what was prev iousl y exclud ed - for exa mple, ge nde r. Th ose
ado pting that strategy ma y eve n cla im to be fin a ll y producing a n auth o rita -
tive acco unt of th e pas t, "th e full story." H ere, too, o ne is cl ea rl y w ithin th e
bou nds of attitu d e 3. Sticking w ith the examp le of ge nd er, a furth er m ove is
fro m "women's histo ry" to "feminist hi story," wh ere th e autho rit y cla imed
is less a professional author ity than a nonp rofessional one. Th e m ove to
fem inist history ca n in volve acceptance of received dog ma, as in attitud es r
and 2, o r it can in volve a dial ectical relation to th e past and to its own posi-
tion . In th e latte r case, one would be tempted to see it as embracing attitude
4, a nd attitud e 3 to th e d egree th at it remain s e pistemologically respons ibl e.
Th ink of Nata li e Davis's The Return of Martin Guerre, d iscussed in the in-
trod uction to this book.
THE HY BR 1 o 1 zAT1 o N Po s T u LATE . "A lways establish residence:; outside the
d1~·cipli12e. "
By d efi nition (a nd rea d ers should recognize th at much of m y a rg um e nt
here is per definitionem ), third-attitud e histo ry, comm itted to th e autonomy
o f the disciplin e, d oes not practically recogni ze the ex istence of legitim ate
fo rms of a rg um ent abo ut the hum an world oth er than its ow n. In attitud e
3, oth er disciplines are seen as, at most, "auxiliary" fields. Thus in the 1950s
a n I 1960s connecti ons developed betwee n histo ry and politica l science,
lead ing to the impo rtati on into hi sto ry of statistical m ethods for the study o f
huma n beh av io r, a nd in the 1970s sim il ar co nn ections developed betwee n
184 :j: PART I V : FRAGMENTAT I ON
history and a nth ropology, lead in g to the importation of new, culturally ori-
ented ways of look ing at past societies .75 In both insta nces the d isciplina ry
boundari es guard ing histori og rap hy rem ain ed unch all enged, whatever the
in sights broug ht by th ese cross-bound a ry raids. 7" In atti tude 3, other disci-
plines are not see n as fo rm s of argume nt in their ow n right, wh ich in their
ve ry difference from histori cal thinking might reveal things that historical
thinking cannot see, but as sources of m ethods and results to be imported
into hi sto ry w ith out fundamentally cha nging it.
By way of contrast, fourt h-attitud e hi story res po nds to the fragmentation
of th e d isc ipline and its subj ect matte rs with partial or temporary residence
in oth er intell ectual communiti es. Cross-d isc iplina ry hybrids, held togethe r
by some combination of theo ry a nd expe ri ence, em erge. Often these com-
muniti es are ad hoc a nd local, dependent on accide nts of character, geog-
rap hy, and intellectual cul ture; they are hind ered by wa ll s and hierarchy
and fos tered by sociability and egalitarian ism. But they share a concern for
bridging the d iffe rence betwee n different d isciplin es in temporary pursuit
of some common approach or object of stud y. W ithin eac h such group, a
new "lang uage ga me" em erges, a ling ua fran ca d iffe rent from the language
ga m es of the pa rti cu lar d isc iplines from whi ch each participan t comes (for
participation in a d iscipline wou ld still be a p reco nditi on for entry into a
mu lti -d isciplinary language ga m e) .77 Work of a new type is produced in each
"hybrid" fie ld, d iffe ring from that done in the contributing disciplines.
Multi-d isciplin ary interaction of a transformative sort is ra re in the hu-
man sc iences. It is perhaps more cha racteristi c of the ph ysica l and biological
sciences, w here disciplinary boundaries are somewhat more fluid and are
quite often altered in response to th e eme rgence of new resea rch problems. 78
It is no acc ident th at the best- kn own in stance of "fourth-attitud e" histori-
ogra phy comes from th e histo ry of science: Thomas S. Kuhn's The Structure
of Scientific Revolutions. 7'1 Wr itte n by a phys icist who turned himself into a
hi storian of sc ience, it was a ni mated by im portant iss ues in th e phil osophy
of sc ience. In breaching disciplinary boundari es, it lost th e benefit of disci-
plina ry ce rtitu des; its daring took it into probl ematic regions. But in part
because of thi s, it also gene rated importa nt in sight; in deed, no other wo rk
by a historian w riting in the twentieth century did so much to raise new
problems and to suggest new approaches to old probl ems. 80
TH E F I c T I 0 NA L IT y p 0 s Tu L A T E . "Always confront, in an explicit way, the
fictionality implicit in all works of hist01y."
Collingwood asserted in The Idea of Histo1y that w hereas "purely imagi-
nary wo rld s ca nnot clash and need not agree" sin ce "each is a wo rl d to itself,"
""GRAND NA RR AT I VE "' A ND THE DIS C I PLINE OF H I S TORY :j: 185
81
there " is on ly o ne historica l world." Taken ge nerall y, Collingwood's asser-
tion abo ut the historical wo rl d is incorrect (since the one histori ca l wo rl d
presupposes an infinity of counte rfactua l ones), but it is la rgely correct as an
observation about third-attitud e hi stor iograp h y, in w hi ch comm itm ent to
one way of thinking tends to gene rate o ne kind of historical ob ject and to set
lim its on the kinds of explanation that w ill be entertained . Collingwood's
assertio n im pli es, furth e r, that the more that hi sto ri ans find themselv es at a
dista nce from History, the more the "fictional" aspects of their wo rk come
to the fo re.
I touch here on issues that I do not think can be resolved, either in theo ry
o r in practice-but th e issues need to be raised. Th e hi sto ry/ fict io n dua l-
ism is o ne of many that is ofl imited ana lytica l va lue: it is espec iall y pron e to
polemical misuse, both by those who imagin e that "a n yt hing goes" and by
those w ho wo ul d point w ith horror at precisely that view. Often , a useful
m ethod w hen one is confronted by such dualisms is to begin to complexify
them. Even at first g lance, it seems cl ea r that w ithin the general territory of
fictio nality, we need at the ve ry least to distinguish between w hat I would
call, respecti vely, the "literary" a nd th e "fictive." By the "litera ry," J m ea n a ll
those dev ices ofl ite rary craft that we common ly notice when we read works
o f fictio n but that we o ften see as ab norm al and suspect in historiog raphy,
wh ich in its professiona l mode has tend ed to cu ltivate a neutral voice. By th e
"fict ive," I m ea n all those dimensions w herein wo rk s of histo ry d iverge from
trut h in its sense as correspondence to empirical reality. A ll causal analysis is
fictive in this sense, because all causal a nalysis p resupposes counter factua ls.
A ll typologization is likewise fictive, because types are always ideali zati ons
of a messier rea lity. Indeed, give n the complexity of reality, definiti on itself
is fictive in th is sense as wel l. Lest there be som e m istake about this, bear in
mi nd that causa li ty, typologi zati on, a nd defi niti on a re essential parts of all
histo ri ca l resea rch a nd w riting . In oth e r words, all histo ri ograp h y possesses
a fict ive, o r specu lat ive, d imension.
Much has bee n writte n o n the lite rary d im ension of hi sto ry-writin g, by
suc h th eo rists of historiography as Hayd en Wh ite, Dominick L aCa pra , Ste-
phen Ba nn , Hans Kellner, Philippe Carra rd and F. R. Anke rsmit.82 There
is also a small body of stylisti ca ll y "experimental " works of histo ry w ritten
since the ea rl y 1970s that w itting ly or un w itting ly fa ll into a fo urth -attitud e
83
mold. "Voice" has bee n a n im portant issue in many of the mo re expe ri-
me ntal wo rk s; other issues in clude a breaking away from the con ventio n of
th e smooth ly runnin g narrative a nd a tendency fo r th e histo ri a n to intrude
expli citl y into the historica l acco unt be ing to ld. Such litera ry expe riments
suggest a deepe r, ontologica l point: that the historical ob ject itself is a "fie-
186 :j: PART JV; FRAGMENTATION "GRAND NARRATIVE .. AND THE DIS C IPLI NE OF HI STORY t 187

tive" creation, something co nstituted as object by the mind of the historian In its med itative and reflective mod e, fo urth -attitu de historiography wou ld
a nd he r reade rs. This is not a n asse rti o n that "there is no there there"; it is engage not in th e dredging up of new facts-t hat is, wo uld not engage in
a n asse rtio n th at the histo ri an makes (but not out of nothing) the particular historica l research as it is normally understood-but wo uld instead engage
hi storica l ob jects presented in he r work. in the ph il osoph ica l task of refl ecting on the significa nce of facts already in
some sense "know n."
THE THE ORY P OS T U L A TE. "Always theorize."
In a world that no lo nge r believes tn a single History, hi sto rians can
awaken uni ve rsal inte rest o nl y in sofa r as they are able in th eir work to take Paraphrasing Macaul ay, Ranke once wrote, "Hi story begin s w ith chron-
accou nt of th eo reti ca l issues. For exam pie, in an Ame ri ca that no longe r icl e and end s w ith essay, that is, in refl ection o n the historical eve nts that
sees its history as foll ow ing directly from the political a nd co nstitutional th e re finds spec ial resona nce ." 86 As Ranke's obse rvatio n begins to sug-
hi sto ry of G reat Britain , a n account of, say, "The G unpowde r Plot of 1605" gest, the fou r attitud es-w hi ch in th e Western tradition range fr om pre-
ca n have interest o nl y in sofa r as it raises iss ues of a theoretical so rt, detached professio nal chronicl e (relying on th e co herence of a universal hi sto ry
from the specific events of 1605. Yet, at the same tim e, just as the conve rsion assumed to be known a lready) to post-professional essay-a re a lready pres-
of " hi sto ry" into "histo ries" problem ati zes boundaries between history and ent in the disciplinary trad iti on itself. Reading th e trad ition in a particular
fi ctio n, so also it p roblem ati zes those between histo ry and theory. Recall way, with a sensitivity to contrad icti on, we can begin to see its rep ressed
Collingwood's hope that phil osophy wo uld become historical and that, re- se lf-questionings. In this sense, we m erely develop so m ething that is already
cip rocall y, histo ry would become philosophical. In the present dispensation, th ere in the past. But the co ncrete social situation of our own tim e - in "the
wh ich is one of multiplicity a nd d isjunction, no happy sy nthesis of this sort, West" and beyond-prompts, a nd lends autho rity to, such a rea ding.
no middle road, seems possible. In stead, we en visage connections between
hi story and theory that a re more loca l a nd limited .
Acco rd in gly, we envisage ( r) a hi stor iogra phy capable of bringing (l oca l-
ized) aid to theory, contributing in se rious ways to the d iscussio n of th eoret-
ica l issues. 84 C lea rl y, different histories would be told, depending on the dif-
ferent theoretical ends. We envisage (2) a g reate r atte ntive ness of histo rians
to theory; of course, there a re different theo ri es a nd d iffere nt ways of being
attentive to them. We envisage (3) a more self-i ro ni c histori ography than
the current style, having a g reater humility and reflexiveness w ith rega rd
to th e interpretation of the past. In thi s rega rd it wou ld find its beginnings
more in Herodotus than in Thucydid es. In hi s recounting of the adv ice of
Solo n to Croesus, H erodotus laid out a principl e - namely, that o ne ca nnot
know hi sto ry w ith certa inty until after the m o ment at w hi ch there is no
more histo ry to know-fo r the w riting of hi s ow n histo ry, and pe rhaps for
ours as well. 85 But it wo uld also have more attentive ness th an it does now to
its ow n ass umptions , evid ence, a nd a rg uments, and wo uld be more willi ng
a nd able than it has bee n up to now to apply hi storical episte m ology to the
probl ems of a present inured to mendacity a nd self-decept ion. F in all y, in
view of the vast, utterly unm anageable body of primary historiograp hy that
has been produced, we en visage (4) a histori ograp hy mo re in the manner
of meditation o r comme nta ry, w hi ch, in a Mo nta ignea n sp irit and in the
essay for m , wou ld comment o n the sig nifi ca nce of that body for us, now.

Coherence and Incoherence in
Historical Studies: From the Annales
School to the New Cultural History
C H A PTER TE N
W hen sc hola rs concern themselves with d isc iplin a ry _coherence _and
how it might be brought abo ut, we need to look with a pund1ced
eye at th e d iscourse of coherence that results. Such discourses a re marked
by w hat I ca ll "coherence propositions." Coherence propositions a re easy
to recogni ze, for they involve a comm on basic statement: " 1ow, we must
all unite aro und X ." X, and th e epistemological, eve n ontological, ass ump-
tions that suppo rt X, m ay change from generation to generation, even from
decade to decade. But in "advanced" secto rs of the historical d iscipline ove r
t he last seventy yea rs or so th e re has bee n a g reat deal of continuity in the
way coherence has arisen as a n issue. The coherence propositions of "ad-
va nced" hi stori a ns of seventy yea rs ago are parall eled-a lth ough decidedly
not d upli cated- in what is currently the hegemon izing and im perial izing
fraction of the disciplin e, the so-call ed "new cultural history," an orienta-
tion that arose in the 1980s as both an extension of and a rebellion against
the dom in ance of social hi story. 1 Academ ics make cla ims about coherence
whe n they a re inte rested in achiev ing professional advanceme nt and insti-
tutional domination. In short, when we see coherence propositions being
deployed, we shou ld look aro und in orde r to see w ho is making a grab
fo r academ ic power, who is attempting to marginali ze w hom. A nd yet this
is not the o nl y thing we should do, for there a re also genuine th eoretical
problems connected wi th cohe rence, problems having to do with d isc iplin-
ary aims, methods, products, and audiences, as well as with the object of
hi sto ri ca l in vesti gation, the hi sto ri cal past in its many manifestations. Thus,
I contend, coherence propositions shou ld be seen both as grabs fo r academ ic
powe r and as attempts to add ress a genuin e problem.
In the historical discipline today the re is ind eed a problem of coherence.
This has not always been the case, fo r cohe rence was long regarded not as a
p roblem but as an eas ily achievable aim . At the end of the ninetee nth ce n-
CO HER ENC E ANO I NCO H ERENCE IN HI STOR I CA L STUDIES f 189
tury and in the ea rly years of the twentieth, intelligent men beli eved that
the then relatively new academ ic discipline was poised to produce a uni-
fi ed account of the history of humanity, or at least of that part of hum an ity
w hose doings we re worth recording. Reporting in 1896 to the Sy ndi cs of
Ca mbridge U nivers ity Press on the Cambridge Modem Histo1y that he had
undertak en to ed it, Lo rd Acton ad mitted that "ultimate history we ca nnot
have in this generation," thus impl ying that such a hi sto ry wou ld someday be
had. A nd Acton's successo r as Regius Professor of Mode rn History at Ca m-
bridge, J. B. Bury, explicitl y claim ed in his 1902 In aug ural Lecture that his-
tor ia ns oug ht to be wo rking towa rd a unified history of the wo rl d, and that
suc h a hi sto ry woul d in deed come to be written. 2 In short, Acto n a nd Bury
we re comm itted to the notion of"grand na rrative," to evoke Jea n-Franc;:ois
Lyotard's useful term .3 Th e importance of this d isciplina ry goa l, a unified
history of hum ank ind , seems to have been ass um ed by many othe r hi sto ri-
ans w ho, w hile not actuall y a rticulating it as a goal, we nt about their own
teac hing and w riting of hi story as if its va lidity we re ax iomatica ll y given.
At the beginning of the twenty-first ce ntury, matters stand very differ-
ently. Today it is obvious that histo ri ca l study has not con ve rged, but has in-
stead moved off in a multitude of d iffe rent directions. It is ha rd ly surpri sing
that this shou ld be so. In Acto n and Bury's time the field of hi sto ry was more
co nstrained than it is now. Most hi sto ri ans focused o n the nati on-state a nd
on how it had eme rged as the cen tral political form . Such co nce rn s as th e
history of eve ryday life, of mentalities, and of sexuality did not ex ist within
the discipline. or was there anything that can be consid ered a hi sto ry of
a ny non-Western peoples: those hi sto ri es of non-Western regio ns that d id
ex ist we re in fact hi sto ries of European conquest, occupation, and govern -
ment. Kipling's "lesse r breeds without the law" we re widely thought to be
also w ithout histories; to be sure, events had occurred in their pasts, but
these were not seen as rising to the level of being historical. Hegel held that
no peopl e w ithout written records and a state could have a history, a nd on
this point historians ag reed w ith him .4 Today, in contrast, hi sto ri ans wr ite
abo ut a far w id er range of places and times and a fa r wider swath of huma n
concerns than did their counterparts of a ce ntury ago.
Yet history can hardly be said to have conceptual devices or interpretive
pe rspectives that would let the vast current ou tpouring of histo rical scholar-
ship come together into a single coherent picture. Arou nd 1900, the story
that was told or projected was of the movement of humankind toward an
u nproblematica ll y defined liberal freedom. There is no such common nar-
rative now: neithe r the li be ral story nor its Ma rxian variant surv ives ex-
cept marginally, and no persuasive replaceme nt has come o nto the scene.
190 t PART I V : FRAGMENTAT I ON
Most casual readers of history, to be sure, are not awa re of the fa ilure of the
d iscipline's products to cohere into a single sto ry. If they were, th ey would
hardl y ca re about it, fo r most peo pl e rea d wo rks of hi sto ry with the ex-
pectatio n of lea rning about a specific topic, such as th e Third Reich or the
Founding Fathers or the C ivil Wa r o r the San Fran cisco E arthquake, and
not for any wider reason. For their pa rt, most histo rians, althoug h awa re of
histo ry's pullulatin g multiplicity, do not think about it very mu ch , and are
bothered by it onl y w hen they are assig ned the task of teaching courses wi th
the imposs ibl y dem a nd ing titl e "Wo rld History." O ur conce rn he re, how-
eve r, is with that inte resting min o rity of hi sto rian s who have offe red cures,
o r at least a ntidotes, fo r th e multipli city, in the fo rm of proposal s fo r one or
a nothe r hi sto riograp hi c united fro nt.
THE ANNALES SC HOOL
A ND THE PROBLEM OF C OHEREN C E
The central question fa cing all proponents of hi sto ri cal coherence is this:
Wh at fo rm can coherence tak e when , m anifestl y, the resea rches a nd writ-
ings of hi stori a ns go off in a multiplicity of diffe rent d irections? T hi s ques-
tion shado wed th e most influenti al sing le o rientati o n in histori ca l resea rch
a nd writin g in th e twentieth century, th e Anna/es school (so na med after its
journ al), and alth o ug h it is often unremarked , it persists as an issue in the
competitio ns for hege mony among different "pa radigm s" in th e hi storical
discipline today. 5 T o be sure, the term school is misl eading: the A nna /es was
mo re an orientation than a school, a nd w hen in 1975 the E cole d es Hautes
Etudes en Sciences Sociales cam e into being w ithin its gene ral territo ry, the
EHESS could ha rdl y be identified with theAnnales. We should also note that
the unified impul se th at originall y a nim ated the Anna/es beca m e fr agmented
as its ge ne rati ons succeed ed each othe r. T oday, th e ve ry phrase "An na/es
sc hool" has an antiquated ring to it: the A nna /es school has bee n superseded.
But it rema ins the m ost impo rtant reference we have for the probl em of
coherence. Fo r one thing, th e first two generations of Annalistes launch ed
the twe ntieth century's most sustain ed and ambiti o us attempt to arri ve at a
coherence, of sorts, in historical writing. This would remain true even if the
A nna/es had not bee n influential at all. But in fact it has been influential. Al-
thoug h the Anna/es school is a thing of the past, th e Anna/es impul se remains
directl y and indirectl y influenti al. In pa rticul a r, the new cultural histo ry has
stro ng roots within the Anna/es traditi on , a nd eve n where such co nnectio ns
do not ex ist, the re remain sig nifi ca nt affiniti es, of substance a nd situation,
betwee n the o ri ginal Anna/es school p rog ram and the prog ramm atic sid e of
cultural hi story today.
C OHEREN C E A NO IN C O H ERENCE I N H I S T OR I CA L STUDIES + 19 1
Anna/es hi sto ry goes bac k to 1929, w hen two hi sto ri a ns at the U nive r-
sity of Stras bo urg, Lu cien Febvre ( 1878- 1956) a nd Ma rc Bloc h ( 1886-1944),
fou nded th e Anna/es d'histoire economique et sociale.° Febvre was the g reat
ins ti gato r of the Anna/es project, and hi s impo rta nce was magnifi ed by th e
dis rupti on that Wo rld Wa r II broug ht to Bloch 's li fe .7 Funda mental to the
Anna/es proj ect was Febvre's insistence on "the necessity of synth esi zing all
k nowledge in a hi sto rica l fram ewo rk." H e wanted to "abolish th e ba rri ers
betwee n the huma n sciences and the soci al sciences . . .. IH e] could not ac-
cept ba rri ers betwee n di sciplines; he beli eved in the unity of knowledge ." 8
The aim of discove ring a nd displaying the unity of kn o wl edge, in the fo rm
of a single human scie nce, anim ated both the foundin g of the journ al a nd
Febv re's intell ectu al a nd aca demi c activiti es ge ne rall y.
As a stud ent at th e Ecole No rm ale Superieure fro m 1899 to 1902, and
the n as th e w riter from 1905 on wa rd of a doctoral disse rtati on , Philip fl
and the Franche-Comte: A Study of Political, Religious, and Social History (de-
fe nded 1911 , published 19 12), Febvre had bee n ex posed to the controversi es
of th e time concerning th e relations betwee n social science and history. O ne
position in th e cont rove rsy was vividl y represe nted by E mil e Durkh eim ,
who was busil y in ve nting soc iology in thi s peri od , and w ho pro posed that
sociology, w ith its a nalysis and conce pt-building, oug ht to be th e master
d isc iplin e, with hi sto ry me rely a supplie r of raw m ate rial s. Simila rl y, som e
economi sts a rg ued that economi c th eo ry needed to trump economic hi story.
Febvre was too deepl y interested in the human past to be attracted by such
subj ecti o ns of histo ry to th eo ry. Fo r Febvre, coherence was not som ething
that would a rise from a set of th eoreti cal concepts. An imm ensely impo rtant
model for Febvre's effo rts was provid ed by an old er normalien and indefati-
gabl e aca demic entrepreneur, H enri Be rr, w ho in 1900 had fo und ed a jour-
na l, Revue de synthese historique, that aim ed, as its titl e suggests, at hi sto ri ca l
9
sy nthes is. Be rr wa s a critic of the domin ant mode of hi story-writing at the
tim e, a n histoire historisante (his term) th at he saw as foc used na r ro wl y o n
politi ca l events, fa iling to offer a broad pi cture of huma n soci ety. In writ-
ing his di sse rtati on, Febvre did not limit himself to the stirring poli tica l
events of th e late si xtee nth century (w hen Philip II of Spain , who rul ed the
F ranche-Comte, was contending with the revolt of th e N etherlands against
Spanish rule), but also dealt with histo rica l geography and with social and
eco nomi c hi sto ry. H e included statistica l tables representing the in come of
nobl e estates, and also exa mined the views a nd lifestyles of th e nobles and
burg hers. Febvr.e's next book , commi ss io ned by Be rr, was Geography and
the E volution of Man kind (1922). Thi s book wa s intended , on th e one side, as
a n attack on the geogra phi ca l dete rminism of such schola rs as the Ge rm an
geograph er Fri edri ch Ratzel. O n the oth er sid e, it was intended to encour-
192 t P A RT I V : FRAGMENTATION
age historians to tak e geog raphi cal fac tors into account in th eir study of the
past. In short, Febvre opposed both an excess ive determin ism and a n exces-
sive commitment to th e view that human beings (o r rather, the politically
enfra nchised subset of human beings) are suffi cientl y free that th ey can be
unde rstood in isolati on from th eir environments .
Where is the coherence in all this ? L et us look at the matter broadly. In
the first two generatio ns of the Annales school, the sea rch fo r cohe rence took
place at two distinct levels. The more obv ious one was the level of histori-
ca l representations. Annales hi stori ans hoped to produce comprehensive ac-
counts of the pa rticu la r histo ri ca l rea lities th at they chose to in vestigate. It is
to this aspirati on towa rd coherence that th e term total history, wh ich became
a sh ibboleth of the Annalistes, has usuall y bee n appli ed. We can see this as-
pirati o n already in pla ce in Philip II and the Franche-Comte, w here th ere is a
clea r intent to offer someth ing like a comp rehensive picture of the historical
reality of th e Franche-Comte in the second half of the sixteenth century.
(That it was Febvre's native region no doubt sustained him in thi s aspi-
ration.) H oweve r, the rep rese ntatio nal as pect of the Annalistes' search fo r
coherence is most famous ly embodi ed in w hat ca m e to be seen as the exem-
pl a ry work of Anna/es hi sto ri og raph y, the mo num ental The Mediterranean
and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip// (1949; rev. ed., 1966), by
the man who becam e the chef of the second ge nerati on of the Annales school,
Fe rna nd Braudel (1902-85). 10 In thi s book , w hich , truth be sa id , few have
read through from beginning to end , Braudel attempts to give a total picture
of th e Med iterranean world in the time of Philip II . He divides that world
into three levels: "structure," "conjuncture," a nd "eve nt." Alternatively, one
ca n think of Braudel's book as describing the workings of three sepa rate,
although ove rl apping, temporalities-the long term r1a longue duree ], the
m ed ium te rm , and the sho rt te rm . At the basic, geographical level, time
moves hardl y at a ll ; at the con junctural level, it moves in cycl es th at may last
fo r ma ny yea rs (on the m odel of ce rtain kinds of eco nomi c cycl es); w hile at
the level of eve nts (embracing most politics and warfa re) it m oves quickly
but su pe rfic iall y.
Two points need to be made about Braudel's way of conceptuali zing his
project. The first is that the total history in questio n is not total , and cannot
be so. Entire catego ries of human life a re left out, and must be left out, lest
"total history" becom e even mo re unreadabl e than it is. The second point is
that the attempt to offer a tota l represe ntation of a past hi sto ri ca l reality is
virtuall y g ua ra nteed to hig hlig h t historica l in coherence- notwithsta nding
the fact that Braudel insisted on "the unity and cohe rence of th e Med iter-
ranea n regio n." 11 It is notorious, fo r exa m pie, that Braudel's "total" picture
CO H EREN C E AN D I NCO HER EN CE IN HI STOR I CA L S T U D I ES :j: 193
of the Medi te rra nea n wo rl d simpl y does not ha ng togethe r: most obv iousl y,
his three tempo ral leve ls (embod ied in three sepa rate divisio ns of the book)
a re onl y te nu ously interconn ected. 12
It see m s cl ea r that ea rl y in th e game, well before Braudel, Febvre und er-
stood the difficulty of atta ining coherence at th e level of representation. It is
a basic point, on ly made obv ious w hen one tries to w rite an all-emb racing
hi story. F o r o ne of th e central feat ures of histo rical in vesti gati on is prec isely
the un resolva bility of its d ialectic-an unresolva bility that is pe rhaps m ost
cl ea rl y visible in th e obligati on that lies upo n hi storia ns to dea l with hum a n
beings as both determ in ed a nd free, but is also ev ident in their obli gati on to
dea l both w ith pa rticul a rs (such as Montaill ou in the thirteenth centur y, o r
the French nati on) and w ith " unive rsa ls" (s uch as the med ieval rural com -
mun ity, o r nationh ood) . Febvre him self noted, with utter expli citness, that
one of the tasks of hi sto ry is "to negotiate the relati on of the In stitutional to
the Contingent"-a task that he saw as compa rabl e to the task in va rious
othe r sci ences of negoti ating "the relati on of the Logica l and th e Empirica l
[le ReelJ." 13
So it is not surp ri sing that Febv re conceptua li zed coherence as some-
th in g to be fo und primaril y in the practice of historical investigation itself
Mo re accurately, he co nceptuali zed cohe rence as something to be brought
into being by the creatio n not just of a unifi ed hi story but of a unifi ed so-
cia l sc ience-a social sc ience unifi ed , howeve r, by hi story, rath er than a
d isciplin e ex teri or to histo ry. For Febvre turned himself into a fervent ad-
vocate of the unity of science. In the ea rl y 193os, as ed ito r-in -c hi ef of a new,
gove rnment-sponsored Encyclopidie franqaise, he wrote to a geographer
w ho had wond ered w here geography was to be fou nd in his plan fo r th e
e ncycl oped ia, d ecla ring th at "I a m not produ cing a n Encycloped ia of the
Sciences." O n th e contra ry, he asse rted , the work was to be an encycloped ia
of science in th e sing ul a r, with in which the particu lar d isciplines (geogra-
phy, ethics, logic, metaphysics, law, aesthetics . . . ) wou ld be d issolved . It
wo ul d be focused o n "the unity of the human spirit, th e unity of unease in
the face of the unknown"; its cont ributors wou ld be "schola rs w ho think of
the ir sciences in th e fram ewo rk of Science." 14
Febvre was far from being the only person in his time and generation to
hew to the noti on of the unity of sc ience-" l'Unite viva nte de la Sc ience," as
15
he call ed it. Also in the 1930s, a n internatio nal group of logica l empiricist
ph il osophe rs, including O tto N eurath , Rud olf Ca rnap, H erbert Feig!, H a ns
Reichenbach , a nd oth ers, deve loped th e eve n more ambiti ous id ea of lay ing
out the foundations of a unifi ed science (in clud ing social sc ience) in another
encycloped ia , to be published as a se ries of m o nogra phs, th e neve r finish ed
194 t PART IV'. FR ACM ENTAT I ON
16
(indeed, ba rely started) International Encyclopedia of Unified Science. T he
d ifference betwee n Febvre's project and the unifying project of the logical
empiri cists was th at, whe reas Febvre's proj ect put histo ry at th e ce nte r of the
uni fied social science, the logica l empiri cists excluded it entirely. Th ey did
so because, like Du rkheim a nd m any othe rs ea rli er, they held that science
needs to be "nom oth eti c"- that is, it is required to focus on the articulating
of laws and theories. History, in contrast, is "idiographi c," conce rned with
desc ribing particu la r rea lities . In the logica l empiricist fram ewo rk, history
ca n serve as a source of raw materials fo r theo ry-co nstruction but is not
itself scientific.
Taking a co ntra ry view, Febv re look ed fo rwa rd to the a rticu lating of an
account of the hum an world that wo ul d be coherent and th at wo uld also
take full acco unt of histo rical complex ity a nd difference. Febvre was against
the attempt of the Durkh eimian soc iologists, amo ng others, to purchase co-
herence at the price ofleav ing out w hat was living and vital in hum anity. O n
m ore than one occasio n Febvre asse rted that history is "the scie nce of man":
"Histoire :;cience de /'Homme, science du passe humain," as he d eclared in his
1933 inaug ural lecture at the College de Fra nce. 17 In a 194 1 talk at the Ecole
No rmale Super ieure (E S), he made the same point, tellin g his liste ners
th at hi sto ry is the study of" th e d ive rse activities and the d iverse creatio ns of
th e m en o f oth er tim es, g rasped in their tempora l locati o n la leur date], in
the fram ewo rk of the societi es, extrem ely va ried a nd ye t capa bl e of being
compa red w ith one another (such is the postul ate of sociology), w ith w hich
18
they have fill ed the surface of the ea rth a nd the succession of ages." Time
and aga in Febvre insi sted th at thi s stud y was a unified enterprise. "There
is no econom ic and social hi sto ry"; rathe r, "there is hi story tout court, in its
Unity," he sa id in hi s ENS talk . 19 Feb vre a nd Bloch m ade the sa m e point in
1929 in th e fo rewo rd to the first volum e of Anna/es, w he re they regretted
the barri ers that sepa rated ancie nt, m edi eva l, and m ode rn hi sto ri ans from
each other, as well as resea rchers dea lin g w ith "so-ca ll ed civili zed societies"
from those dea ling w ith so-ca ll ed "p rimitive" o r "exotic" societi es, and so
°
on. 2 F ebvre was also ve ry cl ea r about what, in hi s view, underpinned the
unity of the histo rica l study of Man : it was the unity of Man himself.
Of course, it is one thing to proclaim th at a cohe rence exists at a basic on-
tological level and quite anoth er thing to e nginee r the production of mul-
tipl e historica l studies, d ealing with a w ide va ri ety of subj ects, that ac tu-
all y cohere. Febvre's repeated insistence on the unity of hi sto ry was in fac t
accompa ni ed by a cl ea r a nd precise recognition th at the stud ies coll ected
in Anna/es hardly cohered at all , as products. H e viewed w ith contempt the
Buryesque noti on that a rmies of labo ring grad uate students wou ld produce
the brick s of obj ecti ve, well -ve rified fact that wou ld eventuall y be used to
CO H ERE NC E A ND IN C OHEREN C E I N HI ST O R I C AL S T U DIE S t 195
21
construct th e g reat edifice of histo ri cal kn ow led ge. In Febv re's view, one
could not passively wait fo r th e cohe rence to em e rge: o ne had to st rive fo r it.
As part o f this effo rt, a nd also as a m eans of increa sin g the influence in the
acade mic wo rld of Anna/es hi story, Febvre-a nd Bloch, as lo ng as he was
ava il able - presided ove r a numbe r o f collective resea rch proj ects, in which
teams of resea rchers (often amateurs living in th e provinces) investigated as-
pects of French hi story and society (such as French rural housing).22 And yet,
symptom aticall y, th ese la rge proj ects tend ed to produce little in the way of
fin ished, published schol a rship, let alone coherent schola rsh ip. It was as if
the process of coll aboration was a poo r substitute fo r a substa ntive cohere nce
that could not a rri ve . Where, then, was the hoped -fo r coherence to be fo und?
We do not need to guess at Febvre's views on the m atter, fo r he a rticulated
his views in a number of essays from th e ea rl y 1930s onwa rd. Perhaps the
m ost interesting essay, entitled "Ve rs une autre histoire," appea red in 1949 in
a well-k nown intellectual journal, Revue de mitaphysique et de morale, and
was reprinted in 1953 as th e conclud ing essay of his Combats pour l'histoire. 23
A rev iew of a posthumously publish ed (a nd unfinished) book by Bloch, The
Historian's Craft, it was also a cha rac te ri zation and d efense of th e project in
w hi ch Febvre and Bloch had bee n mutually engaged.
Th e m ost impo rtant thing to note in th e rev iew is Febv re's evoking of
th e incoherence of hi storiograp hic producti o n in a France w he re no unify-
ing visio n for hi storical resea rch yet existed. Febvre suggests that in France
in a ny g ive n year "four o r fi ve o rig inal wo rks of hi story" are published
that "a re relatively new in th eir conception" and that have some intell ectual
me rit. O ne wo uld expect Febvre to be happy, at least, abo ut these fo ur o r
five works. But he was not, and thi s was because
these fo ur o r fi ve wo rks deal with subj ects th at are far rem oved from
o ne anoth er in time and in space . .. . Th ey a rouse curiosity. They
make us say of th eir authors: "How inge ni ous th ey a re" and of th eir
conclusio ns, "How novel." Thus th ey occupy the curiosity of certa in
intell ige nt reade rs w ho have th e fa irl y ra re advantage of being wel l
adv ised by some new-thinking histo ri an fri end , "read this, my fellow,
and this as well." That is all it amounts to. (434 / 38-39)
W hat was to be d one, th en ? Febv re called fo r "a new kind of histo ry" that
wo uld be the product of coo rdinated historical resea rch:
Su ppose that eve ry yea r o r two the succeed ing chapte rs of a doze n o r
so wel l-orga ni zed in vestigatio ns, on subjects w hich wou ld seem quite
obviously to be of g reat impo rta nce in o ne's li fe, in the conduct of
I 96 t PA RT IV: FRAG f\•l ENTA T I ON
o ne's affa irs, and in the politica l or cu ltural decisions one has to take:
coordin ated in vestigations, comprehensive thoug hts, launched simul-
taneously so th at a ny importa nt phenomenon ... could be stud ied in
one and the same spirit either in civili zati ons far rem oved from each
other in time o r in civili zations separated in space by great d istances.
(434139; my emphasis)
As Febvre makes cl ea r in "A New Kind of Histo ry" (as wel l as in many
of his other w ritings), he envisaged a "problem-ori ented" hi sto ry (histoire-
probleme), in w hich the histo ria n in hi s present ap proaches the past with
the aim of solving problems relevant to that prese nt (as in the passage JUSt
quoted). The aim was not to achieve a single, coherent picture of the human
past, or eve n of some part of that past. Febvre, a hi sto riographic m odernist
if there eve r was one, wished to get away from th e burdening and distorting
we ight of the past. H e had a low opini on of w hat he saw as the practices of
"traditional" societies in this rega rd. Such societies , he held , "prod uce an
image of th eir prese nt li fe, of its coll ective aims and of the virtues required
to ach ieve those aims," a nd then, in looking to the past, they " proj ect" a
"sort of prefiguration of the same reality, simplifi ed but magnifi ed to acer-
tain extent and ado rn ed with the m a jesty a nd incomparable autho rity of
a tradition" (436 /40). There is a coherence in suc h mythic pro jectio ns, but
Febv re rejected coherence of th is sort. Febvre's conception of histo ry implies
rather a breaking up of the past, for how could a coherent represe ntation of
the past a ri se from sets of differe nt questions posed of the past by successive
presents ? Indeed , Febvre judged that hi sto ry is a liberation from the past:
"Hi sto ry is a way of o rga nizing the past so that it does not weigh too heavily
on the should ers of men" (437/4 1).
In o ur ow n tim e there has been a growing tendency to equate history
with m emo ry. Febvre, o n the contrary, held that "it is essential fo r human
groups a nd soci eties to fo rget if they wish to surv ive . We have to live. We
ca nnot all ow ourselves to be crushed und er the tremendous, cruel , accumu-
lated weight of all that we inhe rit" (436 /40). But this almost ietzschean
pragmatism does not mean that Febvre abandoned the notion of histo rio-
g raphic coherence. Instead, he relocated coherence, situating it in the collec-
tive orga ni zation of histo ri cal resea rch refe rred to above-in "coordinated
investigatio ns," in "a n organ ized and concerted group inquiry," in hi sto rical
resea rch projects ca rried out "in one a nd the sam e spirit" (434, 436/39, 40).
There was an ev ide nt propagand istic intent in th is proposal, for Febvre sug-
gested that o nl y if historical resea rch we re coo rdinated in th is way would
th e "ave rage ma n" come to und erstand "the role, im po rta nce, a nd scope of
CO H ERENCE AN D I N CO H ERENCE I N HI S T O K I CA L S T UD IE S t 197
histo ry" (435 /39). But it seems cl ea r that coherence at th e level of th e re-
sea rch itse lf, broug ht about by a delibe rate effo rt at coordination, also se rved
to reass ure Febv re of th e scientifi c cha racter of the wo rk being don e.
Althoug h it wou ld be tiresome to discuss th e matter at leng th , it is note-
wo rthy that F ebvre's successor, Braudel, came to make essentia ll y the same
a rg ument about coherence. In The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean
World Braudel st rove for represe ntatio nal cohe rence but neve r attain ed
it. W illi a m H. McNei l! has suggested th at Braudel's techn ique in the first
(1949) editio n "resembled that of the pointilli ste pa inters ... w ho used in -
nume rabl e sepa rate do ts of paint to d epict eve ryday sce nes, relying on th e
eye of the behold er to blend them together into a co mprehensible w hole."
Braudel th en spe nt yea rs trying to imp rove th e work. This in volved, am ong
othe r th ings, trying to mak e it more cohe rent. McNeil! suggests that Brau-
de l was thus driven , in th e 1966 editio n, to fit hi s "magnificent, multi colo red
portrait" into "a scie ntific straitjacket." 24
Afte r The Mediterranean, Braudel continued to w rite big histo ry that
aim ed to tie togethe r imm ense and fa r-Aung aspects of histo rical rea lity.
Bu t as w ith F ebvre, th e focus of Braudel's d iscou rse of coherence ca m e to be
not re prese ntatio nal cohe rence, but th e proj ect of a rticul ating a unifi ed hu-
ma n sc ience. Moreove r, Braud el rea ped the institutiona l payoff of Febvre's
ti reless effo rt of pro paganda a nd log-rolling. Foll ow ing the Libe ration,
Febv re had been involved in the fo unding of the Sixth Section (Social and
Econom ic Sciences) of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, and he se rved
as presid ent of the Sixth Sectio n from 1948 to 1956. Febv re was succeeded
by Braudel, w ho was president from 1956 to 1972. Braudel proved to be an
eve n bette r o rga ni ze r a nd operator than Febv re had been. As a hig hl y ac-
tive ed itor of th e journal, the full titl e of w hich was now Annales: Economies,
Societes, Civilisations, he encouraged the conduct and publication of a wide
ra nge of scholars hi p on a wide ran ge of to pics. H e was deeply in volved in
the fo und ing of a resea rch li brary a nd in stitute, th e Ma ison des Sciences de
!' H omme, of w hi ch he becam e directo r, and he laid th e ground wo rk fo r th e
fo und ing of the Ecole des H autes E tud es en Sciences Sociales.
As a result, Braudel, fa r mo re than Febvre, had at his d isposa l a n insti -
tutional fram ewo rk within w hich the coord in ated pu rsuit of the soc ial sci-
ences cou ld ta ke place. O f cou rse, through his ow n work , throug h his ove r-
seeing of resea rch in stitutes w ithin w hich differe nt d isciplines with many
diffe rent resea rch interests competed fo r reso urces, a nd throug h his editing
of a jo urn al w hose volum es looked like potpo urris, he was well awa re that
cohe rence of intell ectual products is hard er to attain th an is coherence of
principles fo r the co nduct of the intell ectual wo rk that yields those prod-
198 :j: PA R T I V : FRAGMEN T ATION
ucts. Cohe rence remain ed a stated goal , but it would increasingl y be the
coh erence of a general social scie nce whose unity, Braud el a rg ued, needed
to be broug ht into being. Thus , in a r958 a rticl e, " History and Sociology,"
Braudel suggested that th ese two disciplin es co nstitute "a sing le adventure
of the mind ," and he went on to claim that "there can exist no social science,
of th e kind that interests me, without reconciliation .. .. Setting the social
sciences one against the oth e r is easy enough to do, but all th ese quar rels
see m quite dated." 25 In another article, "History a nd th e Social Sciences:
La tong ue duree," also first published in 1958, Braudel suggested that social
scie ntists should stop arg uing about wh at th e bound a ri es of their differe nt
discipl ines are, or about what social science itself is. Instead , th ey should
''try to spell out, through th eir in vesti gations, th e elem ents (if elem ents the re
a re) th at could orient our coll ecti ve resea rch , th e them es that w ould permi t
us to achieve a preliminary conve rgence. Myself, I beli eve th ese elements
are: math em ati zati on, na rrowing in on locality, tongue du ree . But I would
be curious to know what other specialists propose." 11'
Braudel's preoccupatio n with "convergence"- presumabl y involv ing
commitme nt to a sin g le, unifi ed in vesti gati o n of Ma n - persisted until the
end of hi s life. To be sure, he had no illusio ns about th e diffi culti es of such
a conve rge nce. o doubt this is wh y, in r958, he refe rred onl y to a "pre-
liminary" conv erge nce. And it is perh aps si g nifi cant th at in a late inte rview
he did not call fo r interdisciplinarity, whi ch was then fashi o nabl e in some
qu a rters, but for something else -"unita ry interscience .. .. L et us mix to-
gether all the sciences, including the traditional o nes, philosophy, philology,
etc." 27 The coherence of history, it see ms, was to be the coherence of what
the g reat, perh aps last, Braudellia n loyalist, Immanuel Wallerstein, speak-
in g in 1999, ca ll ed "a trul y unifi ed, sing ular social scie nce." 28 But in the vi-
sion of the later Braud el, the scie nce in questi on would also includ e-how
is neve r specifi ed - the traditional hum a nities di sciplines as w ell.
THE ANNALES S C HOOL:
FROM C ONV E RGEN C E TO MULTIPLI C ITY
We are now two d ecades beyond the death of Braude\. A third generation
of Anna/es-influenced historians - that of Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie and
hi s coeva ls - has g ive n way to a fo urth and late r ge ne rati ons. Wh at is evi-
dent at this long interval is the pe rsi stent failure of a unified soc ia l science,
o r eve n of a unifi ed hi sto ry al one, to a ppea r. In his 1999 talk Wall erstein
cha racte rized Braud el's proj ect as an attempt to bridge th e "g reat epistemo-
logical debate" between the nom othetic disciplines and "mo re hum a nistic,
CO H ERENCE AND IN CO HEREN C E IN HI STORICAL S TUD I E S :f: 199
or he rm eneutic epi stem ologies" that emphasize "va ri ety, not simil a riti es, in
huma n social behavi o r." H e had to con ced e, howeve r, that "o ne sees pre-
cious few sig ns today ofBr aud el's passio n to create a trul y unifi ed , sing ul a r
soc ia l science." 2'J
T his judg ment is und oubtedl y co rrect. Ind eed , as one acute a nd skepti-
ca l commentator, G erard oiriel, has noted, Braud el's statements of com-
m itm ent to the unity o f th e human scie nces must be juxtaposed to his in-
sistence, else whe re, th at there has been a " fra gm entatio n of histo ry," with
the discipline breakin g up into a multitude of practi ces th at are irreducibl e
to eac h oth e r. And yet Braud el co ntinu ed not o nl y to a ffirm " th e unit y of
histo ry," but also to claim th at histo ry occupi es a privil eged, central posi-
tio n w ithin the hum a n sciences as a w hole. N oiri el id entifies a th eo reti-
ca l justifi cati on offe red by Braud el fo r g ranting hi sto ry thi s ce ntral - a nd
u ni fy ing - positio n. The obj ect of the human sciences is "human beings in
time." Only two disciplin es, history and sociolog y, have "a 'ge neralist' voca-
tion"; thus, history and soci ology are privil eged ove r all oth er disciplin es, as
sc iences dea ling with "everything th at has to do w ith hum ankind ." O f th e
two disciplin es, o nl y histo ry is co nce rned centrall y with tim e; th erefo re, hi s-
to ry a nd hi stori a ns a re d estined to unite th e hum a n scie nces and g ive them
a "comm on language." 30
The logic of Braud el's cl a ims leaves much to be desired . But in fa ct, nei-
ther Braud el's claim s no r Febvre's a nalogous cl a im s ea rli e r should be re-
ga rd ed as primaril y g uided by logic. Consid e r Febvre for a m om ent. Febvre
re peatedly claim ed th at histo ry sh ould escape th e spirit of speciali zatio n,
that it should be without "compartme nts" [cloisonnements], that th e ba rrie rs
between the social and th e human sciences should be ove rcome, that th e re is
a "living Unity of Sc ience," a nd so o n. But all th ese cl a im s we re put fo rwa rd
in th e co ntext of a combat pour L'histoire th at was, m o re acc urately, a combat
fo r a pa rticul a r kind of histo ry- Febvre's kind . Wh en Febvre spok e of col-
lecti ve resea rch th at wo uld be carri ed out und er th e regim e of a n "histoire
dirigee, " th ere is no doubt that this w ould ind eed be a "directed " histo ry
a nd that Febvre and his alli es sh ould be th e ones directing it. 3 1 Th e sa me
co nsid erati o ns com e into pl ay in relati on to Braude\. A s N oiriel notes, we
must situ ate the claims quoted in th e prev ious paragra ph within th e context
of Braud el's "explicit ambiti on" to raise hi sto ry to th e rol e of central and
unifyin g di scipline a m o ng the human sc iences.32
In fa ct, th e Anna/es school of th e first two generati o ns was a lways in a
state of war aga in st enemi es. A m o ng th ese ene mi es we re th e co mpeting
social scie nces of econo mi cs, geogra ph y, a nd sociology. Th e prima ry en-
emy, how eve r, was the m ainstrea m of French hi sto ri ans, "traditional" his-
2 00 t PART IV : FRAGMEN T A T I ON
torians committed to the "hij·toire historisante" aga inst whi ch H enri Berr
polemicized as ea rl y as 191 r. W hat defin ed histoire historisante in Berr's eyes
was its focus on particular historical realiti es and its assumption that once
th e hi sto rian had desc ribed a nd analyzed such a reality, he had completed
his work . Buil d ing on Berr, Febvre held , on the contra ry, that the history
need s to be open to general conce rns. It must be abl e to engage in compari-
son, bringing the pa rticula rs of one pl ace a nd tim e to bea r in the attempt
to illuminate those of another place a nd tim e, as well as th e condition of
"Ma n" in general. It must be attentive to the unmov ing or sl ow-mov ing
substratum of the "hi story of events" studied by, fo r exa m ple, geogra phers,
w hich historiens historisants re jected as irrelevant. Hi sto ry needs , moreover,
to und erstand the need fo r "hypotheses, fo r resea rch prog ram s, eve n for
th eo ry." 33 Although, w ith Febvre's appointm ent to th e College de France
in 1933 a nd Bloch's to the Sorbonne in 1936, the Annales ori entati on could
ha rd ly be called m a rgin al, until as late as the end of the 1960s Febvre and his
successo rs co ntinued to polemi cize aga in st a benighted, supposedl y domi -
nant hi storical m ainstream. 3' The program of a n histoire totale that would
som ehow m ak e hi story a coherent enterpri se, along with the insistence on
an histoire -probleme by whi ch probl em s connected to the present would be
brought to bea r on the in vestigati on of the past, we re the two chi ef weapons
in th e propaga nda wa r of the Annalistes again st their opponents.
T oday, of course, it is no longer a matter of Anna/es school history ver-
sus its va rious enemies. First of all , there is no longe r such a thing as "the
Annales school." An important ove rview was p rov ided by the influential
A m erica n histori an L ynn Hunt, in a 1986 a rticle on "the ri se a nd fall of
the Anna /es pa radigm." 35 Sin ce Hunt's account is remarkably focused and
d irect, I can ha rdl y do better th an reproduce ce rtain of her central points.
She asse rts that "th e Annales pa rad igm bega n to d isintegrate at the ve ry mo-
m ent of its triumph ," w hich she identifi es as the 1970s (21 3). In 1970, under
Braudel's leade rship, the Sixth Section had m oved into a brand new, mod-
ernist high-ri se on the bouleva rd Raspa il; then in r975 the Si xth Section be-
cam e an inde pend ent institution, th e Ecole d es Hautes E tudes en Sciences
Sociales (EH ESS). But the Annales was unified by more than a building,
she suggests. For it see m ed th at the re was indeed a " paradigm" involved in
Annales hi story. Th e pa radigm was exem plifi ed in Braudel's Mediterranean,
with its "three-level" m odel of history, noted ea rlier. As Hunt obse rves, this
model, w hich ranged from biology, geography, and clim ate at the bottom
to "poli tical a nd cultural expressions of specifi c groups or ind ividuals" at
the top, was "widely accepted w ithin the French hi sto rical profession in the
196os a nd ea rl y 1970s"; ind eed , eve n some historians who regretted such an
ap proac h ackn owledged its do mina nce (2 r2).
CO H E REJ'l.: C E ANO I N C O HER ENCE I N H I S T O RI C A L S T U D I ES + 20 1
Hunt also notes that as ea rl y as the late 1970s va rious pa rticipants within
the Anna/es we re beginning to see signs of the d isinteg ration of the model.
Fo r exampl e, in a 1978 a rticl e, "The Anna/es : Continuities and Discontinui-
ties," whi ch ap pea red in the first volu me of Wall erstein's Braudelli a n jour-
na l R eview, a young Annaliste of th e fo urth generation, who in the r99os
would becom e preside nt of the E H ESS, Jacques Revel , observed that "th e
id entifi cati on of stabl e systems is at the hea rt" of the A nnalej· un de rta king,
and th at it lac ks a ny conce rn "with a th eory of social change or with the
sh ift from one hi stori cal model [to] its successor." Revel also contended that
the body of common social-sc ientifi c know ledge "has bee n rapid ly d isinte-
g rating since the beginning of th e 1960s. Th e fi eld of resea rch in th e soc ial
sciences is splintering. Ma n, th e ce ntral fig ure of the preced ing m ode of
analysis, has ceased to be the bas ic referent and has become the t ransitory
object, and a dated one, of a pa rticul a r patte rn of scienti fic d iscourse." Revel
suggested th at th e Anna/es of circa 1978 em phasized "ex perimentation a nd
interrogation" rather tha n a unified a pproach. H e also noted an increase in
the space the Anna/es gave to "the a nalysis of cultural system s," afte r a pe-
riod domin ated by econom ic a nd social hi story, a nd he suggested th at thi s
amounted less to the ex ploration of "a so rt of third level of knowledge" than
to "the raising of a new set of questions." 36
For hi s pa rt, th e promin ent third-ge nerati on Annaliste Frarn; ois Furet,
w ho was preside nt of th e E HESS from 1977 to 1985, suggested in a 1983
articl e th at one had now to think of going beyond th e Anna/es. H e deni ed
that the Annalej· hi storia ns shared a "common and unifi ed concept of the
d isc ipline"; rather, they worked "in d irecti ons that we re too dive rse fo r
the m to be easily assembled und er a single intellectual ba nner." Pe rhaps the
only comm on fe ature am ong Furet's ge neration of histori ans was th at they
saw in the "almost bound less range of topics and m ethods" that the A nna /es
allowed "a heaven-se nt oasis on the path away from Stalino-Ma rxist hi stori-
cis m." Still , in th e conception of history th at had a nim ated hi s generation,
Fu ret d iscerned a cohe rent prog ram , embod ied in two commitm ents: "first,
that hi story should add to its subjects and methods by bor rowing from
neig hboring d isciplin es and even by the temporar y abolition of d ivisions
between d iscipl in es; and , second, that it should neve rtheless remain a n all-
embracing a nd ecum eni ca l discipline, m eeting the cond itions required fo r
the full est und erstand ing of social phenom ena.'";
In retrospect, we have to see F uret's 1983 a rticl e as representing the last
gas p of the cl assic Anna/es approach to hi stori ca l- o r rather, to hi stori o-
g raphic-coherence. F or already a shi ft was taking place that would sharply
tra nsform the term s of d iscu ssion - a shi ft that L ynn Hunt ide ntified in
1986 as a shift fr om social hi story to cu ltural hi story. 38 T o be sure, Hunt was
202 t PART JV : FRAGMENTATION
only drawing th e attention of an English-speaking audi ence to a shift of
interest that Revel a nd Furet had already commented o n. Revel's refe rence
to the analysis of culture has alread y been noted. For his part, Furet in 1983
had also rema rked on a growing co nce rn with culture amo ng Annalistes.
But Furet, in contras t to Revel, was skeptica l of this turn, even hostil e to it.
Furer fav ored a " probl em-o ri ented" and also conceptualized form of his-
tory; his affi nities w ere w ith social scientists' interest in th e "determinants
a nd limits of action," their concern for "isolating consta nts, if not laws," and
their preference for studying "obj ective behavior, rega rdless of the delibe r-
ate intentio ns of the acto rs." 39 In hi s view th e histoire des mentalites (that is,
the Anna/es ve rsion of cultural histo ry) suffered from three defects . F irst, it
was too close to an "a ffective commitment," namely, the feeling of nostalgia
that Furer claims had been ge nerated in France by the tremendous eco-
nomic progress of the preced in g two decades. Second, it blurred the "clas-
sic distinction" between obj ecti ve behavior a nd th e subj ective percepti on of
that behav io r, a nd thus gave rise to the illusi o n that it was abl e to g rasp both
the materi al infrastructure and the ideational superstructure of society. Fi-
nall y, th e histoire des mentalites was likely to gene rate incoherence-for its
"lac k of definition . .. leads to the un ending pursuit of new resea rch topics,
turned up by the accidents of life and having no other basis tha n a passing
intuiti on, o r an ephem eral fashion." 40
C OHERENCE AS A WILLED COM MITMENT
Thus th e issue of coherence aga in asse rts itself. A century ago, reca ll , the
basis fo r histo ry's coherence was held to li e in the possibility of eventually
constructin g a sing le, authoritative narrati ve of hum a n hi sto ry. When this
hope fa il ed, the basis for cohe rence was held to res id e in a shared method.
A m ong "traditional" histo ria ns, including thehistoriens historisants, the com-
m itm ent was to a m eth od that was rega rded as distinctively historiographic. 41
Among th e Annalistes fr om Febvre to Furer, the commitment was not to a
d istin ctive m ethod fo r history but rather to a n in vestigative process th at was
seen as broadly social-scientific: among th ese histo rians the re was always a
commitme nt to a science (or "interscience") that wo uld yield authoritative,
although possibly provisi o nal , knowledge.
What is striking now is the d egree to w hich th e Febv rean-Braud ellian-
Furetian ve rsion of coherence has become passe. For th e assumed basis fo r
history's coherence has changed once aga in. It is no lo nger to be fo und in
the articulatio n of a historically sensitive soc ial science. Rather, coherence is
now seen as a m atter of willed commitment to one o r an other "paradigm" of
CO HERE NC E A N D IN CO H EREl\'. C E IN HIST O RI CA L S TUDIE S :f: 203
histo rical resea rch. And what cha racterizes the pa radig m notion is that it
embraces w ithin itself a distin ctl y non-negligibl e d egree of a rbitra rin ess-
an arbitrariness, moreove r, that is often (a lth ough far from always) admit-
ted as such .
Within th e most hig hl y profess ionali zed circles of th e disciplin e, th e last
twe nty years have w itnessed a battl e between two competing "parad ig ms"
fo r the resea rching a nd w riting of histo ry: soc ia l history and cultural histo ry
(o r rath er, the new cultural hi story, sin ce th ere is a lso a n old cultural his-
tory) .42It is a complex stor y that I can onl y touch on here. The em ergence of
the new cultura l histo ry was forma ll y announced in L ynn Hunt's 1989 ed-
ited coll ecti on, The New Cultural Hist01 y .43 However, its origins go back to
va ri ous developments in the ea rl y 1970s a nd even before. One source of the
new cultural history was th e Anna/es' history of mentalites. A nother stimu-
lus came from the anthropologist Clifford Geertz, whose noti o n of the in-
terp retati on of cultures-a nd emph asis o n "thick description"- resonated
w ith many historians. 44 Still anothe r influence was Michel Foucault, who
in va ri ous histo ri o- phil oso phical works touched on such topi cs as "Labour,
La ng uage, Life, Madness, Masturbation, Medicine, Military, Nietzsche,
P ri so n, Psyc hiatry, Quixote, Sade, and Sex" (to quote a li st offered by th e
phil osopher Ia n Hacking in 198 1). 45 Many of these topics were taken up
by th e new cultural history, as was, to some degree, F oucault's cynical at-
tit ud e toward conventiona l notions of sci ence and objectiv ity. Yet another
stimulus came from th e sociology of culture proposed by Pierre Bou rdieu,
pa rticularl y hi s notions of habitus a nd of cultura l capital. 46Fina ll y, there was
the so-ca lled "new histo ri cism " in literary criti cism, pioneered by Stephen
Greenbl att and oth ers , whi ch blurred th e boundari es between litera ry and
historica l ana lysisY
There is no need he re to survey the effl orescence of cultural histo ry since
th e ea rl y 1980s. Suffice it to say that, by 1999, it was possible for Victori a
Bonnell and Ly nn Hunt to publish a new anthology, Beyond the Cultural
Turn, th at was much m o re substantial than Hunt's ea rlie r The New Cultural
48
History. Beyond the Cultural Turn is a m onum ent to the trium p h - but
also to certain of th e problems - of cultural history in its new mode. O ne
of the m ost insightful contributo rs to the collection , Richard Biern acki , is
surely rig ht in asserting th at "the new cultural history succeeded some time
ago in making its agend a pree minent." 49
But what is the cha racter of this preem inence, and w hat is the character of
the coherence that it brings to histo ry? As Biernacki notes, the new cu ltural
historians purpo rted to ass um e, for their work, an underl ying ontologica l
unity, for they "foll owed the socia l histori ans in building expla nations th at
2 0 ..J. :f: P ART I V: FRAGMENTAT I ON
rest on appeals to a 'real' and irreducible ground of hi story, though that foot-
ing is now cultural and linguistic rather than (o r as much as) social a nd eco-
nomic " (63) . Biernack i suggests that in this ass umpti on about the grou nd of
history, historians foll owed some not-well -a rgued bits of Gee rtz's account
of culture in The Interpretation of Cultures, where Gee rtz had famo usly as-
serted that "culture is not a power, something to which social events, behav-
iors, in stituti ons, or processes can be causall y attributed; it is a context, some-
thing w ithin w hich th ey can be intelli gibl y- that is, thick ly-described.'" 0
Biernacki shows that influential cultural hi storians-among them , Robert
Darnton, Lynn Hunt, a nd Roge r Chartier - took up Geertz's noti on of cul-
tu re as a "grou nding reality," as something that is a "general a nd necessary
truth rather than ... a useful constru ction" (64). W ithout deny ing what he
sees as the revelatory, path-breaking, enriching character of such works as
Darnton's The Great Cat Massacre and Hunt's Politics, Language, and Class in
the French Revolution, Biernac ki suggests that "we may have reached a point
at wh ich essentiali zing the sem iotic dim ension or 'culture' as a naturally
given d imension of ana lysis is shutting off refl ection and disabling possibly
illu minating interpretations of history" (64-65). 51
Most rel eva nt to m y argument he re a re two of Biernacki's points. He
shows, first , that the new cultural history rests on an ass um ed ontologi-
cal cl aim , namely, that w hat is really real is culture. "Culture" is defi ned
here in the Geertzian way, as "webs of meani ng" that permeate the li fe of
a human society. Thus "meanin g" (in the Gee rtzian cultural sense) is as-
sumed to be ontologica ll y fund am ental. Second, Biern acki shows that the
new cultural hi sto rians' claim to have discovered the "grounding reality" of
society and history is without justification . (Likewise, th ere was no justifica-
tion for the ontological view that underlay social history -ex pli citl y in the
case of Marxist or marxisant historia ns, im plicitly in othe r cases-namely,
that the true grounding reality of history is the socioeconom ic d imension of
soc iety.)
It foll ows from this lack of justi fication that th e writing of the new cul-
tural history (as of the old social history) is ca rried out on the basis of what
is essentiall y a choice. It is no more than that. And in fact the arbitrariness
of the d ecision fo r or against cultural or social history is recogni zed by the
m ost self-aware of our advanced histori ans. Consider Hunt a nd Bonnell.
Their introducti on to Beyond the Cultural Turn suggests that "since World
Wa r II new intellectual fashions [m y em phasis] in the social sciences have
em e rged in rap id succession . ... Th ey ge ne rall y fell into two broad cat-
egories: resea rch parad igms ... and . .. approaches that belonged to the in-
terpretive and hermeneutic tradition." Hunt and Bonnell also obse rve that
CO HEREN C E AN D IN CO HEREN C E IN HISTORIC A L S T UD I ES :f: 205
the re is d isagreement "about the paradigm to be chosen [my emphasis] to
orga ni ze social scientific research." 52
Indeed , th e ve ry terminology of "pa radigm" underscores the element of
postulati on that is in volved. For the parad igm noti on, introd uced by Kuhn
in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, ca rries with it a strong hint of the
a rbitrary and unfo unded . Kuhn willingly ac knowledged this in hi s 1995
Athens interview, where he states th at "a paradig m is w hat you use w hen
the theory isn't there." 53 T o put thi s a nother way: if it we re justifi ed, it would
not be a paradigm. O ne implication to be drawn from Hunt and Bonnell is
that, to justify a particular mode of doing hi sto ry, the re is actually no need
fo r an ontological fo undation. Anoth er implicati on, conversely, is that no
mode of doing history can establish what is ontologicall y fo undational- if
anything at all is. A final implication is that neither approach can justifiably
claim priority ove r the other. We choose a nd then proceed on the basis of
our choice.
Th e exte nt to w hich hi storians since the early 197os have taken up the
terminology of"parad igm" and applied it to their own discipline is striking.
H isto ri ans' in vocation of Kuhn was already noted by David H ollinge r in a
widely cited 1973 article, "T. S. Kuhn's Theo ry of Science and Its Implica-
tions fo r Hi story." 54 The habit of deploying the paradigm notion has grown
immensely since 1973. In particular, Kuhn's notions of paradigm and revo-
lution have been repeatedly a pplied to the Annales sc hool, as in Traian Stoia-
nov ich 's 1976 book , French Historical Method: The Annales Paradigm, a nd
Pete r Burke's 1990 study, The French Historical Revolution: The A nn ales
School, 1929-89, not to m ention Hunt's 1986 a rticl e announcing th e fa ll of
the Anna/es paradigm .55 Kuhn's notion has also been routinely appli ed to th e
conflict between soc ial history and (new) cultural history.
We must reflect on a nd also interrogate the paradigm notion, fo r it offers
an impo rtant insight into the limits of hi storiographic coherence. The basic
question to be posed is , Is the paradig m noti on applicabl e to historical stud-
ies or social sci ence at all? From their frequent deployment of the term (a nd
presumably of the notion as well), we must conclud e th at many histo ri ans
a nd historica l theo rists think that it is not onl y applicabl e to history, but that
the prese nce of a paradigm is crucial if historical resea rch is to be done in the
right way.56 Kuhn himself would not have agreed . O n the contrary, in The
Structure of Scientific Revolutions he actual ly insi sted that the paradigm no-
tion does not apply to the social sciences. Acco rding to Kuhn , "norm ally, the
membe rs of a m ature scientifi c commun ity work from a single parad ig m or
fro m a closely related set." But this is not the case in the social sciences, Kuhn
held, because the social sciences-and presumably also history- lack "the
206 :j: P A RT I V : FRACMENTATION
unparalleled insulation of mature scientific communities from the demands
of the laity and of eve ryday life.... Just because he is working onl y for an
audience of colleagues, an audience that shares his own values and beliefs,
the scientist can ta ke a single set of standards for granted." 57
N o doubt, as man y commentators have argued, Kuhn vastl y ove rempha-
sized the degree of sepa ration that natural science has from the social world
in which it is located. But this criticism of Kuhn in no way diminishes the
point that I am making here - on the contrary, it strengthens that point.
For the claim would then be that even in the natural sciences pursuers of
knowledge a re not able to detach th emselves entirely from extrascientific
considerations-considerations that serve to make cross-cuts through what
would otherwise be the purity of their scientific commitment to a paradigm.
In Kuhn's view, paradigms cannot be th eo retically, let alone ontologically,
justified . Rathe r, they can be justified only on pragmatic grounds-and only
weakly so at that. In Kuhn's theory, a paradigm has the g reat ad va ntage of
generating solvable puzzles and of making it cl ea r without any great need
for hesitation which puzzles these are. According to the theory, because the
scientist works for an audience of colleagues that shares his own values and
beliefs and is insulated from society, he "ca n take a single set of standards
for granted"; he "can .. . dispose of one problem and get on to the next more
quickly than those who work for a more heterodox group"; and he can
"concentrate his attention upon problems that he has good reason to believe
he will be able to solve," instead of having to focus on problems that "ur-
ge ntly need solution" within society but for which tools conducive to solving
those problems efficiently may well not exist. 58
Undoubtedly, some historians resonate to Kuhn's account of the natural
sciences and prefer paradigmatic unity because they think that such unity
conduces to sol ving a coherent set of historical problems -while also rais-
ing history's prestige by making it look m o re lik e a " real" science. Other
histo rians, cl ea rl y, see history as the carrying out of politics by other means;
for them, commitment to a paradigm is closel y connected to one or another
political commitment-indeed, sometimes political commitment seems to
serve as a substitute for intelligent debate about different genres, approaches,
and resea rch programs, and about the actual merits or demerits of specific
works. 59
This latter, politicizing tend ency, which amounts to the impos ition of a
factitious political coherence on history, strikes me as dangerous, not least
because it ca n easil y be hij acked by forces outsid e the unive rsity that are un-
likely to encourage work that is in any sense critical of extant political real-
ity. The former, scientizing tend ency is somewhat less misg uided, especially
C O HE REN C E A N D IN C OHERE NC E I N_ HI S TORI CA L S T U DIE S :j: 20 7
w hen the paradig m notion is conceived of narrowly, less as a paradigm in
a ny broad se nse than as a subdisciplinary resea rch prog ram. When th e no-
tion is deployed in this way, focus on a common set of research probl ems
can contribute to resea rch productivity, m ost obviousl y by making it eas ier
fo r members of the discipline (es peciall y unform ed, junio r m embers, such
as g raduate students) to find resea rch topics.
Yet even he re we must be sensitive to the limits and disadvantages of the
historiographic coherence that is thus proposed. Of course, it is significant
that I have been refe rring throughout to historiographic coherence more than
to historical coherence, for a point th at L eonard Kriege r made in his book
Time's Reasons: Philosophies of Hij·tory Old and New remains entirely valid.
Touching on history-w riting from Herodotus to Foucault, Kri ege r empha-
sized the persistent "problem of the weakness of histo rical coherence," and
concl uded that "there is no simple past whereof a historian can be a pure
histo rian." 60 What this m eans is that, insofar as there is any coherence at all,
it has to be a coherence that is offered by historians- not by " histori ca l rea l-
ity." Moreover, it is clear that the historian's choice of paradigm may well
relate less to a decision concerning what set of problems is richest in solvable
puzzles than to the histori an's own life-world preferences. In view of th ese
fac ts, two questions acquire a certain force: H ow seriously should we take
th is historian-generated coherence? and What other things should histori-
ans offer, besides coherence?
These questions, which a re closely interconnected , can only be touched upon
he re (and a comprehensive a nswer to the second question would require a
book of its own). But m y basic point is simple: it is a mistake to rega rd his-
tory as an e nte rprise that ought to be fixated on a search for coherence. On
the contrary, part of the functi on of historical study is to shuffle the cards,
show ing the va ri ous ways in w hich th e past is actuall y incoherent with it-
self and with our expectations of it, and also showing how the study of the
past relies o n conflicting mod es of understanding and engagement. 6 1 While
research programs, eve n "paradigms," may be acceptable as voluntary com-
mitments, the notion that historians ought to be judged according to the
degree of their work's accordance with a currently dominant paradigm is a
d ull idea and , in a lite ral sense, counterproductive. For exa mpl e, the m ode
of " high" intellectual history in which I specialize does not connect well
with eithe r the social histo ry or the cultural histo ry paradigm. I have neve r
considered this disconnection to be a liability, and I am inclined to think
that the resea rch productivity of some of my age cohort has been impaired
208 t PART IV: FRAGMENTAT I ON
by too g reat a reve rence for disciplina ry paradigms that do not fit well with
their interests and tale nts. In sho rt, the pursuit of historiographic coherence
can d imin ish productivity and lea rning, as well as increase it.
But is the primary task of historia ns to offe r coherence in any case? I do
not think so, fo r hi sto ria ns have offe red, and co ntinue to offe r, many things
besides coherence. Indeed , if coherence we re their ma in offspring, they
would be m ythm a kers and fabu li sts without bei ng historia ns at all. O ne of
the m ost important things that historians offe r, or ought to offer, is a critical
perspective on the past, on the present, and on our present use of the past.
C riticism , here, means the revealing of fissures and co ntrad ictions - in the
past, in hi stori a ns' representations of the past, in historians' assumptions as
they seek to rep resent the past, a nd in dominant and perhaps also nondom-
ina nt ass umpti ons in the present conce rning the future, th e present, and
the past.
Another thing that histori ans offe r, or ought to offe r, is a m odeling of high
epistem ological standa rds . Because historian s-at least m any of th em-
deal with m atters that, because they a re "dead and gone," are susceptible to
some m easure of d ispassionate exa mination, they have a special oppo rtunity
to exe rci se the utmost ca re in th eir t reatment of ev id ence and in their ar-
ticulation of the a rguments th at support their claims. In this sense hi storians
are better placed to be epistem ologically responsible th an a re those scholars
and social scientists w hose busin ess it is to dea l w ith the pressi ng concerns of
the m om ent. O nl y if hi storians can be epistem ologica ll y responsible ca n we
even begin to expect such responsibility from our politi cians, intelligence
age ncies, journalists, business pe rso ns, therapists, cle rgy, lawye rs, judges,
and all the rest. The way that the Iraq Wa r of 2003 was justified to the
A meri can-a nd global- public ought to g ive us pause.
Finally, besides being "pure" hi sto ri ans, cont ributing to the a rticul ati on
of a (now admitted ly arbitrary) disciplinary parad igm, histori ans also have
the opportunity to be "hybrid" or "hyphenated" hi storians, co ntributing
historical know ledge and perspectives to othe r people besides those who
are th emselves professional historians. While still rem aining historians by
virtue of their focus on the past a nd their com mitm ent to rul es of ev id ence
and a rgum ent th at have stood the test of time, such historians m ay appear
to othe r histo ri ans, w ho are more focused on the preoccupations of their
disciplinary coll eagues, almost as fore igners in their midst.
Against Current Fashion
CONC L US IO N
n a much-quoted statement in th e preface of his H1~·tories of the Latin and
I Germanic Nations (1824), the young histo ri an Leopold Ranke remarked
that "to h istory has been assig ned the offi ce of judging the past, of in st ruct-
ing the present for th e benefit of future ages ." Ra nk e rejected thi s g ra n-
d iose ass ignm ent: his work , he decla red, "wa nts onl y to say what actually
happened." 1
W hat tasks are ass igned to hi sto ry today? In Ranke's tim e onl y a few
co uld do the assig ning. Today multitudes crowd the scene, both rule rs and
demos, clad in va ri ed clothing and clamoring loud ly. They includ e state leg-
islators, intent on the prope r teachin g of hi sto ry in the schools and coll eges
of their fi ne states; federal legislators, shoc k ed-Shocked!-at the histo rical
ignorance of coll ege students and the ge neral publi c; ge nerous dono rs, in -
tent on establi shing a chair fo r the hi sto ry of thi s and a chair for the histo ry
of that; Ame ri ca ns proud of th eir ethni c heritage or rel ig ion, who want to
ma ke sure that its glori es are properly rep rese nted a nd celebrated; vete rans
of wars, eager to see th at the wa rs in question a re both ri ghtl y interpreted
and piously commemorated; a nd those persons be reaved by, or perhaps onl y
touched by, all major disaste rs, from Pearl Harbor to Septembe r 1 r, 200 r.
Beyond these persons or groups , who have an entirel y expli cit and ac-
tive conce rn with history, a re othe rs w hose conce rn is more d iffuse a nd
co nsumpti on-oriented. I think he re of th ose who "app reciate" history in the
way that one might appreciate an appea ling wall paper pattern or a nicely
man icu red front law n -who visit presidential houses, stop at battlefields
and oth er hi sto ri ca l sites, perhaps pause in their travels to read historical
markers, and in ge neral adm ire oldish things. Their appreciation som e-
times goes so fa r as to exp ress itself in the asse rti on, "I have always loved
history."
2 10 t C ON C L US ION
In sho rt, C li o, the muse of history, has many friends and perhaps some
lovers. But love and friendship a re not without their price. The fans clam-
oring round ask for more things than the judging and instructing that wor-
ried Ranke. The tas ks th at a re today ass igned to history seem to be of four
types. Fi rst a nd foremost, history is assigned the task of identifying-of cre-
ating and sustaining identities of va rious kinds , making "us" who we are.
C rucial to thi s task is the related ente rprise of commemo rating the actions
and suffer ings of the groups that a re thus identified . Second, history is as-
signed the task of evangelizing-of strengthening our civic religion. Third,
histo ry is given th e tas k of entertaining us: Clio! Amu;·e. Finally, to history is
assig ned the tas k , w he re possible, of being useful. T o be sure, we acknowl-
edge that histo ry ca nnot be quite as useful as engin ee ring, biomedical sci-
ence, o r business adm inistrati on, and we gene rall y believe as well that some
history, usuall y that w hi ch is distant from us in time, space, or culture, can-
not be useful at all. Hence thi s fo urth task pales before the other three.
Am I mistaken in thinking th at these tasks-especially the tasks of
id en tifying, evange li zing, a nd entertaining-a re widely assig ned to history
today? I think not. Consider the fo llowing advertisements drawn from an
Amazon .com e-ma il newsletter sent out to history buffs on May 1 l, 2001:
Pearl H arbor: Th e Day of Infamy-An !flustrated Histo1y by Dan van
der Vat. President Franklin D . Roosevelt fa mously declared Decem-
ber 7, 194 1, as "A day that w ill live in infamy," the day the Japanese at-
tacked Pearl H a rbo r, pulling th e U.S. into World War II. Thi s visually
stunning book, by noted hi sto ria n Dan van der Vat, features ground-
brea king resea rch, ove r 250 images, including previously unpublished
personal photos from the perspective of both Ame rica ns on the ground
and Japanese in the air, as well as a moment-by-moment breakdown
of the attack. There are also numerous personal accounts, memora-
bilia, a nd illustrations by Tom F reeman. A major ac hieveme nt.
An Album of Memories: Personal Histories from the Greatest Genera-
tion by Tom Brokaw. As he's done in his imm ensely popular G reatest
Gene rati on volum es, T om Brokaw again celebrates the trials and tri-
umphs of the A merica ns w ho expe rienced the Depression and World
War II. Album of Memories is a collection of letters w ritten to Bro-
kaw by those w ho lived during this period, and in some cases, their
children . Complete with photographs and memorabilia, the ove rall
emotional im pact of these lette rs is intense. T o read them is both a
moving expe rience and an oppo rtunity to expe ri ence history at its
most intimate.
A G A IN S T CU RRENT F A S HI ON t 211
Disaster! The Great San Franci»Co Earthquake and Fire of 1906 by Dan
K urzma n. Just after 5 a. m . on April 18, 1906, an ea rthquake m easur-
ing 8.3 on the Richter sca le ripped through sleeping San Francisco,
toppling buildin gs, expl od ing gas main s, and trapping thousands
of citi zens beneath tons of stone, broken wood, a nd twisted metal.
Drawing on meticulously resea rched and eye-witness accounts, Dan
Kurzman re-c reates one of the m ost horrific eve nts of the 20th ce n-
tury. More riveting than fiction but incred ibl y true, Disaster! is unfor-
gettable history-a masterful account of the calamitous demise and
astonishing resurrection of a n A meri ca n city.2
I do not aim to sco re cheap points against works th at no on e expects
to live up to the standards of scientific histo ry. I refer to the above book
blurbs simpl y as indicators of a pa rticula r way ofl ooking at history that ap-
pea rs to be w id espread in Ame rica n culture today. All three blurbs make a
stro ng appeal to Ame rican id entity. Judging from the blurbs, all the boo ks
ev angeli ze, propagating what can be best described as a can-do faith, one
that affirms our ca pacity to overcome the difficulties that life brings, even
earthquakes. A nd along w ith the identifying and th e evangeli zing com es
the promise of g reat entertainment- we a re being offered experiences that
a re "v isually stunning," "intense," and " ri veting."
The most interesting element in these bits of advertising copy is in this
fina l claim-the claim to offer a particular sort of experience , which we
m ig ht, in sho rthand, call an "imm ed iate" experie nce. The advertising uni-
form ly suggests that the co nsume rs of these hi stories will be broug ht into di-
rect contact with the action. Note how the advertisements focus on personal
ex perience. We a re told that "one of the most ho rrific events of the 20th cen-
tury"- the San Francisco ea rthquake of 1906-will be "re-created" by the
autho r. We are told that read ing letters w ritten to a news a ncho r by "Ame ri-
ca ns w ho expe ri enced the Depression and World War II " is "both a m ov ing
experience and an opportunity to ex perience history at its m ost intimate."
T he photos in Pearl Harbo1~ taken "fro m th e perspective of both Americans
o n the ground and Japanese in the air," likewise seem to promise a virtual
reliving of the attack . The book Pearl Harbor was issued at about the time
that a "major motion picture" foc used on Pea rl Harbor came out. The "ti e-
in" was intended . Pearl H arbor the m ov ie was not a historical documentary
bu t a lam e love story. Still, it attempted to convey, in its sequence showing
the attack o n Pearl Harbo r, the impression of"you a re there." 3
Consider another entertainment, the 1997 m ov ie T itanic- likew ise not a
historical documentary, but a brilliantly reali zed tragic romance. The pro-
ducers of Titanic mad e a self-consc iou s appea l to histo ri ca l auth enti city, fo r
212 :j: C ON C L SIO N
they went to e normous lengths to duplicate the look of th e original ship and
its furni shings. H e re historical immed iacy turn s into an aesthesis of history,
an attempt to get viewe rs as close as possibl e to the sight and sound of his-
torical rea lity itself. The produ cers we re on to som ething - they rightly in-
tuited that, fo r a vast audience, history, if it does not mean "dead and gone,
irreleva nt," m eans th e immediate representati on of obj ects and expe riences
from th e past. 4
In the last ge neration or so such an assumption has come to be widely
sha red. Consid er, for example , Ken and Ric Burns's 1990 telev ision series,
The Civil Wa r.5 The Burn ses faced th e consid erabl e chall enge of dealing
with a confli ct that long preceded the in ve nti on of m ov ing pictures. None-
theless, by an innovative use of thousa nds of still photographs of civil war
soldiers, politicians, agitators, citi es, la ndsca pes, battles , a nd ruin s, as well
as by a n attentiveness to the cha racter of the voices reading the hundreds of
texts that we hea r ove r the course of the se ries, the filmmak ers gave to their
creation a n imm ediacy and directn ess th at one wo uld not have expected in
ad vance. Ind eed , this was precisely their intenti on: Ken Burns has explicitly
stated that he wa nted to offer an "emotional a rchaeology" of th e wa r, that
he wanted to get at "the ve ry hea rt of the Ame rica n ex perie nce," that he
wished to hea r "the ghosts and echoes of an almost inexpressibly wise past." 6
The Burns's a pp roac h ca n be instructively contrasted with the approach
taken in an older gene rati on of histori cal docum enta ries, notably in Thames
Tel ev ision's 1973 seri es on World War II , The World at Wai~ where the pre-
sentation is much m ore depersonali zed and "obj ective." The World at War,
which is narrated by the authoritative-sounding voice of Laurence O livier,
placed littl e emphasis on how that war "felt " to its participants; the aim of
the documenta ri sts was to tell and show what happened, w ith no notion that
they ought also to uncove r the "em otional a rch aeology" of the wa r. 7
The claim to imm edi acy can be fo und almost eve rywhere. It is not lim-
ited to popul a r hi story books, or to the hi story put together by video docu-
mentarians, or to th e historical as pect of popul ar ente rtainments. It is also
to be fo und in the wo rk of professional histori ans and of others co nnected
w ith th em (m ost often, museum professi onals). This is hardl y surpris-
ing. After all , identifying history is ove rwhelmingl y concerned with what
it takes to be "our" identity; evangelizing history, with wh at it takes to be
"our" fa ith. H ence the curators at Colonial Willi amsburg, Plimoth Pla nta-
tion, a nd othe r simil a r sites attempt to reproduce the "look" and "feel" of
life in a n ea rlie r tim e. We see th e sa me impul se in some digital "a rchives,"
those d rive n by a conce rn for m aking "everything" that exists conce rning a
give n past tim e and place availabl e in a single set of Web pages, with the aim
AGA I NS T CU RRE N T F A SH I O N t 2 13
of enabling the browsing public to enter into the li fe of a past community or
the Au x of a set of past eve nts.
Let us leave aside the problem s th at exist on the ev identi ary level - above
all , the quaint ass umptio n that all ev ide nce releva nt to ex pl aining X in som e
given tim e and place is loca li zed w ithin th at tim e a nd place (whe reas the
unive rse of possibly relevant ev id ence is in fac t unbounded , its actual bound-
a ri es onl y determin abl e throu gh continuing a rgume nt). The dee per prob-
lem is the ma king of a promi se th at can neve r be fulfill ed. Consid er also the
growing number of p ro jects th at combine, in a single entity, features of the
archive, muse um , a nd m em orial. To do ubt the re is a kind of catha rsis a nd
re fl ective ness that ca n be achi eved by sta nd ing in the place of (even ta king
the num ber of) a H olocaust victi m, an d there is perha ps also the confi rming
of an id entity. But th e ass um pti on of im med iate ide ntifi cati on is unjusti fied,
while, on the interpretive level, th e stakes of th e id entification a re kept im-
pli cit, hence una rgued , hence uncontrove rted , hence und efended in any full
se nse of th e te rm. Consider, fin all y, a ce rtain kind of historical bi ography,
the kin d that aim s at recreating what we might ca ll "the inne r M r. X" (fo r
"M r. X" substitute a ny hi stori cal fi gure). Neve r mind whether a sense of
lnnerlichkeit is a ppli cable to Mr. X in quite the way that it is ap plicabl e to
" us, " " now." 8
Historical epistem ology urges us to steer clea r of such cl aims to have pen-
etrated into the ve ry hea rt of th e past. The past is a fo reig n count ry, but it
is an un visitable a nd unconquerable fo reign country, m arking the limits of
our epistem ological powe r in something like th e way that an unrul y fo reig n
te rritory whose customs we do not sha re a nd whose la ng uages we do not
speak mig ht ma rk the li m its of our military powe r. Of course, historical ex-
peri ence does ex ist.9 But historical expe rience is not the deluded and blith ely
ar roga nt convicti on th at we have ex peri enced th e past as people in the past
ex perienced it. Rath er, pro perl y unde rstood, it is the experience of a rift, a
break, betwee n w hat we are now and what other:; were then. It is, fo r exa m -
ple, a ce rtain kin d of recognition that a ri ses when one com es across "a vast
Palladian villa" am ong "the cramped all eys" of present-day Calcutta. 10 It is
a recogniti on of something in the now th at does not m ake sense in the now,
of som ething that ca nnot be accom modated within a "theory of the now." It
is this recognition that pu shes us towa rd the shaky, inferenti al co nstruction
of w hateve r it was that inh abited past time.
In sum , hi storical experience offe rs us a recogniti on of distance. The
m ost in sid ious, yet at the same ti me ofte n unrema rked, feature of th e com -
2 1.f t COI'\CLUS I ON
municati on and in fo rmation technologies that a re increasingly d ominating
our wo rl d is how they fos ter th e illusio n th at the w hole of rea lity is either
d isplayed before us rig ht now, o r could be dis played before us, if th e reach
of th e techn ologies a nd our connectedness to th em we re o nl y slig htl y bet-
ter th a n they a re at this m oment. What we a re being promised here is the
context of total connectedness -w hich am ounts, in fact , to a context of no
context, since context onl y becom es contex t w hen there are oth er contexts
that sta nd in o ppositi on to it. We a re in da nge r of educating a generation
of people willing to believe that all of human reality is in principle open
to th eir own ove rsig ht a nd control , if not by them selves directl y, th en by
th eir chose n politi cal agents. As th e histo ri a n of m edi eval Eu rope, Thomas
Bisson , has rem a rk ed , histo ri ca l study pro perl y ca rried out g ives us respite
from " th e crush of the present." Hi sto rica l study properl y ca rri ed out fo-
cuses o n som ething other th an the insi stence "on policy and d evelo pment
(that is, on present and future)" that domin ates the g reat universiti es- pro-
g ressive, fo rwa rd -lookin g, entrepreneuri al, and wo rld-comm anding -of
the prese nt imperium. It focuses rathe r on "those distant pasts, humanely
imagin ed a nd im agin atively reco nstructed, that alo ne can place our fragile
present in pe rspective ." 11
Th ese "di stant pasts," to be sure, need not be all that distant in time.
"Distance" is psychological, aesth eti c, and co nceptual and not just tempo-
ral. No r is the thinking that opens the way to th ese "pasts" confin ed to the
historical di scipline. The re is a line of thought, running from L eibni z in
the seventee nth ce ntury to the contempora ry phil oso pher of history F. R.
Ankersmit, that is peculiarly open to difference a nd multiplicity, and that
offers a kind of phil osophical hom e base for the histo rical thinking to which
I refe r here. T wo conceptions in Leibni z a re pa rticul a rl y suggestive fo r his-
tori cal thinking . O ne of these is hi s fund am ental o ntological principle, the
m onad . U nlike the atom of th e Newtonia n trad ition, each of w hi ch is the
sa m e as eve ry othe r, each m o nad is d iffe rent from a nd ind epen dent of eve ry
other m onad, althoug h at th e sam e tim e som ehow connected w ith th e total-
ity of m onad s. Th e other L eibni zian conception th at is fri endl y to histo rical
thinking is the notio n that one can im agin e an infinite number of wo rlds
different from and alternative to the world that actually exists. From our
perspec tive, th e true historia n (also, perhaps, the true anthropologist) is an
expl orer of alternative human wo rld s. Thi s is not to say that all hi stori ans
see th e m atter in this way : in fa ct, m an y histo ria ns a re propaga ndi sts for
one o r a nother favo red soci al, cultural, o r political o rde r, w hose hi sto ry th ey
w rite. A nd yet th ere also exists w ithin th e d iscipline a commitment to un-
de rstand in g the past on somethin g like its own term s. There exists, in sho rt,
AGA I NST C URRE!\"T FA S HION t 21)
an impossibl e-to-fulfill desire fo r hi stori cal obj ec ti vity, out of w hich hi sto ri -
cal thinkin g is able to a ri se.
If an ything unites the true hi stori cal d isc ipline, it is a residual commit-
ment, a fte r all , to obj ecti vity. But it is not a single objectivity. It is rather a
set of d ive rge nt but also interconn ected obj ecti viti es. Th ere is a d isc iplin a ry
ob jectivity, am ounting to consensu s am o ng subg roups of histo ri ans; there
is a d ialecti ca l obj ectivity, in volving a sensitivity on th e pa rt of hi sto ri a ns
to the pec uli a rities of the hi sto ri cal obj ec ts th at th ey d esc ribe, ex plain, a nd
inte rpret; there is a proced ural obj ecti vity that is prim a ril y m ethodologica l
in cha racte r; a nd the re is, above it all , the unrea li zabl e id ea l of absolu te
objectivity, the wo rl d as it wo ul d be see n by a single om ni scient d ivini ty. Of
co urse, such a god wo ul d have no need of hi sto ry, prec isely because hi s om-
nisc ience all ows the embrace of eve rythi ng huma n w ithin a single visio n, a
sing le th eoria. Co nviction robs hi sto ry of its rati onale: if we know th e truth
entire, we do not need hi story. Hi sto rians a re lesse r bein gs, awa re th at th ey
ca nn ot attain an absolute view, yet committed still to the g host or resid ue of
such obj ectivity.
Hi story's focus on w hat is dead a nd go ne not o nl y offe rs us altern ative
co ncepti ons co nce rning how we mi g ht think a nd live . It also offers, ve ry of-
te n , a respite from the insistent de m a nd th at the results of resea rch into the
h um a n wo rl d be tail o red to th e politi ca l de m a nds of th e m om ent. In 2003,
the United States went to wa r aga inst Iraq - a n adve nture that was justi fied
on th e grounds th at Iraq possessed immin entl y de pl oya bl e wea pons of m ass
des tructio n that coul d be used aga in st th e U nited States and its inte rests.
In fact , th e resea rch th at supposedl y justi fied thi s conclusi on was defective,
co rrupted by th e w ish of some to fin d a persuasive casus be/Ii a nd by the
hesitati o n of oth ers w ho we re wel l awa re of the wea kn ess of the claim s that
we re being brui ted about. 12 A hi sto ri ca l d isc iplin e focused o n "mem ory"
a nd o n being useful fo r the present is in no pos itio n to coun te r such er ro r.
A hi sto ri ca l d isc ipline prope rl y attentive to hi sto ri ca l e pi stem ology, on the
oth er ha nd , ca n se rve as a m odel of ho nesty a nd intelli gence in th e in vesti -
gatio n of the hum a n wo rl d .
 NOTES

I ' TROD UC TION

Natalie Z. Davis, Th e R eturn of Martin Guerre (Ca mbrid ge, MA, 1983).
2 Davis's ep istem ological care is powerfull y displ ayed in ·· 'O n th e Lam e,'" American
Historical Review 93 ( 1988):572-6o3, w he re she res pond s to a Rat-footed critic. Issues of
truth, ev id e nce, and doubt are centra l to Th e Return of Martin Guerre: see 102, 106-8,
I 19-22, 125.
3 See Arnaldo Momigliano, "Th e Pla ce of H erodotus in the Histo ry of Hi sto ri ograph y,"
in Studies in Historiography (L ond on, 1969), 127- .j2, as well as th e rem a rkable stud y by
Fran r;ois H a rtog, Th e Mirror of Herodotus: The Representation ofthe Other in the Writing
of History, tran s. Ja net Ll oyd (Berkel ey, 1988).
4 H erodotus, The H istory, trans. David Grene (C hicago, 1987), 7. r 52; see also 2. 123.
5 Thu cyd id es, H istory of the Peloponnesian War, trans . Rex Wa rne r (Harm ond swo rth,
UK, 1954), 1.21.
6 Daniel Me nde lsohn, ''Theat res of War,'' New Yorker. 12 Ja nuary 2004, 82. Note that
both H erod o tus and Thucyd ides (not just th e former} o ffe r us " man y voices"- but
they d o so in different ways.
7 Willia m G. Th omas III a nd Edward L. Aye rs, "An Ove rview: Th e Differe nces Slav-
e ry Made: A C lose Analysis of Two American Communiti es ," American Historica l
Review 108, no. 5 (D ecem be r 2003): 1299-1307; the "full electronic ve rsio n" is avai lable
at http:// hi sto rycoope rati ve.o rg /ahr/ ; the assoc iated "d ig ita l a rchive" is at http://va lley
.vcd h. virg inia. ed u. (Note th at histo rycooperative.o rg no rm all y needs to be accessed
through a subsc ribing libra ry.)
8 Th om as and Ayers, "An Ove rview," 1301 . Thi s is a citatio n to the text that appears in
the American H1~·torica { Review itself: hencefo rth I cite both the jou rn a l and the Web
site in the chapte r tex t, using the abbreviation AHR to designate the journ al. In citin g
the Inte rn et version, I use the authors' "citation keys" (TAS 1, E 180, e tc. }. As th e authors
note, these " keys" ta ke the reade r to a particular pi ece of th e articl e w ithout hav ing to
type o ut a compli cated URL. To use this function, click o n the "Tools" button nea r th e
top of the Web page at http://www.vcd h .virg ina i.ed u /AHR and then click o n "C ita-
21 8 t NOTES T O PAGES 6-9
tio n Locator. " You shou ld be awa re, also, th at afte r clicking on the "T ools" button, you
w ill see a " Read ing Reco rd'' o ption. The Read ing Reco rd d isplays rows of dots that
sta nd fo r "the ind ividual 'atoms' that mak e up thi s publi cation." If you have "visited "
a part icu la r atom, th e dot w ill be red; those you have not "v isited" will be bl ac k. You
ca n cli ck o n the bl ac k dots to "v isit" additiona l ev idence . {It is odd that th e authors
refer here to "individual 'atoms ' of ev id ence," sin ce most of th e dots lead one to rela-
tively la rge bodi es of inform ation. But perh aps to a mind that esc hews analys is, a com-
pl ex to pog rap hi ca l map-fo r exa mple - is ind eed an indivisibl e atom to be quick ly
gla nced at and th en left beh ind as one co ntinues th e sig htseein g tour.)
9 The term data collection see m s m ore accu rate here than the term th at the authors pre-
fer, archive . Th e "Va ll ey" Web site bea rs littl e resemblan ce, in its prese ntation and ap-
parent o rga ni zing principles, to a rchives of the kind that a re produced a nd ove rsee n by
professio nal a rchivists. Sc holars w ho use profess ionall y o rgan ized arch ives have come
to expec t that the archivists w ill m ake their data avai lable in a d isinterested a nd non-
d irec tive way. That is not the case he re: th e Web site rese mbles, in its un co mm ented-
upo n but ev iden t interpretive dimensi on, a se ries of data-rich museum ex hibits or a
mod ern " reco nstru cti o n" of som e past tow n.
10 Note, howeve r, that a ca reless reade r mi g ht well infer a causa l claim from this sen-
tence- na m ely, that white peo pl e in Aug usta we re riche r th an their coun te r pa rts in
Franklin becawe of slave ry. T o be sure, thi s is not w hat th e auth ors say, but one wo n-
ders whether at so me level they w ish to in sinu ate it.
11 This is not the pla ce for a thorough a nalys is of the relat ion betwee n Thom as a nd Ay-
ers's cla ims and the ev idence th ey offe r in su pport of those claims. Such a task is better
left to the criti ca l attenti o n of spec ialists in nin etee nth -ce ntury U.S. hi story. Suffice
it to say that their deploy ment of statistics is so metim es ex trem ely difficult to fo ll ow.
For exa mple, o n th e Web page at http://vcd h. virgini a.edu / tabl esa nd stats/co mparison /
estateva lu es l 860.html , they asse rt that "Aug usta County's massive perso nal es tate va lu-
ations represented holdings in hum an prope rty-slaves," but a figure fo r "value of
slave holdings" d id not turn up in a sea rch by m yse lf and by an ass istant, Phillip H on-
enberge r. Searches we re not easy, sin ce th e Internet articl e and digital database d id not
appea r to be globall y sea rchable, no r d id it seem ce rtain w hen we accessed th e database
that all sea rch resu lts were actuall y be ing displayed. Thus we m ay have missed data
that a re in fac t "there"-somewhere. We shou ld also note th at we d id o ur th orough
exa minati o n of the "d ig ital a rchive" in Februar y 2004, and th ere is no g uara ntee that
the link s we fo ll owed will still wo rk. Subsequent researchers may have to ta ke other
routes into it.
Th omas and Aye rs do tell us that whereas in Franklin ave rage per capita prop-
erty holding (personal prope rty and rea l estate), amounted to s633, in Augusta these
amounted to s863 (S t , 11 2 if o ne counts only th e w h ites in Augusta !E1171). We had
to sea rch around for th eir fig ures fo r th e "average farmer" : these a re at E 152, w hi ch
is linked from TAF05, where they give "ave rage pe rso nal prope rty" of "fa rmers and
planters." l f o ne co nsiders o nl y perso nal property, the figures the au thors give ares 156
per capita in Frank lin and s364 pe r capita (including all res id ents) in Augusta (E 11 7).
NO T ES T O P AGES I 1- 17 t 219
Prima facie, the authors' claim th at slave ry gave Augusta Cou nty "massive personal
estate va lu at ions" in compa ri son to Frank lin County is mi slead ing, not on ly because
they a re compa ring incomparabl es, but also because they leave o ut rea l property in
m aking this cl aim (th ey report that per ca pita rea l property in Franklin was s476 and
in Augusta, s499-figures that a re quite close to eac h oth er [E11 7]).
Th e autho rs fa il to discuss w hat cou nted as personal property in the 1860 ce nsus,
no r how reliable the gathering of th ese statisti cs was o r w hat it exclud ed . (Later, l
fo und on th e Bureau of th e Ce nsus Web site the Eighth Census, U.S. Instructions, & c.
[Washingto n, D C, 1860], a docume nt apparen tl y los t until the ea rl y 1990s, that a n-
swe red some of my q ues tions lhttp://www2.ce nsus.gov/ prod 2/decenn ial/docume nts;
see item s for 1860 (accessed D ec. 2004) !.) Striking ly absent, as we ll , is a ny d iscuss ion
of debt and cred it. If the re was littl e o r no in debtedness in eith er coun ty, the au th ors
sho uld have stated thi s explicitl y and provided supporting ev idence. On the oth er
hand , if the eco nom ies in one o r both counti es we re suffic iently " m ode rn" to in volve
significan t m o rtgage and other in debtedn ess, th en no justifiable claims about wea lth
in th e two co unti es are possibl e w ith o ut bring ing in debted ness into accoun t. Co nsid er
T. Jefferson of A lbemarl e County, Virgini a, not far fr om Augusta Cou nty, w ho, at his
death in 1826, had debts that closely approached th e app raised value of his su bstantial
rea l prope rty (Dumas Mal one, Jefferson and H is Time, vol. 6, The Sage of Monticello
!Boston, MA, 198 1J, 5 11 - 12).
12 'The hi sto ri ogra ph y and ev idence occupy sepa rate spatial locati ons. They stand bes id e
th e analysis, ind epe nd ent of it" (Tl 3) Why?
13 Paul Veyne, Writing H istory: Essay on Epistemology. tra ns. M . Moo re- Rin volu cri (M id-
d letow n, CT, I 984), 3· The tran slato r inco rrec tl y rende rs "un recit veridique" in the
o rig inal French as "a true accou nt."
ONE: History with Memory, History without Memory
H erod otu s, Th e H isto1y, trans. David G rene (C hi cago, 1987), 1.1, p. 33.
2 Th e controve rsy was surveyed by a number of w ri te rs in j ournal of American H istory
82 (1995): rn29- 1144: see es pec iall y Ri chard H . Kohn, " History and the Cu lture Wa rs:
Th e Case of the Smithson ian In stitution's E nola Gay Exh ibiti on," 1026-63. O ne ca n
assay the heat of th e debate by sea rching th e keywo rd s "S mith son ian," "E nola Gay,"
and "ex hibit" on the Web: see espec iall y th e A ir Fo rce Associati on site, www.afa .org /
med ia /enolagay. H oweve r, it appears that th e co ntrove rsy was not sim ply a matter of
enli ghtened professionals vs. a self-interested subset of "the public." Som e d isc uss ion
of th e case suggests th at th e museum professi onals at th e Nati onal Air a nd Space Mu -
seum w ho plann ed th e ex hibit, nota bl y its director, Martin Harwit, and hi s curators,
engaged in a selective and tend entious read ing of th e hi sto rica l record . See Robe rt P.
Newma n, Enola Gay and the Court of H istory ( ew Yo rk , 2004), as wel l as a n articl e o f
2 August 2004 in wh ich Newma n, an eme ritu s professo r of political commun icati on
from th e University of P ittsburg h, summa ri zes his res ults: "Remember the Smithson-
ia n's Atom ic Bomb Exhibit ? You O nl y Think You Know the Truth," ava il able onlin e
220 t NOTES TO PACES I 8-23
on Geo rge Mason Unive rsity's Hi story News Web si te, http://hnn.us. (Th e article is
now cac hed; enter the words "Remember the Smithsonian" into HN N's sea rch win-
dow.) If Newman's claims a re true, thi s shows a shoc king incompetence and irrespon-
sibility on the part of the ex hibit planners.
3 Jan C. Scruggs and Joe l L. Swerdlow, To H eal a Nation: T he Vietnam Veterans Memorial
(New York, 1985), 80-84.
4 For exa mpl e, Eric Foner, Who Owns History? Rethinking the Past in a Changing World
(New York, 2002). See also O ti s Graham, "Ed itor's Co rne r: Who Ow ns Ame ri ca n His-
to ry ?" Public Historian 17 (1995): 8-1 1; and Karen ). Winkler, "Who Ow ns Hi story ?"
Chronicle of H igher Education, 20 January 1995, A 10- 11. Many oth er citations could be
added.
5 Foner, Who Owns H istory?, xvii.
6 This is the thesis of Erna Pari s, Long Shadows: Truth, Lies and H isto1y (New York ,
200 1).
7 For in fo rm at ion on the Yad Vas hem H olocaust Marty rs' and H eroes' Authority, founded
in 1953, see www.yadvashem.org .il /aboutyad / indexabout_yad.html. For Yale Univer-
sity 's Fortunoff Video Archive fo r H olocaust Testim on ies, founded in 1982 with the
purpose of continuing a project begun in 1979 by the H olocaust Survivors Film Project,
see www. library.ya le.ed u / testimonies. In late 2005 Steven Spielberg's Survivors of the
Shoah Fo und ation, fo unded in 1994, became the Unive rsi ty of Southern Ca lifornia's
Shoah Foundation In stitute; see www.usc.edu /schools/college / vhi.
8 Allen John son summa ri zes the classic case fo r the unreliability of eyewitness testimony
in hi s The H istorian and H istorical Evidence ( ew York, 1926), 26-49.
9 Law rence P. Douglas, Th e Memory of judgment: Making Law and H1~·tory in the Trials
of the H olocaust (New H ave n, C T, 200 1), 196-207. Demjanjuk's convicti on and sen-
tencing to death were ove rturned in 1993 by the Israel i Sup rem e Cou rt. It should be
noted, howeve r, th at in a characteristica ll y restrained and ca reful study, C hri stopher
R. Browning has shown th at, w here critical compa rison is possible, w itness tes timony
ca n indeed help hi storia ns fill in gaps in our histor ica l knowledge of th e past; see his
Collected Memories: H oloca ust H isto1y and Postwar Testimony (Mad ison, W I, 2003).
ro Peter Nov ick, The H olocaust in American L ife (Boston, 1999), 199- 20 1 a nd passim.
11 Li ddell and Scott, A Greek-English L exicon, new edit ion , s.v. µ.v8 os, Mv8-vop.av.
12 Thucydides, Histo1y of the Peloponnesian War, trans . Rex Warner (H armo ndswo rth,
U K., 1956), 1.21 -22.
13 This view is succ in ctl y stated by R. G . Collingwood, Th e Idea of Hist01y, rev. ed., w ith
L ectures 1926- 1928, ed . W. J. van der Dusse n (Oxfo rd, 1993), 234-35, 253-53, 366-67.
14 Martin H eid egge r, Being and Time, trans. Joa n Stambaugh (A lban y, N Y, 1996), §73,
378 ff. (Ge rm an pagination).
15 Collin gwood, Idea of History, 366, 252-54.
16 John Silverman, "Gruesome Legacy of Dr. Gross," BBC ews O nline, 6 May 1999,
www.news.bbc.co.uk / l/h i/ wo rld /eu rope / 336 189.stm . For an acco unt of euthanasia in
Vien na during the Third Reich, see H erw ig Czec h , "Forschen ohne Skrupel: Die wis-
se nsc haftli che Ve rwertu ng von Opfe rn der NS-Psychiat riemo rde in Wien," in Von der
NO TE S T O PACES 24-28 t 221
Zwangssteri!isiercmg zur E rmordung. Zur Geschichte der NS-Euthanasie in Wien, Tei I 2,
ed . Eberhard Gab ri el a nd Wolfgang Neugebauer (Vie nn a, 2002), 143-64. Dr. H ein -
rich Gross died on 15 D ece mber 2005 at age ninety, as thi s book was being prepared fo r
the press, w ithout a ve rdict having been reached in the legal proceed ings aga inst him ,
w hi ch we re suspe nd ed in 2000 because all eged adva nced dementia m ade him unfit for
trial. (New York Tim es, 23 D ecember 2005, "Obitu ari es," A21).
17 The "innoce nt Austria" myth is most clearly and widely visible in the shape of the Rod-
ge rs a nd H amm erste in musical, The Sound of Music, w hi ch appea red as an imm ensel y
popular movie in 1965. The family portrayed in the movie, the von Trapps (loosely
based on an actual Austrian family), dem onstrated their inability to come to terms w ith
th e Third Reich by leav ing Austria at conside rabl e cost to themselves. The non refl ec-
ti ve viewe r might well take the vo n Trapps as rep resentative of Austria in general. The
historian, on th e other hand , is obliged to as k an ep iste m ologica l question - namely,
w hat ev id ence is th ere that many othe r Austr ians acted, or eve n only thought, as the von
Trap ps did?
18 Paul Ricoeu r, Tim e and Naffative, l: 91- 230, 3 vols. (C hicago, 1984- 88). Vols. 1 and
2 trans . Kathl een McLaughlin and David Pellauer; vol. 3 trans. Kathleen Blarney and
David Pellauer. Some might see Ricoeur's emph asis on th e ex perience of time as ove r-
stated . For exa mple, does an archeologist need to take account of th e experience of
tim e in ord er to a rgue that things must have changed in a particular way in orde r to
account fo r surviving laye rs of a rcheological ev id ence? I do not think so: the inference
could be drawn as an ex trapolation fr om the existing, in compl ete data. But Ri coeu r's
point seems broader than this: it is that th e ve ry conception of pastness itself requires
m em o ry and the expe ri ence of time. This is one of th e things that makes hi sto ry differ-
ent fr om paleo ntol ogy o r fr om an ahistorical political science.
19 Ja cqu es Le Goff, History and Memory, trans. Steven Rendell and Elizabeth C lam an
(New York , 1992), xi.
20 The distincti on betwee n traces (Vberreste, also translatable as "remains") and sources
(Quellen ) is discussed in some detail by the histori a n and histo rical theo rist J. G.
Droyse n in hi s Outline of the Principles of Histo1y, tran s. E. Benjamin Andrews (Bos-
ton, 1893 ; translati on of Droyse n's GrundrijJ der H istorik, 3rd ed. [1882]), §§2 1-26 .
It goes back to J. M. C hl acleniu s's refl ections on hi sto rica l method in hi s Al!gemeine
Geschichtswi;senschaft, first publish ed in 1752.
21 This is noted by Eugene T. Webb et al. in th e sta nda rd social-scientific study of nonin-
tenti onal ev id ence, Nonreactive Measures in the Social Sciences, 2d eel . (Bosto n, 198 1), +
22 I summarize a sce ne in C laude L anzmann's 1985 film Shoah, where the hi stori an Raul
Hilberg, sitting in his study in Burlington, Vermont, lays out what we can infer fr om
one such train schedu le, Fah1plana11ordmmg 58]: it documents th e passage of a full
train, fifty freight ca rs long, to Treblinka , and its departure from Treblinka empty. See
C laud e Lanzm a nn, Shoah.· The Complete Text of the Film (New York , 1985), 138-42.
23 Co nsid er Wolfgang H opken, "Kriegse rinn erun g uncl ationale lcl entitat(en): Ve r-
ga nge nheitspolitik in Jugos lawie n und in den Nach folgestaaten ,'' T ransit: Europdische
Revue 15 (Fa ll 1998): 83-99. Writing of conflicting "memories" of World War II in
 222 :j: NO T ES T O P AGES 28-35
G reece an d Yugosl av ia, H i:i pk en obse rves that "dive rge nt m em ories not onl y arose
alongside eac h oth er, bu t confronted each other d irec tl y as m em ory co nflicts th at could
o nl y with di ffic ulty- if at all - be resolved in d iscourse" (85). Exampl es could be mul-
tiplied endl essly.
24 Whil e l was rev ising thi s chapte r, l received an e- m ail fr om Geo rge T. C rafts, an ac-
qui sitions spec iali st in the U ni ve rsity of Virg inia 's Alde rman Libra ry (e- m ail , headed
" H olocaust testimony in de x," fr om Geo rge T. C rafts to U ni ve rsity of V irg inia history
a nd relig ious studies facu lty and g rad uate stu dents, 3 June 2003). Mr. C rafts noted that
the "Visual Hi story Foundation" had given th e library a free co py of the di gital ind ex to
fift y-one th ousa nd vid eotaped inte rviews with H olocau st sur vivors from the Spielberg
a rchive. Mr. C raft s also noted th at th e interviews we re "onl y ava ilabl e fo r purchase, not
fo r loa n" a nd that th e cost was S92.oo per testimo ny. At th at rate, a com plete archive of
testim oni es would cost S4,692,ooo, a pri ce fa r beyond the reac h of alm ost any academic
libra ry. But presum abl y man y peopl e woul d be w illing to pay s92.oo to see a g rand-
pa rent interviewed about hi s or her ex perience of the H olocaust. This un de rsco res my
point here.
Later, in October 2005, it was a nn oun ced th at th e "Sur vivo rs of th e Shoah Vi sual
Hi sto ry Found ation" would becom e pa rt of an academi c environm ent, th e U nive rsity
of Southe rn Ca li fo rni a, und er th e na me "USC Shoa h Found ation Insti tute fo r Visual
Hi sto ry and Education" (see www. usc.edu /sc hools/coll ege / vhi). Whil e this new ar-
range m ent will mak e th e current fift y-two th ousa nd testim oni es readil y ava ilabl e to
resea rchers and others, th e move seem s to rep resent as mu ch the mem ori ali zati on of
history as it does th e hi sto ricali zation o f m em ory. Reade rs are in vited to judge for
themsel ves by accessing the Web site.
25 Th e best entry to th e noti on of coll ec ti ve m em ory is still Maurice H albwac hs, On
Collective Memo1y, ed . a nd trans. Lewis A. Cose r (C hi cago, 1992); see es peciall y Cose r's
introdu cti on, 1-3 4.
26 Fo r the G erm an va ri a nt of the ma ster na rrati ve, see G eo rg G . Igge rs, The German
Conception of Histo1y: Th e National T radition of Historical Thought from H erder to the
Present, 2d. ed . (Middl etow n , C T , 1983). O n th e groun d in g of th e ninetee nth-ce ntury
histori cal profession in an ultim atel y C hristi an g ra nd narrative, see cha pter 9.
27 "Address to the Nation about th e Watergate In vestigati ons," www.watergate.in fo/
n i xo n I 73-04-30wate rgate-speec h .sh tm I.
28 J ea n - Fran~oi s L yotard, Th e Postmodern Condition : A R eport on K nowledge, tran s. Geo ff
Benning ton a nd Brian Mass umi (Minn ea poli s, 1984), xxiii.
29 To be sure, g ra nd na rrative, if it entirely subordinates hi stori ca l pa rticula rs to the de-
ve lopmental or sa lvational story that it w ishes to tell, can bl ot out history a nd hi storica l
thinking. Thi s is w hy Marxism so easil y tipped ove r from hi story to an ill egitim ate
science o r theory of hi sto ry, a nd w hy the C hri sti an sa lvation sto ry needed to unde rgo a
secul a ri zation befo re it co uld offe r a bas is, in th e late eighteenth and ea rl y nineteenth
ce nturi es, fo r th e em erge nce of th e hi stori ca l di sc iplin e.
30 The Disney proposa l was ex ten sively di scussed in th e press in r994. Am ong m any
other item s, see the editori al by D av id H ackett: "Disney, Leave Virgini a A lone; G ive
Us o Imitati on Hi story," St. Petersburg T imes, 1 June 1994.
NO TE S T O PAGES 37-.p :j: 223
3 1 Pe rh aps th e best-know n wo rk in the ge nre is Studs Terkel, "The Good War ": An Oral
H istory of World War Two (New York , 1984).
32 Note in pa rticul a r the almost eig ht-hundred-page Handbuch der Geschichtsdidaktik, 5th
ed., ed. Kl aus Bergm ann et al. (Seel ze- Velber, Ge rman y, r997).
33 See "A Blog Takes Off," Ch ronicle of H igher Education, 6 June 2003, A 15, w hich re-
ports that Eric L. Muller, author of Free to Die for Th eir Country: Th e Story of the
Japanese American D raft Resisters in Wo rld War 11 (Chicago, 200 I) made , on his Web log,
som e w idel y noti ced criti cism s of fa lse statements conce rning Ja panese resettl em ent in
World Wa r II by U.S. Rep. H owa rd Coble, No rth Ca rolina Republica n and cha irm an
of the H ouse Jud ici a ry Subcommittee on C rime, Terro ri sm , and H omeland Security.
3-l Imm anuel Kant, T he Conflict of the Faculties, trans. Mary J. G rego r (New York , 1979) .
35 Michel de Ce rteau, "The Hi stori ograp hi ca l O peration," in Th e Writing of H istory,
trans. Tom Conl ey (New Yo rk , 1988), 56- 11 3.
Tw o : History, Memory, Identity
Th e cl assic defe nse of th e m ethodologica l unity, and hence unive rsality, of history is
R. G. Collingwood , Th e Idea of H istory, rev. ed., w ith L ectures 1926- 1928, ed . W. J. va n
de r Dusse n ( 1946; repr., Oxfo rd , 1993), "Epilegom ena," 23 1-3 15. O n the unive rsa l/
pa rti cul a r oppositi on, see, fo r exa mpl e, Eric W. H obsbaw m , "The Hi stori an betwee n
th e Q uest fo r the Unive rsa l and the Q uest for Id entity," D iogenes 168 ( 1994): 5 1-64.
2 Ian H acking, Rewriting the Soul: M ultiple Personality D isorder and the Sciences ofM emmy
(Prin ce ton, NJ, 1995), 21 3. T wo imm ense ly influenti al book s th at took th e " m em ory as
empowe rment " route a re Ell en Bass and Laura D av is, Th e Courage to H ea l: A Guide
for Women Survivors of Child Sexual ,.J buse (New York , 1988); and Judith L ewis H er-
m ann, T rauma and Recovery (New York, 1992). O n the " recove red m em ory" phenom -
enon ge ne rall y, see Hackin g, Rew riting the Soul, chap. 15, "Me m oro-Politics," 210 -20;
a nd Elain e Showa lter, H ystories: H ysterical Epidemics and M odem Culture (New York,
1997), chap. 10, "Recove red Mem ory," 145-58. N ichola s P. Spanos, M ultiple Identities
and False Memories: A Sociocogn itive Perspective (Washin gton, D C , 1996) p rov ides an
entry to much of th e literature.
3 l n Satan 's Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of a Modem ,.Jmerican Witch H unt (New
York, 1995), D ebbie Nath an and Michae l Sned eker survey th e pleth ora of "ritual
abuse" cases dealt with in th e U.S. lega l system in th e 1980s and ea rly 1990s: such cases
no rm all y in volved som e fo rm of m emory "recove ry."
Eli zabeth Loftu s and Katherine Ketcham , in Th e Myth of Repressed Memo1y: False
Memories and A llegations ofSexual Abuse (New Yo rk , 1994), di scuss a number of spec ific
cases, includin g that of Geo rge Franklin , in Cali fo rni a, w hose co n viction fo r murde r,
on the bas is of so-ca ll ed recove red memo ri es, was ultim atel y ove rturned, and that of
D eputy Sheriff Paul Ing ra m of O lym pi a, Wa shington, w hose 1989 conviction on six
counts of third- degree rape, lik ew ise on the bas is of such memo ri es, still stood as of
ea rl y 200+ (Ing ram was fin a ll y rel eased o n parole in 2003, hav ing se rved fo urtee n years
of hi s twenty-yea r sentence.) L aw rence Wrig ht, in Remembering Satan (New York ,
1994), offe rs a devastatin g account of how the Ing ram case was conducted . It is highl y
224 t NO TE S T O PAGES 43-46
probable th at Ing ram was innocent of the charges aga inst him, but it see ms to have
se rved a broader social function in Washington state to swee p thi s fact und er the rug.
4 Tim Judah, The Serbs: History, Myth, and the D estruction of Yugoslavia (New H ave n,
CT, 1997), xi-xii and passim.
5 An impo rtant point of entry is Saul Fried lander, ed., Probing the Limitsof Representation:
Nazism and the "Final Solution" (Ca mbridge, MA, 1992): see especially th e essays by
Christopher R. Browning, Dominick La Ca pra, and Eri c L. Santner. And reas Huyssen
dea ls with th e paradoxes of Hol ocaust m em ory in "Mo num ents and H olocaust Mem-
ory in a Media Age," in his Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia
(New York, 1995), 249-60.
6 C ha rl es S. Maier, The Unmasterable Past: H ist01y, H olocaust, and German National
Identity (Cam bridge, MA, 1988), es p. chap. 3, "A H olocaust Lik e th e Others? Problems
of Compa rative History," 66-99.
7 Harold Noonan offers a reliable account of Hum e's views in hi s Personal Identity (Lon-
don, 1989), 77- 103 .
8 C harl es T ay lor, Sources of the Self The Making of the Modern Identity (Ca mbridge, MA:
1989), 25 -3 2 and passim. The earlier, pre- retreat dispensation is well described by
). G . Droysen, Outline of the Principles of Histo1 y, tran s. E . Benjamin Andrews (Bos ton ,
1893; transl ation of Grundrij3 der H istorik, 3rd ed., 1882): "The human bei ng is, in es-
sential nature, a totality in himself, but rea li zes this character onl y in understanding
others and in being und erstood by th em . . .. Th e individu al is only relati ve ly a totality.
H e unde rstand s and is und erstood only as a specimen and ex pression of the partner-
ships whose m ember he is and in whose esse nce and development he has a pa rt, himself
being but an exp ress ion of this essence and developm ent " (sec. 12, p. 14).
9 Cf. Stephen Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (C hi-
cago, 1980). Self-fashio ning is one of the key id eas of adva nced modernity; our posses-
sion of it enabl es us to d isce rn its anal ogues in ea rlier tim es.
ro Friedrich N ietzsc he, "Skirmishes of an Untimely Man," sec. 49, from Twilight of the
Idols, in The Portable Nietzsche, ed . and trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York , r954), 554.
r r Contrast this w ith peasa nt culture as described by John Berger: " Peasa nts do not play
roles as urban cha racters do ... because th e space between what is unkn ow n about a
person and w hat is ge nerall y kn own ... is too sma ll " (Pig Earth !New York , 1979],
IO) . To be sure, the situati on that Berger describes m ay be more a characteristic of
"p remode rnity" in the West, domin ated by an auth oritative monotheistic relig ion, than
a universa l characte ri sti c; I do not know how ge ne rali za bl e Berger's descript ion is.
12 As one lite rary scholar puts it, " memo ry stabilizes subj ec ts and constitutes th e present.
It is the nam e we g iv e to the faculty that sustains continuity in coll ective and in indi-
vidual experie nce"; Richard Terdim an, Present Past: Modernity and th e Memory Crisis
(Ith aca, N Y, 1993), 8.
13 T wo ea rl y ma rkers of w hat later beca m e a massive interest in the history -me mory
relation are by Pi erre Nora : "Memoire de J'historien, mem oi re de l'histoire: Entretien
avec J. -B. Pontalis," Nouvelle Revue de psychanalyse 15 (1977): 22 r-34, and "L a Memoire
coll ectiv e," in La nouvelle Histoire, ed . Jacques Le Goff (Paris, 1978), 398-40 1. Duri ng
NOTES TO PAGES 47-49 t 225
the 1980s the tri ckl e became a Aood, but see especiall y Jacques Le Goff, History and
Memory, trans. Steven Rend all and Elizabeth C lama n (New York , 1992; first published
in Ital ian in 1986 and then in French in 1988); and th e monumental collective work
edited by Pierre ora, L es Lieux de memoire, 7 vols. (Pa ri s, 1984 - 92). Many essays
from this last wo rk have appea red in Engli sh in Realms ofMemory, ed . Pierre Nora, En-
glish language edition eel . Lawrence D. Kritz m an, tran s. Arthur Goldhammer, 3 vols.
(New York, 1996). Nora's "Preface to th e Engl ish-Language Edition" (r :xv-xxiv)
m akes clear th e close connec tion betwee n " rea lms of mem ory" a nd issues of (French)
identity. See also Amos Funkenstein, "Collective Memory and Hi storical Co nscious-
ness," History and Memory: Studies in Representation ofthe Past 1 ( 1989): 5-27; and Wu lf
Kansteiner, "Finding Mean ing in Memory: A Methodological C ritique of Coll ective
Memory Studies," H isto1yand Theory 41 (2002): 179-97.
q Maurice H albwac hs, L es Cadres sociaux de la memoire, postface by Gerard Namer
(Pa ris, 1994); La Topographie ligendaire des evangiles en terre sainte, 2d ed., preface by
Fernand Dumont (Pa ri s, 197 1); and Th e Collective Memory, trans. Francis J. Ditter
Jr. and Vida Yazd i Ditter, with an introducti on by Mary D oug las (New Yo rk, r980).
For an abridged translati on of L es Cadres and a translation of the conclus ion of L a
Topographie legendaire, see Halbwachs, On Collective Memo1y, ed. and trans. Lew is A.
Coser (Chicago, 1992).
r5 Maurice H albwac hs, "P reface" and "Conclusion" to Th e Social Frameworks of Memory,
in H albwachs, On Collective Memo1y, 40, 182.
16 Halbwac hs, The Collective Memory, 84.
17 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism, rev. ed. (Lo ndon, 199 1; o rig. pub. in 1983).
18 The impo rtance of"fo rgettin g" was perhaps first noted by Ernest Renan in his classic
lecture, "What Is a Nation?" ( 1882), where he pointed out th at the em ergence of the
French nati on required that th e Saint Bartholem ew's Day massacre (w hen Ca tholics
murdered Protesta nts) needed to recede from view. See Renan , "What ls a Nation?"
trans. Martin Thom , in Nation and Narration, ed . Homi K . Bhabha (London, 1990),
8- 22.
r9 In his "General Introduction: Between Memory and Hi sto ry," in Realms of Memory,
Nora deftly notes thi s dialectic of nostalg ia and memory-or, to put the matter in
oth er terms, between complace nt identity and threate ned id entity: see R ealms of
Memory, 1: 5-6. Ind eed, it may well be th at thi s dialectic, more than that "between
history and memo ry," is th e true ax is of thi s inAuential work. No doubt a key impulse
behind the lieux de memoire project was a feeling that French identity req uired criti ca l
exa mination precisely because its mea ning, by the late 1970s a nd early 1980s, was no
longer as cl ea r as it had seemed before.
20 National History Day, In c., National H istory Day Student Contest Guide (Coll ege Pa rk ,
MD , 1993), 2.
21 "Strictl y spea king an orig in al record would be one w hich contains the direct testim ony
of an eyew itn ess of eve nts. All othe r accounts derived from thi s would be seconda ry
sources. Us uall y, howeve r, accounts secured by contempora ries from eyew itnesses are
226 :j: NO TE S T O PAGES 50-53
treated as original sources. Contemporaneousness becomes the real test." See Allen
John son, Th e Historian and Historical Evidence ( Tew York, 1926), 61.
22 On the weakn ess of testimony gene rall y (eve n that w hich imm ediatel y follows the
events reported), Johnson's chapter on 'The Basis of Historical Doubt" in The Historian
and Historical Evidence, 24 - 49, has neve r been surpassed; see also hi s chapter in that
volum e on "The Nature of Historical Proof," 141 - 56. Still , as Chr istopher Browning
shows in his use of the testimoni es of 173 survivors of th e slave labor ca mps in Staracho-
w ice, Poland , if th ere is an adequately dense sa mpl e of testimoni es, th e histori an may be
able to learn qu ite a lot from applying criti ca l procedures to them; see Ch ri stopher R.
Browning, Collected Memories: Holocaust History and Postwar Testimony (Madison, W I,
2003), 59, 60-85.
23 This view is close to what Maurice Ma nd elbaum refe rs to as " th e doctrine of immedi-
acy," wh ich he suggests "has gained a dominant position in twentieth -ce ntury thought";
see Mauri ce Mandelbaum, H isto1y, Man, and Reason: A Study in Nineteenth-Centwy
Th ought (Baltim ore, 197 1), 350-64, at 358.
24 Margaret Smith [pseud.J, Ritual Abuse: What It ls, Why ft Happens, and How to Help
(New Yo rk, 1993). Subsequentl y cited in the text by page number in parentheses.
25 Hacking, Rewriting the Soul, 18. In 1994 th e Ame ri can Psychiatric Association re-
nam ed MPD "dissociative identity di so rd er," but thi s set of phenomena conti nued to
be w id ely kn ow n und e r the ea rli er nam e or va riants thereof. Fo r a d esc ripti on, includ-
ing diag nostic cr ite ria, see Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed.
[DSM -I V] (Washin gton , DC, 1994), 484-87. The na me chan ge from "multiple per-
sonality disord er" to "dissociative id entity disord er" ac know ledges that th e re a re not
many id entities, but one (damaged ) id entity.
26 The videotapes were produced at the Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy,
Un ive rsity of V irginia, during th e ea rl y 1990s, wit h subject permissi on for training and
research purposes.
27 Friedri ch Nietzsche, On the Genealogy ofMorality: A Polemic, trans . Maudemarie Clark
and Alan J. Swensen (Indi anapo li s, 1998), "Second Treatise," sec. 1- 2, pp. 35-36. Sub-
sequently cited in th e text by page number in parentheses.
28 Sigmund Freud, "O n the Psychical Mechanism of Hysterical Phen om ena: A Lecture"
( 1893), in Freud, The Standard Edition ofthe Complete Psychological Works, trans. under
th e general editorsh ip of Jam es Strachey, 24 vols. (London, 1953-74), 3: 25 -39. O ther
ea rly twenti eth -ce ntury therapists w ho shared Freud's wish to help patients overcome
m emory includ e Pierre Janet and H . H . Goddard (on w hom , see Hacking, Rewriting
the Soul, 86, 252, 260-6 1).
29 H ac king, Rewriting the Soul, 260.
30 Ol ive r Sac k s, Th e Man Who M!Stook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinica l Tales (New
York , 1985).
31 Geoffrey H . Hartman , "Judging Paul de Man," in Minor Prophecies: The Litermy Essay
in the Culture Wan (Ca mbridge, MA, 199 1), 123-48: "The aim of judgm ent in histori-
ca l or literary-c riti ca l discourse . . . is to change history into mem ory: to make a case for
what should be remembered, and how it shou ld be rem embered . This responsibility
NO TE S TO P AG E S 54-57 :j: 22 7
conve rts eve ry judgment into a judgm ent on the person who mak es it" ( 148). This last
point is prec isely ri ght: th e shift from "hi stor y" to "memory" entails a shift - fr om a
deliberation concern in g what was or was not th e case in the past, to th e offering of
judgments concerning the character, political comm itm ents, and so on of those persons
cla iming to speak about th e past. Let us im agine what quality of academ ic di sc ussion
such a move is lik ely to occas ion. First of all we would need reli able tests of character,
political commitment, and the like, and the wo rk done by the persons we are judging
would be of seco ndary importance; cf. th e introducti on to this book.
32 Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, "Against Epistemology," in Questions of E vidence: Proof,
Practice, and Persuasion across the Disciplines, ed. James Chand ler, A rnold I. Davidson ,
and H arry Harootunian (C hi cago, 1994), 136. It is not entirel y cl ea r w hat Sedgw ick
m ea ns by an "erotics" of ev id ence. l take it th at th e phrase denotes an emphasi s on
th e dram atization of present concerns w ithin a media or other pe rformative context,
without much (o r any) attention being give n to how the precise o r litera l truth of th e
dramatization is establish ed.
33 C f. Johannes Fabian, Remembering the Present: Painting and Popular History in Zaire,
w ith narrati ve and paintings by Tshibumba Kanda Matulu (Berkeley, 1996).
34 For an analysis of this so rt of move , and of the opposing "c ritical " or " rev ision ist"
m ove, see Steven Knapp , "Coll ectiv e Memory and th e Actual Past," Representations
no. 26 (S prin g 1989): 123- 49.
35 Paul Ricoeur, Time and Narra tive, 3 vols.; vols. 1 and 2 tran s. Kathl een McLaugh lin
and David Pellauer; vol. 3 trans. Kathleen Blarney and Dav id Pell auer (C hicago, 1984-
88), 1:ix.
36 Collingwood, Idea of History, pt. 5, "Epilegomena," and chap. 3, "H istor ical E vid ence,"
249- 82. Th e discussion entitl ed "Who Killed John Doe ?" begins at 266. Subsequently
cited in the text by page number in pa renth eses.
37 C hapter 6 of this volum e shows emphati cally that this claim is false.
38 Michel de Certeau, The Writing of History, trans. Tom Conley (New York , 1988),
xxv-xxv i, 5, 39, 46-47, 85, 9 1, 94, 99-rn2, 21 8-26, 246- 48, and passim.
39 H ayden White, "The Politics of Histo rica l Interpretation : Discipline and D e-
Sublimation," in The Content of the Form: Narrative Discoun·e and Historical Repre-
sentation (Baltimore , 1987), 72.
40 H ayden White, "The Question of Na rrative in Contemporary Historical Theory," in
Th e Content of the Form, 53 .
41 H erodotus , Th e History, trans. David Grene (Chicago: University of C hicago Press,
1987), 7.152, p. 521 : "I must tell what is said , but I am not at al l bound to believe it, and
this comment of mine hold s abou t m y w hole H istory ."
42 I owe seve ra l id eas and fo rmulations in this paragraph and in the next two to Michael B.
G uenther.
43 Friedrich N ietzsche, The Gay Science, sec. 125, in The Gay Science, with a Prelude in
Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs, tra ns. Walter Kaufmann (New Yo rk, 1974).
44 As his Nand y, "History's Forgotten Doubles," History and Theo1y, Theme Issue 34
(1995): 44-66, at 44> 47- 48, 53·
226 t NOTES TO PA GES 50-53
treated as o rig in al sources. Contemporaneousness becomes the real test." See Allen
Joh nson, The H istorian and H istorical Evidence ( 1ew York, 1926), 61.
22 On th e weakness of testimony gene rall y (eve n that w hich immed iately fo llows the
eve nts repo rted), Johnson's chapter on "Th e Basis of Hi sto rica l Doubt" in Th e H istorian
and H istorical Evidence, 24 - 49, ha s neve r been su rpassed; see also hi s chapter in that
volum e on "Th e Nature of Histori cal Proof," 141 -56. Still , as Chr istophe r Brow ning
shows in his use of the testimoni es of 173 su rvivo rs of th e slave labo r camps in Staracho-
wice, Poland , ifthere is an adequ ately dense sampl e of testim onies, th e histori a n may be
able to learn quite a lot from applying criti ca l procedu res to them ; see C hristopher R.
Browning, Collected Memories: Holocaust H isto1yand Postwar Testimony (Mad ison, W I,
2003), 59, 60-85.
23 This view is close to what Maurice Mande lbaum refers to as " the doctrine of immedi-
acy," w hi ch he suggests " has ga ined a domi na nt position in twentieth-centu ry thought";
see Maurice Mandelbaum, H istory, Man, and Reason:,-! Study in Nineteenth-Century
Thought (Ba ltim ore, 197 1), 350-64, at 358.
24 Marga ret Sm ith [pseud.J, Ritual Abuse: What It Is, Why ft H appens, and H ow to Help
(New Yo rk , 1993). Subseq uen tl y cited in the tex t by page number in parentheses.
25 H acking, Rewriting the Soul, 18. In 1994 the Am erican Psyc hi atri c Assoc iation re-
named MPD "d issociat ive identity di so rder," but this set of phenom ena continued to
be w id ely kn ow n under the ea rli er name or va ri a nts thereof. Fo r a description, includ-
in g d iagnostic criteria , see Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th ed.
[DSM-!VI (Was hington, DC, 1994), 484- 87. The nam e change from " multiple per-
sona lity disord er" to "d issociative ide ntity d isorder" ac know ledges that there are not
many id entiti es, but one (da m aged) id entity.
26 The vid eotapes were produced at th e In stitute of Law, Psyc hiatry a nd Publi c Policy,
Un ive rsity of Vi rg ini a, du ring the ea rl y 1990s, wi th subj ec t permiss ion for training and
resea rch pu rposes.
27 Fri ed ri ch ietzsc he, On the Genealogy ofMorality: A Polemic, trans. Maud emari e C lark
a nd Alan J. Swensen (In d ia napol is, 1998), "Second Treati se," sec. l -2, pp. 35-36. Sub-
seq uentl y cited in the text by page number in parentheses.
28 Sigmun d Freud , "O n the Psychical Mec hani sm of H yste rica l Phenom ena: A L ec ture"
( 1893), in Freud, The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works, tran s. under
th e ge ne ral ed ito rship of Jam es Strachey, 24 vols. (Lond o n, 1953-74), 3: 25-39. Othe r
ea rl y twentieth -ce ntury therapists w ho shared Freud 's w ish to help patients ove rcome
memory includ e Pi erre Ja net a nd H . H . Godda rd (o n whom, see H acking, Rewriting
the Soul, 86, 252, 260-61).
29 H ac king, R ewriting the Soul, 260.
30 Ol ive r Sacks, Th e Man Who Mistook H is Wife for a H at and Other Clinical Tales (New
Yor k , 1985).
3 1 Geoffrey H. H a rtman , "Judging Paul de Man," in Minor Prophecies: Th e Literary Essay
in the Culture Wan· (Camb ridge, MA, 199 1), 123-48: "Th e aim of judgment in histo ri-
cal o r litera ry-c ri tical d iscourse ... is to change hi sto ry into memory: to make a case fo r
w hat shou ld be remembe red, and how it shou ld be remem bered . This responsibility
NOTES TO PAGES 54 -57 t 227
converts every judgme nt into a judg ment on the person w ho ma kes it" ( 148). This last
poi nt is precisely right: the shift fr om "histo ry" to "memory" entail s a shift - from a
de liberati on co ncern ing what was or was not the case in the past, to th e offe ring of
judgments conce rning th e character, politi ca l comm itm ents, and so on of those persons
claiming to spea k about the past. Let us imagine w hat quality of academic discussio n
such a m ove is likely to occas ion. First of all we would need reliable tests of cha racte r,
politi ca l co mmitm ent, and the like, and th e wor k done by the persons we a re judging
would be of second a ry im po rtance; cf. th e introdu cti on to thi s book.
32 Eve Kosofs ky Sedgwick , "Against Epistem ology," in Questions of Evidence: Proof,
Practice, and Persuasion across the Disciplines, ed . James C handler, Arnold I. Davidso n,
and H ar ry H arootuni an (C hi cago, 1994), 136. It is not entirely clear what Sedgwick
m ea ns by a n "eroti cs" of ev ide nce. I tak e it that the phrase denotes an emph asis on
the d ramati zati on of present conce rns w ithin a m ed ia or othe r pe rformative co ntext,
w ithout much (o r any) attention be ing g ive n to how th e prec ise or literal truth of th e
d ramatizat ion is establi shed .
33 Cf. Johann es Fabia n, R emembering the Present: Painting and Popular H istory in Zaire,
w ith na rrative a nd pa intings by Tshibumba Kanda Matu lu (Berk eley, 1996).
34 Fo r a n anal ys is of this so rt of move , a nd of th e op posing "c riti cal" o r " rev ision ist"
move, see Steven Kn ap p, "Coll ecti ve Memory and the Actual Past," Representations
no. 26 (Sp ring 1989): 123-49.
35 Pau l Ri coeu r, Time and Narra tive, 3 vols.; vols. 1 and 2 trans. Kathleen McLaugh lin
and D av id Pell auer; vol. 3 trans. Kathlee n Blarney and Dav id Pellauer (C hi cago, 1984-
88), l:i x.
36 Collingwood, Idea of H isto1y, pt. 5, "Epil ego m ena ," and chap. 3, "Hi stori ca l E vidence,"
249-82. The d iscussion entitled "Who Kill ed John D oe?" begins at 266. Subsequentl y
cited in th e tex t by page number in pa renth eses.
37 C ha pter 6 of thi s vo lum e shows emp hati ca ll y that thi s cl aim is fa lse.
38 Mich el de Ce rteau , The Writing of H istory, trans. T om Conl ey (New York, 1988),
xxv -xxv i, 5, 39, 46 - 47, 85, 9 1, 94, 99- 102, 2 18-26, 246- 48, a nd passim.
39 H ayde n W hite, "Th e Politi cs of Hi stori ca l Interpretation: Discipline and D e-
Sublimation," in The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and H istorical Repre-
sentation (Ba ltimore, 1987), 72.
40 H ayde n White, "Th e Q uestion of a rrati ve in Contempo rary Hi stori ca l Th eo ry," in
The Content of the Form, 53.
41 H erodotus, Th e H istory, trans. David G rene (C hi cago: Unive rsity of C hi cago Press,
1987), 7. 152, p. 52 r: " I mu st tell w hat is sa id , but I am not at all bound to believe it, and
thi s comment of mine hold s about my w hole H istory."
.j2 I owe seve ral ideas and formulat ions in thi s parag raph and in the next two to Michae l B.
G uenther.
43 Fried ri ch Nietzsche, The Gay Science, sec. 125, in Th e Gay Science, with a Prelude in
Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs, tra ns. Walte r Kau fmann (New Yo rk , 1974).
44 As hi s Nandy, " Hi sto ry's Fo rgotten Doubles," H isto1y and Theory, Th eme Issue 34
( 1 995): 44 -66, at -14, 47-48, 53 ·
228 t NOTES T O PAGES 58-67
45 Dipesh C hakrabarty, "Th e Rational and th e Magical in Subaltern Studies," lecture
de livered in the University of Vi rginia Th eo ry Semi na r, 28 February 1997.
46 O n the centrality of autopsy, or eyew itnessing, fo r H erodotus, see Fra n ~o i s Hartog,
The Mirror of H erodotus: The Representation of the Other in the Writing of H ist01y, trans.
Janet Ll oyd (Be rkeley, 1988), 260-73. Th e emphasis on the need to supplement wit-
nesses and their testimony (Quellen) with material remains (Uberreste ) was most fa-
mously articul ated by Droysen.
47 See Mark J. Osiel , Mass Atrocity, Collective Memo1y, and the Law (N ew Brunswick,
N J: Transac tion Publishers, 1997). The combin ed (a nd necessa ril y conflicting) aims
of truth / justice and reconciliation were most clea rl y th ose of the South Africa n Truth
and Reconcili ati on Commission. See Sou th Afr ica Truth and Reconciliation Commis-
sion, Report, 7 vols. (Ca pe Tow n, 1998). Th e TRC's home page (www.doj.gov.za / trc /}
and related sites also make other material ava il able.
THREE : Does Narrative Have a Cognitive Va lue of Its Own?
Louis 0 . Mink, " N a rrative Form asa Cognitive Instrum ent," in H istorica l Understanding,
by Louis 0 . Mink, ed . Brian Fay, Eugene 0 . Golob, and Ri chard T. Vann (Ith aca, NY,
1987), 182-203 , at 198 a nd 186.
2 Loui s 0 . Min k, "O n th e Writing and Rew ritin g of Hi sto ry," in Mink, Historical
Understanding, 89-105, at 9 1.
3 Hayden Whi te, Metahisto1y: Th e H istorical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe
(Ba ltimore, MD, 1973). Ewa Domanska gives a good se nse of White's impact on the
field in her interviews with va ri ous philosophers of hi story and hi sto ri ans of histori-
ography: Ewa D omanska , ed., Encounters: Philosophy of History after Postmodernism
(C ha rl ottesvill e, VA, 1998) .
4 For a particularly clea r and comprehensive attempt to desc ribe and elaborate on a so-
called "na rrative parad ig m," see Walter R. Fisher, Hu man Communication as Narration:
Toward a Ph ilosophy of Reason, Va lue, and Action (Columbi a, SC, 1987), espec iall y parts
2 and 3.
5 The story/d iscourse d istin ction is canon ical in structuralist narrative th eory. For one
famo us a rticu lation, see Boris Tomashevsky, "Thematique," in Th eorie de la litterature,
ed . and tran s. T zvetan Todorov (Pa ri s, 1965), 263-307. Sey mour C hatma n, Story and
Discourse: Narrative Structttre in Fiction and Film (Ithaca, NY, 1978), probabl y remains
the most accessibl e and useful account fo r most hi stori ans.
6 Fo r a brief survey of the literature questi oning th e viability of narrative, see Rich-
ard Kea rney, "The C risis of Narrative in Co ntemporary C ulture," Metaphilosophy 28
(1997): 183-95.
7 Jea n - Fran ~o i s Lyota rd, The Postmodem Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. Geoff
Bennington a nd Bri an Massumi (Minnea polis, 1984), xxii i-xxiv.
8 Pierre Nora makes an analogous point with rega rd to m em ory (a n existential ph enom-
enon that is closely related to the li te rary phenomenon of narrative): "The less coll ective
NO T ES T O P AGES 68-7 1 t 229
the ex peri ence of memory is, the greate r th e need fo r individua ls to bea r th e burde n,
as if an inner voice were needed to tell each Co rsica n 'You must be Co rsican' and eac h
Breton 'You must be Breton'" ("Ge neral Int roduction: Between Memo ry and Hi story,"
in Realms of Memory, ed. Pierre No ra, English-language edition, ed. L aw rence D.
Kritz man, tran s. A rthur Goldh amm er, 3 vols. I ew Yo rk , 1996 1, 1: 1-20, at 11 ).
9 L yota rd , Postmodern Condition, 46- 47, 67, and throughout.
10 Walter Benj am in , "The Sto ryteller: Refl ections on the Work of N icol ai Leskov," and
"The Wo rk of Art in the Age of Mec hanical Reprodu ction," in fllumin ations, by Walter
Benjamin, ed . H annah A rendt (New York , 1969), 83- 109, 21 7-5 1.
11 Although hi s focus is on memory rath er than na rrative, No ra also comes cl ose to mak -
ing such a suggest ion in d iscussing "a rchiva l memory," in " Betwee n Memory and Hi s-
to ry," es p. 8- 11.
12 Lette r fr om associate di recto r, Office of Intern ational Affairs, Unive rsity o f - - - , to
A. Megill , dated 3 Feb ruary 1998, asking fo r a letter supporting the visa appli cati on of
Professor Y.
13 Beyond Ka fka, Max Weber remain s the classic wri ter on bureaucracy. But fo r a more
spec ifi c and up-to-d ate view, see Th eodore M. Porter, Trust in Numbers: Th e Pursuit of
Objectivity in Science and Public L ife (P rin ceton, J, 1995). Porter desc ribes in g reat de-
tail the wo rkings of a "m ec hani cal" ob jec tivity that seeks to create uni fo rm catego ri es
in term s of wh ich we then class particul a r phenomena. A cha racteri st ic device of this
stati stica l o rientation is the questi onnai re or table (see, e.g., Porter, Trust in N umbers,
35-36), wh ich on its face has little in comm on wi th the na rrative. See also chapte r 5 of
this book.
1.+ See Car l. G. H empel , "The Function of Ge neral Laws in Histo ry," in Theories of
H isto1y, ed. Patrick Ga rdin er (New Yo rk , 1959), 344 -55, at 346. O rig. pub. in j ournal
of Ph ilosophy 39 f 19.pJ: 35- 48.
15 Friedrich ietzsche, H uman, All-Too-H uman: A Bookfor Free Spirits, trans. R. J. H ol-
lingdale (Ca mbrid ge, 1996), vol. 1, pt.1, sec. 2, p. 13.
16 Michel Foucault, Th e Archaeology of Kn owledge, trans. A. M. Sheridan Sm ith (New
York , 1972), 12.
17 Be n jamin, "Theses," thes is 18.A, in Benj a min , Illuminations, 263.
18 L yotard , Postmodern Condition, 3.
19 An "advanced" Google® sea rch in Jun e 2004 of "Tra ns World Airlin es Flight 800"
and "cras h" generated 370 hits. The official cl a im is that Flig ht 800 was destroyed by a
spa rk in its main fuel tank.
20 Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the H uman Sciences ( ew
York , 1970), xx ii -xxiii , 42 - 43, 250-53, 386-87.
21 Roland Ba rthes, "Introducti on to th e Structural Analys is of Na rratives," in Image,
Music, Text (New Yo rk , 1977), 79- 124, at 79; Paul Ricoe ur, T ime and Narra tive, 3 vols.
(C hi cago, 1984-88), 1: xi; vols. 1 and 2, trans. Kath lee n McLaughlin and Dav id Pel-
lau er, vol. 3, trans. Kathl een Blarn ey and David Pell aue r; M ink, "Na rrative Form as a
Cogniti ve Instrum ent," 186; W. B. Gallie, Philosophy and the H istorical Understanding,
23 0 f NO TE S T O PAGES 7 2 -7 5
2d ed . ( ew York, 1968), esp. chap. 2, "What Is a Story? " 22 - 50; and H ayde n White,
"Th e Va lue of a rrativity in th e Represe ntation of Rea lity," in Th e Content of the Fann:
Narrative Discourse and H istorical R epresentation (Ba ltim ore, MD, 1987), 1- 25, at 1.
22 Cf. Paul Ricoe ur, "Gediichtnis -Ve rgessen-Gesc hi chte," in H istorische Sinnbil-
dung: Problemstellungen, Zeitkonzepte, Wahrnehmungshorizon te, Darstellungsstrategie11,
ed . Klaus E. Miill e r and Jorn Riise n (Reinbek bei H amburg, 1997), 433-54 .
23 My former la ndl ad y was so far from being alone th at her delusion has bee n id entified
and nam ed: it is Ca pg ras sy ndrome, first repo rted in detail in 1923 by th e French psy-
chi atrists Capgra s and Reboul-Lachaux. See th e in va luabl e book by Louis R. Franzini
and John M. Grossbe rg, Eccentric and Bizarre Behaviors (New York, 1995), chap. 7,
121 -3 . No doubt if Ca pg ras sy ndrome we re better kn ow n, a nd if it som ehow con-
nected w ith an xieties about identity, it wo uld be much m ore preva lent th an it is.
24 See Terry Castl e, "Contag ious Foll y: An Adventure and Its Skepti cs," Franc;:oise Melt-
ze r, " For Your Eyes O nl y: Ghost C iting," and Te rry Castle, "A Re joind er to Fran c;:oi e
Meltze r," all in Questions ofEvidence: Proof. Practice, and Persuasion acrnss the Disciplines,
ed . J. C hand ler, A. I. Davidson, and H. H arootunian (C hicago, 1994), 11 -4 2, 43- 49,
and 50-55 (o rig . pub. in Critical Inquil y 17 !Summe r 199 1]). Moberly and Jourd ain
offered their account pseuclonymously in Eli za beth Morison and Frances L am ont, An
Adventure, 2d ed . (London, 19 13; oth er ed iti ons we re published in 19 11, 1924, 193 1,
and 1955). Castle returns to Mobe rl y and Jourdain in the chapte r, "Marie Antoi nette
O bsess ion ," in her book , Th e Apparitional L esbian: Female H omosexuality and Modern
Culture (New York , 1993), 107-49.
25 John E. Mack , Abduction: Hu man Encoun ters with Aliens (New York , 1994). I quote from
a bac kg round a rticle by Marjorie Rosen, J. D. Podolsk y, and S. Ave ry Brown, "Out of
This World ," People Maga zine, 23 May 1994, 38- 43 , at 40, but hi s statement here is
co nsiste nt w ith w h at he says in Abduction (e.g .. at 414, on th e ali ens' "ali en / hum an hy-
brid offspring" breeding program). I mu st note that Prof. Mack m aintains a different
view in hi s subseque nt book , Passport to the Cosmos: Human T ransfo1mation and Alien
Encounters (New York , 1999), w here he asse rts that " my purpose in thi s book is not to
establi sh th at alien abductions a re rea l pure ly in a lite ral , physica l sense"; rathe r, " my
prin cipal interest is in the ex periences th em se lves" (9).
26 O n " ritual abuse," see Debbie lathan and Michael Snedeker, Satan's Silence: Ritual
Abuse and the Making of a Modem American Witch H unt ( 1ew York, 1995). A charac-
teri stic wo rk in the ge nre is Ma rga ret Sm ith [pseucl.J, Ritual Abuse: What It Is, Why It
Happens, and H ow to H elp (New Yo rk , 1993) (d iscussed in chap . 2, at n. 24 ). For a tim e,
the " Believe th e Ch ildren" o rgan ization acted as a clearing house fo r alleged cases of
ritu al abu se. Many Web sites are devoted to thi s topic. A G oogle search done in Febru-
ar y 1998 produced 1, 187 hits; th e sa m e searc h in June 2004 produced about 30,500 hits.
27 Th e Ing ram case has bee n ex tensivel y di scussed in print. See especially Law rence
Wrig ht, Remembering Satan (New York, 1994), a book that a m ounts to an in d ictm ent
of th e way th at th e Wa shin gton State lega l system operated in this case. On Ing ram's
then impendin g release, see th e rem arkably Aat and unilluminating news paper arti cle
by Brad Shan non, "Ma n in Noto ri ous Sex Case Finishes T erm ," Olympian, 8 Ap ril
NO T ES T O PAGES 75-79 f 23 1
2003, "front page," at www.theol ympian. co m / home/ news / 20030408 / frontpage / 38738.
shtm l. See also chap. 2, n. 3.
28 R. G . Collingwood, Theldea ofHisto1y ( 1946), rev. eel., w ith Lectu res 1926- 1928, eel . W. j.
van d er Dussen (Oxfo rd, 1993), 204. Subsequentl y cited in the tex t by page number.
29 It would be churli sh, howeve r, to im agin e that hi story is som ehow above th e othe r
hum an sciences w ith rega rd to epistem ology. O ne thinks of th e sophisticated g rasp of
statistical m ethods in such disciplin es as politi ca l sc ience, and-perhaps not so obv i-
ous-of tex tu al method s in litera ry studi es. For an exa mpl e of an ale rt tex tu al sc holar
catching out a trad ition o f tend enti ous ca reless ness amo ng lite ra ry sc hola rs, bi og rap hers,
and an unlucky hi sto rian , see Juli e Bates Dock, w ith Daphne Rya n A ll en, Jenni fe r
Palais, and Kri sten Tra cy, '" But O ne Expects That': C ha rlotte Perkin s G il m an's 'The
Yellow Wallpape r' and th e Shifting Ligh t of Schola rship," PMLA 111 ( 1996): 52-65.
30 H ere I d ive rge from C. Behan McCullagh , w ho in hi s nonethel ess ad mirable book Th e
T ruth of H isto1y (Londo n, 1998) is in m y view too persuaded that we hum ans have "t he
possibility of d iscove ring the truth about the past Im y emp hasis J" ( 309). H e confu ses, I
think, a God's-eye view w ith hum an views.
F o u R: Na rrative and the Four Ta:sks of History-Writing
Franc is Baco n, Th e New 01ga11011, ed . L. Ja rdine and M. Sil ve rth o rne (Ca mbridge,
2000), bk. 2, aphori sm 20, p. 130.
2 The noti on of " thick desc ription" (a descr ipti on attentive to th e signifi ca nce of hu -
man actio n a nd not just to the bare act uality of w hat happe ns) was populari zed by
the anth ropologist C liffo rd Gee rt z. See Gee rtz, The lnte1pretatio11 of Cultures: Selected
Essays ( ew York , 1973), es p. cha p. 1, "Thi ck D esc ription: Towa rd an Interpreti ve
Th eo ry of C ulture," 3- 30, as we ll as his L ocal Knowledge: Further Essays in ln te1pretive
Anthropology (New York , 1983). T wo w id ely noticed a nthologies that hi ghlig hted an
"inte rpreti ve" turn in social science we re Paul Rabi now and William M. Sulli va n, eds.,
lnte1pretive Social Science: A Reader (Be rk eley, 1979), and th e sa me ed ito rs' In terpretive
Social Science: A Second L ook (Berkeley, 1987).
3 For an ove rview of logica l empi ri cism (a lso kn ow n as "logica l positivism"), see David
Oldroyd, Th e Arch of Knowledge: An lntroducto1y Study of the H istory of the Ph ilosophy
and Methodology of Science ( ew York , 1986), chap. 6, "Logic and Logica l Empiri -
cism," 209-63 . It is ge ne rally agreed that logica l empiricism died long ago . O ne pape r
influenti al in und ermining its hold was Willard Va n O rman Qui ne, "Two D ogm as of
Empiri cism," o riginally published in The Philosophical Review 60 (1951 ): 20-43 . A lso
important in this process was Nelson Good m an's sti ll interestin g and readable Fact,
Fiction, and Forecast, 4th ed . (Cambridge, MA, 1983; o ri g. pub. in 1954). But the news
of logica l empiri cism 's death took a long tim e to spread beyond philosophi ca l circl es.
4 Th e noti on of cause has a somew hat probl ematic sta ndin g in the empiri cist traditi on
in ph il osophy, but this iss ue need not co nce rn us here (th e problem, fo r th e empiri cist,
is that no one actu all y sees causati on - one ca n onl y infer it). For rese rvatio ns abo ut
"cause," see Bertra nd Ru ssell's cl ass ic articl e, "On the Notion of Cause" (1912 - 13), in
232 t NOTES T O PAGES 79- 80
hi s Mysticism and Logic, and Other Essays (New Yo rk , 19 18), 180-208. For a fa stid ious
refusa l to use direc tl y the term s cause and effect, combin ed w ith a constant in vocation
of th ese ve ry term s, see Ca rl G . H empel's eq uall y cl assic "The F un ction of General
Laws in Hi sto ry" (1942), in Theories of H istory, ed . Patrick Ga rd iner (New York , 1959),
344 -56.
Note also th at the "Wh y?" questi on co ul d be taken as as kin g "To w hat end did
such-a nd-s uch an intellige nt agent bring such-and-such a state of affa irs about ?" In
short , th ere is a d istin ction between a past-d rive n causal se nse of the "W h y?" question
and a futur e-o ri ented purposive sense. In the present contex t I intend the causa l sense.
Bea r in mind, howeve r, th at embod ied purposes ca n se rve as causes- th at is, they can
se rve to explain w hy such-a nd-such occu rred . (W hy d id the eve nt happen ? Because
such-a nd-s uch an agent or set o f agents decided that it shoul d be done, fo r the attainment
of such-a nd-such an end. H e re we see an age nt's purpose as a cause of the occurrence.)
The phil osopher and ling ui st Sylva in Bromberge r d iscusses expla nation and
" W hy?" q uesti ons in hi s On Wha t We Know We Don 't Know: Explanation. Th eaty,
Linguistics, and H ow Questions Shape Them (C hi cago, 1992). My d iscuss ion is less deep
and goes in a d iffe rent d irection tha n Bromberge r's, but both the d irection and the
depth are app ropriate to th e kin ds of in vesti gation hi storians unde rtake.
5 See, am ong co untless oth er wor ks, Ca rl G . H em pel, Aspects of Scientific Explanation
and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science (New Yo rk , 1965), espec iall y 245 a nd 344;
Ca rl G . H em pel, Philosophy of Natural Science (Eng lewood C li ffs , N J, 1966), 47, 49;
Ernest Nagel, The Structure of Science: Problems in the L ogic of Scientific Explanation
( lew Yo rk , 196 1), 15- 16; and Wolfgang Stegmi.ill er, Probleme und Resultate der
Wissenschaftstheorie und Analytischen Ph ilosophie, Ba nd I: Wissenschaftliche Erkliirung
und Begrundung (Be rlin , 1969), 77·
6 Stinchcombe notes th e explanatory fun ction of soc ial theo ries at vii , 5, and pass im; see
A rthur L. Stin chcombe, Constructing Social Theories (New York , 1968). A m ong the
other work s I con sulted a re E uge ne J. Meehan, Explanation in Social Science: A System
Paradigm (H omewood, IL, 1968); Phili ppe Va n Pa riji s, Evolutionary Explanation in
the Social Sciences: An Emerging Paradigm (Totowa, NJ, 198 1); Ab raham Kaplan, The
Conduct of Inquiry: Methodology for Behavioral Science (Sc ranton , PA, 1964); Robert
Bo rger and Frank C ioffi, eds .. Explanation in the Behavioral Sciences (Ca mbrid ge,
1970); Patty Jo Watso n, Steven A . LeBlanc, a nd C ha rl es L. Red m an, Explanation
in Archaeology: An Explicitly Scientific Approach (New York , 197 1); D av id H arvey,
Explanation in Geography (London, 1969); Paul Ki parsk y, Explanation in Phonology
(Do rd rec ht, 1982); Will em Da ise, L'Explication en psychologie sociale (Pari s, 1982); Pe-
ter D. McClell and, Causal Explanation and Model Building in H istory, Economics, and
the New Economic H istory (Ithaca, NY, 1975); a nd C hri stoph er Lloyd, Explanation in
Social H istory (Oxfo rd, 1986).
7 Miri am Schapiro Grosof a nd H yma n Sa rdy, A Research Primer for the Social and
Behavioral Sciences (O rl ando, FL, 1985), l 12, l t4 . O ne exceptiona l wo rk , w ritten from
a neo- pos itivist pe rspective, that does dea l w ith "desc ripti on" is C . Behan McCull agh,
j ustifying H istorical Descriptions (Camb ri dge, 1984).
NO T ES TO P AGES 80-83 t 233
8 Lee Benso n, "Causati on and the A m eri ca n C ivil Wa r," in Toward the Scientific Study
of H istory: Selected essays (P hil adelphi a, 1972), 81-82, ma king use of E. M. Forster,
Aspects of the Novel (New York , 1927), 47, 130, and th roughout; Ed wa rd H allet Ca rr,
What Is H istory? (196 1; re pr., New York , 1967), chap. 4, "Causation in Hi story," 11 3,
l 30 (see also r l 1-12, l 14, l 38); and Dav id H ac kett Fische r, H istorians' Fallacies: Toward
a Logic of Historical T hought (New Yo rk , 1970), xii , l 3 1.
9 In H istorians' Fallacies, xv, n. 1, Fisc he r defi ned exp la nati on as fo ll ows: "T o explain is
me rely to m ake plain , cl ea r, or un de rstandable som e probl em about past eve nts, so
that resultant knowledge w ill be u seful in d ea ling w ith future p roblems." A lth ough
F isc her did not not ice it, th ere is a tension between th e fi rst and seco nd clauses, sin ce
" useful[ nessl in dea li ng w it h fu tu re probl ems" suggests know ledge of cause-effect re-
lations, hence a causa l conce pti on of ex planati on, whereas in th e fi rst cl ause "explain"
simply mea ns "to cla rify."
10 Paul Vey ne, Writing H isto1y, trans. Mina Moo re- Rin volucrj (M idd letown, CT, 1984),
305 n. 5 (o rig . pub. in French, 197 1); Paul Ri coe ur, T ime and Narrative, vols. 1 and 2
trans. K ath lee n McLaughlin and ; vol. 3 trans. Kathl een Blarney and D av id Pell auer
(C hi cago, 1984 - 88), l: 175 .
l 1 See Th omas L. H anki ns, Science and the Enlightenment (Camb ri dge, 1985), 9, 20-2 1,
53; J. L. H eilbron, Electricity in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Berkeley,
1979), 6, S]ff., 95, n. 47, 458ff.; and C hri sta Jungni ckel and Russe ll McCo rrnmac h,
Intellectual Mastery ofNature: T heoretical Physics from Ohm to Einstein, 2 vols. (C hi cago,
1986), i:xx iii and passim. O n the class ifica tory imp ul se in natural hi sto ry and else-
w here, see H an kin s, Science and the Enligh tenment, 11 3, l1 7, a nd th roughout; and Wolf
Lepeni es, Das Ende der Natwgeschichte: Wandel kultureller Selbstverstiindlichheiten in
den Wissenschaften des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts (Muni ch , 1976), 34, 47-48, 93, 98- 102,
122-24 .
12 Ya n Pa riji s, Evolutionary Explanation in the Social Sciences, 6; Stegrni.ill er, Wissen-
schaftliche Erkliirung und Begriindung, 1. K a pi tel, 2.b., "E rkl arunge n un d Besc hreibun -
gen ," 77; Ri cha rd H ofstad ter, The Age of Reform from Bryan to F.D.R. (New Yo rk ,
1969), 199-200. See also Li onel Trilling on V. L. Pa rrington a nd Theodo re Dreise r in
" Rea li ty in A merica," in hi s The Liberal Imagination: Essays on L iterature and Society
(New Yo rk , 1956), 3-2 1.
13 It seems plausi bl e to suggest that think ers less committed to the base /su pe rstructu re
m eta ph or, or to othe r meta pho rs that envisage d iffe rentiall y visibl e rea liti es, w ill be
less co mmi tted to the explanato ry projec t. One soc ial science rn ethodo logist has noted
th at mos t of Max Webe r's "th eo ries" a re actuall y "conce ptual sc hemes and desc ri p-
ti ons of 'histori ca l types'" ( Jac k P. G ibbs, Sociological The01y Construction fHi nsda le,
IL, 1972], 16). The re may wel l be a relation between Weber's well -k now n suspi cion of
the base /supe rstru cture metap hor and the fac t th at hi s g reat achi eveme nts seem much
more desc riptive and interp retive th an explanatory.
14 The wo rst offender m ay wel l be econom ics: see Dona ld [Deird re I T. McC loskey, T he
R hetoric of Economics (Mad iso n , W I, 1985), 7-8. But a survey in May 1987 by J. Mo r-
ga n K ousse r suggested that an "info rmal positivism " remained p reva lent at that time
234 t NO T ES T O PAGES 85-87
among hi sto rians: see J. Morgan Kousse r, "Th e State of Social Science Hi sto ry in the
Late 1980s," Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 22
(1989): I 2-20, at 14·
15 Ca rl G. H empel and Paul Oppenheim , "Studi es in th e Logic of Expla nation," in
Th eories of Explanation, ed . Joseph C . Pitt (Oxfo rd, 1988), 9 (on the importance of this
articl e, see Ronald N . Gie re, Explaining Science: A Cognitive Approach [C hi cago, 1988],
28); Ernest Nagel, The Structure ofScience: Problems in the Logic ofScientific Explanation
(New York, 196 1), 4; Social Science Resea rch Council, Committee on Hi sto ri og raphy,
The Social Sciences in Historical Study: A Report [Bulletin 64J (New York , 1954), 86.
16 Wilhe lm Windelband, "History and Natural Science," with an introductor y note by
Guy Oa kes, History and Theory 19 ( 1980): 169- 85, es p. 175 . See also Geo rg G. lgge rs,
Th e German Conception of History: Th e National T radition of H1j·toncal Th ought from
Herder to the Present, rev. ed . (M iddletow n. C T , 1983), 147-52.
17 See William 0 . Aydel otte's classic paper, "Notes on th e Problem of Hi stor ical Gen-
erali zation," in Generalization in the Writing of H istory: A R eport of the Committee on
Historical Analysis, by the Social Science Resea rch Co un cil , ed . Loui s Gottschalk (Chi-
cago, 1963), q5 -77 (reprinted in Aydelotte, Quantification in H istory [Read ing, MA,
197 1], 66-100) .
18 H empel , "F un ction of Ge neral Laws in Hi sto ry," 34-t - -+5 ·
19 Aristotle, Metaphysics, trans. W. D. Ross, 982a20-25, in Complete Works, ed . Jonathan
Barnes, 2 vols. (Princeto n, N J., 1984), 2: 1554; on the "commitm ent to the generic" in
Greek th ought generall y, see Windelband, "Histo ry a nd Natural Science," 181. Note
that th e re is another side to A ristotl e, exemplifi ed in the Ethics a nd R hetoric, where he
empha sizes spec ific cases (of moral 1udgment o r of persuasion); see Stephen Toulmin,
'The Recove ry of Practical Philosophy," American Scholar 57 (1988): 337-52, at 339 and
throughout. But mode rni sm looks with d isfavor on the ethi ca l- rh eto ri ca l st rand.
20 A ri stotl e, Poetics, tra ns. Ingram Bywater, q 51a6-7, in Rhetoric" and "Poetics," with an
introduction by Edward P. J. Co rbett ( Tew York, 1984), 235 .
21 O n the idea of universality in modern thought, see, among othe rs , Max Weber, "A
C ritiqu e of Eduard Meye r's Methodological Views,'' in The Methodology of the Social
Sciences, tra ns. Edward A. Shils and Henry A . Finch (G lencoe, IL, 1949), 163, n. 30;
Sta nl ey Rosen, H e11neneutics as Politics (New York, 1987), esp. -+5• 95; and Richard W.
Mill er, Fact and Method: Explanation, Confirmation and Reality in the Natural and the
Social Sciences (Princeton, N J, 1987), 3- +
22 H empel, "Fu nction of Gene ral Laws in Hi story," 356; cf. Th omas S. Kuhn , The
Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed . (C hi cago, 1970).
23 Ri cha rd ). Bernstein, Beyond Ob;.ectivism and Relativism: Science, H ermeneutics, and
Praxzj· (Phil adelphia, 1983), 135-36.
24 See Robert Fi nlay, "The Refashioning of Mart in Gue rre," a nd Natali e Zemon Davis,
"'On th e Lame,"' American Historical Review 93 (1988): 553-7 1 and 572-603, for an
exc hange th at hig hli g hts th e need to atte nd ca refu ll y to the d ifferent voices and atti tudes
that manifest themselves in a wo rk of hi story. Eve n historians aware of the he rm e-
neu tic tradition often res ist the self-reflexive implications. Note, fo r example, Quentin
NO TE S T O P AGES 88-9 1 t 235
Skinner's apparentl y un witting reduction of post- to pre-Heideggerian hermeneuti cs
in "H er meneuti cs and th e Role of History," New L iterary History 7 ( 1975-76): 209-32.
25 The same compl ex iti es arise from the further argumentative or justifi catory question:
What gro unds do we, author and audi ence, have fo r believ ing that such-and-such was
the case, and that such-and-such is w hy it was th e easel I leave th e justificatory ques-
ti on aside here, but see chapter 6 for a case stud y in this top ic.
26 Lawrence Stone, "The Rev iva l of Na rrati ve: Refl ection s on a New O ld Hi story," Past
and Present 85 (Nove mber 1979): 3-24, at 3-4 (rep rinted in Stone, The Past and the
Present [Boston, 198 1], 74-96, at 74). Of course, eve n "the collective and statistical" does
not ri se to universality. "Th e co llective and statistical" is itself "particular and specific."
For what is being coll ected I Of what a re th e stati sti cs gathe red?
27 Francois Furer, "From 1a rrative Histo ry to Problem -O ri ented History," in his In the
Workshop of H istory, tra ns. Jonathan Mandelbaum (C hi cago, 1982), 54-67, at 56.
28 Furet, "F rom Na rrative Hi story to Problem-O ri ented Hi sto ry," 57. See also th e intro-
ducti on to Jn the Workshop of Histo1y, 8: "Traditional hi sto ri ca l ex planati on obeys the
logic of narrative. What comes first explains what fo ll ows."
29 O n th e un attain ability of th e goa l, see Furer, "From Na rrative Hi story to Problem -
O ri ented Hi story," 66-67. On th e co nnecti on of Furet's preference for probl em-
ori ented hi sto ry to th e prejudice for unive rsality, see Jn the Workshop of H istory, 6-7
(th e new hi sto ry becomes, as a "form of kn owledge," applicable to any and all societ-
ies). See also "From 1a rrative Hi story to Problem-O ri ented History," 60, where hi s-
tori cal demography's tran sformation of "hi stori ca l individuals" into "interchangea ble
and measurable units" also points to the presence of th e unive rsa li zability criteri on in
Furet's thinkin g.
30 Roland Barthes, "Introd uction to th e Structural Ana lysis of Na rrati ves," in Image,
Music, Text, tra ns. Stephen Heath ( ew York, 1977), 79- 124, at 94. Barthes's statement
is an intensifi cation of A ristotl e's asse rtion in the Poetics 1452a20 that "there is a g reat
difference between a thing happening propter hoc and post hoc." Among historian s, in
addition to Furet, who have linked narrative to a post hoc, ergo propter hoc logic are
Lawrence Stone, Social Change and Revolution in England, 1540-1640 (Lond on, 1965),
xx ii, and Cha rles Till y, As Sociology Meets History (New York, 198 1), 90.
3 1 Morton White, Foundations of Historical Knowledge (New York, 1965), esp. 4, 14, 222-
25, at 4, 223, 222.
32 As Seymour C hatman obse rves , "it requires spec ial effort for films to asse rt a property
or relati on"; see "What Novels Ca n Do That Films Ca n't (a nd Vice Ve rsa )," in On
Narra tive, ed. W. J. T. Mitchell (C hi cago, 198 1), 11 7-36, at 12+
33 A n exam pl e: "H e had been chain-sm okin g fo r wee ks. His g ums bled at the slight-
es t pressure from th e tip of his tong ue"(). D . Salinger, "Fo r Esme-With Love a nd
Squalor," in Nine Stories [New York, 1983], 104). Note how un stable the "confu sion" is:
th e ad dition of an expli cit "because" (" Because he had bee n chain -s moking for wee ks")
would be enough to des troy it. On th e distinction between paratactic sty le, whi ch does
not spell out rank s and relati ons, and hypotactic style, which does, see Ri cha rd A. Lan-
ham , Analyzing Prose (New York, 1983), 33-52.
236 t NOTES TO PAGES 9 1-93
34 1ath a n Rose nbe rg and L. E. Bird zel l Jr., H ow the West Grew Rich: Th e Economic
Transfo1ma tion of the Industrial World (New Yo rk , 1986), 125.
35 After completing m y ana lysis of Furet's contenti on that hi sto ri cal narrative fo ll ows the
logic of post hoc, e1go propter hoc, I d iscove red that the philosopher W. H. Dray also
attacks Furet o n this a nd o the r points. See W. H. Dray, "Na r rative ve rsus A na lysis in
Hi sto ry," in Rationality, Relativism and the Human Sciences, ed. J. Margoli s, M. Krausz,
and R. M. Burian (Dordrech t, 1986), 23-42, at 26ff.
36 Arthur Stinchco mbe, Theoretical Methods in Social H isto1y ( Tew Yo rk , 1978), 13. Of
course, as is ev ide nt from m y argume nt so fa r, to ne is o nl y part of t he sto ry. The ex-
planatory b ias de rives more broadly from a ce rtain view of science, from ce rta in meta-
pho rs, fr o m a co nce rn in soc ial sc ie nce w ith p ragm at ic a ims, a nd pe rh aps from other
inAue nces as wel l. Histori og raphy does not ex ist in isolatio n from othe r intellectual
a nd soc ia l practices.
37 Fernand Braudel, " La double Fai lli te 'colo ni ale' de la France au x XVe et XV!e siecles"
(rev iew of Cha rl es-A ndre Juli e n , L es Voyages de decouverte et !es premiers etablissements,
XVe et XV/e siecles [Pa ri s, 1948]), Anna/es: Economies, Societes, Civilisations 4 (1949):
45 1- 56,at45 2 ,453 .
38 J. H . H ex ter, " Fe rna nd Brau del and the Monde Braudellien .. . ," j ournal of Modern
H istory 44 (1972): 480-539, at 535-38, d iscussing Edmund S. Morgan, " The Labor
P roblem at Jamestown, 16o7-18," American H istorical Review 76 (197 1): 595-61 i.
39 H ex te r, " Fe rna nd Braudel a nd the Monde Braudellien, " 535.
40 Fe rnand Brau d el, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age ofPhilip II,
trans. Siiin Rey nolds, 2 vols. (New Yo rk , 1966), 1: 77, 82, 83 . Subsequent page refe rences
a re g ive n in parentheses in th e text.
41 A te rminologica l note: Braudel frequentl y uses th e word explanation in the broad sen se
of "to elucidate." H e ex pl icitly co nnects expliquer (ex pl a in ) a nd eclairer (el uc id ate, clar-
ify, illumin ate) in La Mediterranee et le monde meditenaneen a !'epoque de Philippe II
(Pa ri s, 1949), 307 (thi s pa ssage, in the int roduction to pa rt 2, is o mitted from the second
ed iti o n ofB raude l's work a nd h ence does not appea r in the Engl ish tra nslati on , w hich
trans lates that ed itio n. ). Accordingly, w h en Braudel uses explanation, he does not al-
ways mean it in the sense in which the te rm is taken he re. For o ne instan ce w here it
seems to m ea n "elucidation" wi th out specific refe rence to causes, see Th e Mediterranean
and the Medite!1'anean World, preface to the first ed iti o n: "This book is divided into
three parts, each o f which is itse lf a n essay in gen e ral expla natio n" ( 1 : 20).
42 As Samuel Kin se r pointed out in "Annaliste Paradigm? The Geoh istorica l Structur-
a li sm of Fe rn a nd Braudel," American H istorical Review 86 (198 1): 63- 105, at 83 and
e lsew he re, Braud el changed his cha racte ri zatio n of th e first a nd second of th ese lev -
e ls betwee n th e fir st and seco nd ed iti o ns of Th e Mediterranean and th e Mediterranean
World. No r is Braudel necessa ril y comm itted to three levels in histo ry. But these incon-
sistenc ies do not affect my point he re.
43 H exter, "Fernand Braudel and th e Monde Braudellien," 535.
44 Claude L efort, " Hi stoire et soc iologie cla ns !'oeuvre de Fe rnand Braudel," Cahiers
internationaux de sociologie 13 ( 195 2): 122 -3 1, at 124. O n the no n-connecti o n of leve ls in
NOTES T O PAGES 94- 100 t 237
Braude l, see a lso Be rn ard Bail yn , "B raud el's Geoh isto ry -A Recon sideration ," Joumal
of Economic H istory 11 (195 1): 277-82, at 279; and H. Stua rt Hug h es, Th e Obstructed
Path: French Social Thought in the Years ofDesperation (New Yo rk, 1968), 58-59.
45 Hexter, "F e rnand Braudel a nd th e Monde Braudellien," 530; see also 51 1.
46 H a n s Kellne r, "Diso rd e rl y Conduct: Braudel's Medite rranean Satire (A Rev iew of
Rev iews)," H istory and Theo1 y, 18 (1979): 197- 222, reprinted in K elln e r, Language
and H istorical Representation: Getting the Story Crooked (Madison , WI, 1989) , 153-87;
No rthrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (Prince ton, N J, 1957), 308 - 14.
47 Frye, Anatom y of Criticism, 309, 310.
48 Stone, " Revival of Na rrative,'' 3.
49 A ri stotle , Poetics, 145oa2- 17, in A ri stotle, "Rhetoric" and "Poetics," 23 1. Even though,
stri ctly spea king, th e Poetics is con ce rned wi th drama , not narrative (rep rese ntati o n on
stage, not sto rytelling), its inAuence fa r transce nd s su ch dist inctions.
50 H e nry Ja m es, "The Art o f Fi ction" (1884, 1888), in Th e Art of Criticism : H emy James on
the Theo1y and the Practice of Fiction, ed . Will iam Veeder a nd Susan M. G ri ffin (C hi-
cago, 1986), 174.
5 1 See Seymour C h atma n , Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film
(Ith aca, NY, 1978) , 19, 32, 34, 44-45, 96- 145. M y fo rmul a is an expansion o f o ne pro-
posed by Wa ll ace Martin, Recent Theories of Narrative (Ith aca, NY, 1986), 11 7- 18,
w hi ch in turn is in spi red by a rathe r d iffe ren t fo r mula in Gera rd Genette, Narrative
D iscourse: An Essay in Method, tran s. Ja ne E. Lewin (Ith aca, NY, 1972), 166.
52 Lu cie n F ebvre, "Un li vre qui g ran d it: La Miditerranee et le monde mediterraneen a
!'epoque de Philippe I I," Revue historique 203 ( 1950): 218; H ex te r, "F ern and Braud el a nd
th e Monde Braudellien ... ," 518- 19; Kinse r, "Annaliste Parad igm? " 67-68.
53 Fo r a brief account, w ith re levant re fe re nces , see Peter Nov ick, That Noble Dream: The
"Objectivity Question" and the American H istorical Profession (New Yo rk , 1988), 622- 23.
F or a defense of"traditi onal history" aga in st a la rgely no n-na rrative social histo ry, see
Gertrude Himmel fa rb, The New Hist01y and the Old: Critical Es~·ays and R eappraisals
(Ca mbrid ge, MA, 1987).
54 Fo r a subtle m ed itati o n o n the relation of past a nd present fr om a hi sto rian's point of
view, see J. H . H ex te r. "Th e Histo ri a n a nd His Day," in H exte r, Reappraisals in H istory
(Eva nston, IL, 196 1), 1- 13 . H ex te r emphasizes that the re is no sing le present pe rspec-
tive from w hi ch th e hi sto rian w rites. H e a lso e mph asizes the profess iona l hi sto ria n's
capac ity fo r imm e rsio n in th e d oc uments of the p ast.
55 Edwa rd Mc Ta ll Burns, Robe rt E. Le rne r, and Sta ndi sh Meacham, Westem Civilizations:
Their H isto1y and Th eir Culture, 10th ed . (New York, 1984), 927- 28.
56 Ibi d., 674.
57 The re is a la rge lite rature o n this matte r. F o r a useful survey, see Pete r M en z ies, "Coun-
te rfa ctua l Theo ri es of Causation ," in the on line Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy at
http://plato .stanford .edu /e ntries/causation-counterfactua l (accessed Apri l 2006). F o r a
wide-ranging coll ecti on of articles, see Jo hn Collin s, Ned Hall , a nd L. A . Paul , eds.,
Causation and Counterfactuals (Ca mbrid ge, MA, 2004). Fo r a n account that link s co un-
te rfactual reasoning to hi storical resea rch, see Jon Elste r's "Counte r factua ls and the
23 t NOTES TO PAGES 10 1- I OJ
ew Economic Hi sto ry," in his Logic and Society: Contradictions and Possible Worlds
(C hi chester, UK, 1978), 175-22 1). See also cha pter 7 in this volum e.
58 Ka rl Marx, The Class Struggles in France: 1848 to 1850, in Surveysfrom Exile, ed . David
Fernbach, vol. 2 of Ka rl Ma rx , Political Writings ( ew York 1974), 35-1.p.
59 For example, see the exc hange between James Smith Allen a nd Dominick LaCa pra,
American H istorical Review 88 (1983): 805-7, relating to L aCa pra's Madame Bovary on
Trial (Ithaca, NY, 1982).
60 Furer, " Introductio n," In the Workshop of History, 13-20. T he fina l quotation is from
th e ve rsion of Furet's introduction th at appea red as "Beyond the Anna/es," j ournal of
Modem H istory 55 (1983): 389- 41 0, at 409; in th e book , Furet recomm e nd ed "an intel-
lectua li st hi sto ry th at bu il ds" (20).
6 1 Furet, In the Workshop of H istory, 16.
fo Braudel, Meditenanean World, l: 17.
63 Bai lyn, "Braudel's Geohi sto ry," 279, 28 1.
64 Cf. Be rn a rd Bail yn, "The C hallenge of Modern Histo riography," American Historical
R eview 87 (1982): 1-24, at 5: " Braudel's Mediterranee ... shou ld be kn ow n .. . fo r its
a hi sto ri ca l structure, w hi ch d rain s th e li fe out of hi sto ry. Fo r th e esse nce and drama
of hi sto ry li e prec isel y in the ac ti ve a nd co ntinuo us relatio nshi p betwee n the underlying
conditions [my itali cs! that set the boundaries o f human ex istence a nd the eve ryday
problems with whi ch people consciously struggle." H ow does Ba il yn know that thi s is
w he re th e "esse nce and drama" of hi sto ry lie? And how does he know which condi-
ti ons a re the underlying o nes? Vos preuves, M . Bailyn?
65 A lex is de T ocq uev ill e, Th e Old Regimeand the Revolution, ed . Fran~ois Furer and Fran-
~o i se Me lo ni o, tra ns. A lan S. Kahan, 2 vols. (C hi cago, 1998-200 1), 1: 83; Tocquev ille,
L 'ancien Regime et la Revolution, ed . Fr an~o i se Melonio (Pa ri s, 1988), 87.
66 See hi s asse rtion in the preface to The Old Regime and the Revolution that "the object of
thi s book " was to unde rstand "why thi s g reat re voluti o n ... broke out in Fra nce" a nd
"w hy it was so natural a product of the society it was going to dest roy" (85). See also the
final chapte r, " H ow the Revoluti on Came Naturally from What Preceded It" (241-47).
67 Tocq uev ill e, Old Regime, 86. I write in the margins of Furet's hig hl y intelligent a nd il-
luminating analysis ofTocq uev ill e's book; see Fran~o i s Furer, "De T ocquevi ll e a nd the
Problem of th e Fre nch Revoluti on ," in lnte1preting th e French Revolution, trans. E lbo rg
Forster (Ca mbrid ge, 198 1), 132-63 . C ha rac te risti ca ll y, Furer te nd ed to conflate the in-
terpret ive d im e nsio n ofTocquev ill e's project, con ce rn ed w ith "the m ea ning of hi s ow n
tim e," with the task of a rticulatin g "explanato ry th eo ry" ( 132-33; see also 159-60). But
as I have a rg ued , these a re two di stin ct (a ltho ugh related) projects.
68 Jo hn E. T oews, "Intell ec tual Histo ry after the Ling uistic Turn: Th e Autonomy of
Mea ning and th e Irred ucibility of E xpe rie nce," American Historical Review 92 (1987):
879-907, at 882; cf. Dav id Harl an, " Intellectual Hi sto ry and the Return of Literature,"
American Historical Review 94 (1989): 58 1-609.
69 See, aga in , H erodotus, The Histo1y, tra ns. David G re ne (C hi cago, 1987); a nd Thucy-
dides, History of the Peloponnesian War, trans. Rex Warner (Harmo ndswo rth , UK ,
NOTES TO PACES 107-I IO t 239
1954). H erodotus was mo re in clined to become caug ht up in th e sheer fasc inati o n of
w hat he te ll s, w hil e Thucyd ides lea ned mo re towa rd explainin g thin gs. But both hi s-
tor ia ns did both .
Fr v E: Objectivity for Historians
Geoff E ley, " Betwee n Soc ial H istory and C ultural Stud ies: lnte rdi sciplin arity and th e
P ractice of the Hi sto ri an at the End of the Twentieth Century," in Historians and Social
Value, ed . Joe p L eersse n and A nn Rig ney (A m ste rdam , 2000), 93- 109, at 94, 95, 97, 99,
104; Th omas Ha skell , "Objectivity: Perspective as Problem a nd Solution" (rev iew of
H istorians and Social Values), History and Theory 43 (2004): 34 1-59, at 358.
2 F ri ed ri ch N ietzsc he, On the Genealogy ofMorality: A Polemic, trans. Maudemarie C lark
a nd Ala n J. Swensen (Indianapoli s, 1998), "Th ird Treati se," sec. 12, p. 85 .
3 See especia ll y Geoff Eley, Fo1ging Democracy: The H istory of the L eft in E11rope, 1850-
2000 (New Yo rk , 2000), a substa nti al academ ic study that, at th e same time, hig hligh ts
its autho r's political comm itm e nts th roughout .
4 E ley, "Bet wee n Socia l Hi sto ry a nd C ultural Stud ies," 95, 108.
5 Michel Fo ucault, H istoire de lafo/ied l'dgeclassique (Pa ri s, 196 1); a ve ry ab rid ged tra nsla-
tion was published as Madness and Civilization: A H1~·t01y of Insanity in the Age of Reason,
trans. Ri cha rd H oward (New York , 1965); Discipline and Punish: Birth of the Prison,
trans. Alan Sheridan (New York, 1977; o rig. pub. in Fre nch, 1975); and Th e Archaeology
of Knowledge, t ra ns. Alan Sherid a n (New York , 1972; o ri g. pub. in French , 1969). O n
Foucauldian a nti -meth od, and hi s notio n of histo ry as offe ring use ful fi cti o ns, see Allan
Megill, Prophets of Extremity: Nietzsche, H eidegger, Fo11cault, Del'l'ida (Be rk eley, 1985),
22 7-47.
6 Foucau lt, Madness and Civilization, 8- 13; Fo ucault , Discipline and Punish, 3-6; Michel
Foucault, Th e Order of Things: An Archaeology of the H uman Sciences (New York , 1970;
o rig . pub. in Fre nch , 1966), xv, 387.
7 Tho mas H askell , "Objectivity Is Not Ne utrality: Rh etori c versus Practice in Pe te r
Nov ick 's That Noble Dream," in Objectivity ls Not Neutmlity: ExplanatOJy Schemes in
Histo1y (Ba ltim o re, 1998), 145 -73.
8 H as kell , "Objectivity ls Not eu trality," 149-5 1.
9 A Google search o n l March 2005 for "Fox ews C hann el" and " 'fair and bal a nced '"
yielded 57,700 hits. For one comm enta ry o n the F ox News C ha nnel's object ivity-cla im ,
see Seth Acke rm an, "Th e Most Biased Name in News: Fox ews C ha nnel's Ext raor-
d ina ry Rig ht- wing Ti lt," Extm!, Jul y/ August 200 1, at th e "Fairness a nd Accuracy in
Reporting" Web site, http:// www.fa ir.o rg / ind ex.php? page= I 067. Ackerman fa ults
Fox less for being biased than for fa ilin g to ac kn owledge w hat he rega rd s as its und e ni-
able p resentatio n of "a conse rvative point of view."
IO Nietzsche, Genealogy, "Third Treatise," sec. 12, p. 85.
11 Richard Rorty, "Solid ar ity o r Objectivity?" a nd "Science as Sol ida rity," in Objectivity,
Relativism, and Truth, vo l. 1 of Ph ilosophical Papers (Ca mbrid ge, 199 1), 21-34, 35- 45 .
240 t NO TE S T O PAGES I I 1-1 16
12 H askell , "Obj ec tivity: Pe rspective as Problem a nd Soluti on," 359.
13 Perez Zago rin , " Francis Bacon's Co nce pt of O bj ectivity and the Idols of th e Mind,"
British Journal for the H istory of Science 34 (2001): 379-93, at 379; H eather D ouglas,
"The Irreducible Compl ex ity of O bj ectivity," Synthese 138 (Janua ry- Februa ry 2004}:
453-73> at 453·
14 Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Na ture (Princeton, Nf, 1979), 334.
15 O n obj ectivity in Kant , see H enry E. Alliso n, Kant's Transcendental Idealism : An Inter-
pretation and D efense ( ew H ave n, C T, 1983), chap. 7, "Objec ti ve Va li d ity and Objec-
tive Rea lity: The Transcende ntal D eduction of the Categories," 133-72. O n natural
phil oso phers' co nce pti ons of obj ec tivity befo re K ant, see Lorraine Daston, " Baconian
Facts, Academ ic C ivility, a nd th e Prehistory of O bjec tivity," in R ethinking Objectivity,
ed. A ll an Megill (Durham , NC, 1994), 37-63; and Pete r Dea r, "From Truth to D is-
interestedness in th e Seve nteenth Ce ntury," Social Studies of Science 22 (1992): 6 19-3 i.
O n cha nging co nce pti ons o f obj ectivity in nin eteenth -ce ntury sc ience, see Lorraine
D asto n, "Objectivity a nd the Escape from Perspec tive," Social Studies of Science 22
( 1992): 597-6 18; and Lorraine Das ton and Peter Galison, "Th e Im age of O bj ectivity,"
Representations no. 40 (Fall 1992): 8 1- 128.
16 Daston, "Obj ec tivity and the Escape fr om Perspective," 597-98; Daston, "Baconian
Facts." Th ere is, howeve r, some affi nity between the scholastic sense of objective and
d ialectica l objec tivity, since both in volve the co nstitutin g of mental obj ects.
17 R. W. ewe ll notes a ll fou r dim ensio ns in Objectivity, Empiricism and Truth (London,
1986), chap. 2, "Th e Two Faces of Ob jectivity," 16-38.
18 Thoma s age!, Th e View from Nowhere (New Yo rk, 1986), 3- 5, 18, and throug hout
19 The phrase "absolute concepti on of rea lity" is Be rnard Wi lli ams's; see hi s Descartes:
Th e Project ofPure Enquiry (Atlanti c Highl and s, J, 1978), esp. 64 -67. Fra ncis Bacon's
discussi on of the fo ur "id ols of the mind" is th e locus classicus fo r his conception of
obj ec ti vity; see his Th e New Organon, ed . Lisa Jardine and Michael Sil ve rth orne (Cam-
bridge, 2000), bk. 1, "Aphorism s ... ," nos. 39-44, pp. 40-42.
20 Th e Philosopher's Index (Bow ling G ree n, O H , 1967-) offers a co nve nient way of trac-
ing the ri se and fa ll of philosophi ca l term s. I counted instances of the use of the term s
objectivity and realism in the titles of a rticl es ind exed in T he Philosopher;· Index over
the period 1967-90. Taking the yea rs 1969-7 1 and 1988-90 as comparison points, use
of the term objectivity increased 2.8 tim es betwee n the beginning and th e end of the
pe ri od, w he reas use of the term realism increased 7.2 tim es.
2 1 Hila ry Putn am , Realism with a H uman Face, ed . Jam es Co na nt (Ca mbridge, MA,
1990), espec iall y "The C raving fo r Ob jectivity" and "Objectivity and the Science/
Ethics Distinction," 120-3 1, 163-78; Ri cha rd Ro rty, Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth,
especially "Solid arity or O bj ectivity? " and "Science as Solid arity," 21 -34, 35-45 . See
also H elen E. Long in o, Science as Social Kn owledge: Values and Objectivity in Scientific
Inquiry (Prin ceton, J, 1990), es peciall y chap. 4, "Values and O bjectivity," 62-82, which
b roug ht philosophi ca l d iscussions of obj ectivity to bea r on ge nder issues in sc ience -
and vice ve rsa. Note, fina ll y, Rich ard j. Be rn stein , Beyond Objectivism and Relativism :
Science, Henneneutics, and Praxis (Phil adelphia, 1983).
1' 0 TES T 0 PAGES I I 6- I I 9 t 24 I
22 Thomas S. Kuhn , Th e Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed . (C hi cago, 1970), es p.
103, 109- 10, 122, 149-52. I co nfin e myself here to Kuhn's view as arti culated in th e
ori gin al ( 1962) edition, leav ing aside the restatem ents appended to the rev ised editi on.
23 I co nd ense and adapt the definiti on of ep istemologica l relati vism offe red by H arvey
Siegel, Relativism Refuted: A Critique of Contemporary Epistemological Relativism (Do r-
d rec ht, 1987), 6.
24 For one characte ri st ic (a nd influential) ea rl y critiqu e along this lin e, see Israel Sc heffler,
Science and Subjectivity (Indianapoli s, 1967), es p. 15 - 19 and 74 -89. T he Philosopher;-
/ ndex g ives ready access to mu ch of the discussion.
25 Bryan Wil so n, ed., Rationality (Oxfo rd, 1970); Martin H ollis and Steven Luk es, eds.,
Rationality and Relativism (Oxfo rd, 1982). See also St ua rt C. Brown, ed., Objectivity
and Cultural Dive1gence, Roya l In stitute of Philosoph y Lec ture Se ries 17, suppl em ent
to Philosophy 1984 (Ca mbridge, 1984); and C liffo rd Geertz, "Anti Anti- Relati vism,"
American Anthropologist 86 ( 1984): 263-78, reprinted in Michae l Krausz, ed., Relativism :
lnte1pretation and Confrontation (Notre Dame, IN, 1989), 12 -3+
26 Steve n Luk es, "Relati vism in Its Pl ace," in H ollis a nd Luk es, eds., R ationality and
Relativism, 26 1-305, at 26 1.
27 To refer to this view as "d isciplina ry" obj ec ti vity is in some res pec ts a mi snome r, sin ce
the conve rgence at whi ch disciplinary ob jec tivity aim s is at least as likely to be situated
at more spec ific leve ls th an at th at of th e disciplin e. Still , with its double mean ing,
disciplinary see m s the most app rop ri ate term here, a lthoug h one mig ht alternatively
have ca ll ed it "co nsens ual" obj ectivity.
28 See, in pa rticul ar, Longin o, Science as Social Knowledge, espec iall y the section entitl ed
"Objectivity by D eg rees," 76-8 1. In its emphasi s on scientifi c practi ce (66-68 and
elsew here), Longi no's account has affi niti es w ith th e dia lec tical sense of obj ecti vity,
d iscussed bel ow.
29 Evelyn Fox Kell er,A Feeling for the 01ganism: Th e L ife and Work ofBarbara McClintock
(New York , 1983), 197-98. For an account of a pa radi gmatic a rt co nnoisseur, see Er-
nest Samuels, Bernard Berenson: The Making of a Connoisseur (Ca mbridge, MA, 1979).
30 Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 164-65.
31 This claim coul d be documented and perhaps in pa rt co rrected through bibliomet ric
and citationa l resea rch. In the absence of such a n in vestigation, let the sa les figures
serve as a sta nd- in: fro m its o rigin al publi cation on 5 March 1962 th rough Ja nuary
199 1, Th e Structure of Scientific Revolutions sold ?68,774 copies, an as tounding fi g ure
fo r an acade mi c wo rk. It hit 22,5 00 copies in 1968-69 and in th e ea rl y 1970s was se lling
at 40,000 copies per yea r (aroun d 1990 it was still selling abou t 25,000 copies per yea r). I
owe th ese data to Dougla s Mitchell, hi sto ry a nd socio logy ed ito r, U nive rsity of C hica go
Press.
32 David H ollinge r, "T. S. Kuhn's Theory of Science and Its Impli cati ons fo r Hi sto ry,''
in In the American Province: Studies in the H istory and Historiography of Ideas (Bloom-
in gton , I 1, 1985), 105-29, at 11 5 (o rig. pub. in American H iSton cal Review 78 J1973J:
370-93). For a su rvey of soc iologists' (mi s) use of Kuhn in the sa me peri od, see D ouglas
Lee Ec kberg and Lester Hill Jr., "The Paradig m Co ncept a nd Sociol ogy: A C riti ca l
2.j2 t NO T ES T O P AGES I 19 - 121
Rev iew," in Paradigm; and Revolution;: Apprai;a/; and Applications of Th omas Kuhn's
Philosophy of Science, ed . Ga ry Gutting (Notre Dame, IN, 1980), 11 7- 36.
33 Hollinge r, "T. S. Kuhn's Theo ry of Sc ience," 11 6- 17.
34 Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 162.
35 H olli nger, "T. S. Kuhn's Th eo ry of Science," 11 6. Fo r an account of hi stori ans' relation
to obiectivity, see Peter ov ick, That Noble Dream: Th e "Objectivity Question" and the
American Historical Profession ( lew York , 1988).
36 H ollin ge r, "T. S. Kuhn's Theo ry of Science," 11 7- 19. T o be sure, we must disti nguish
between paradigm const rued as a ge nerall y accepted viewpoint, and paradigm co nstrued
as an in stance of scien tifi c practice that has turned o ut to be spectac ul arl y successful at
solving problems. If one emp hasizes the latter m ea ning , Kuhn's affi nities a re w ith dia-
lecti cal o bj ectivity. But this side of Kuhn's account was of less inte rest to soc ial scie ntists
than was hi s empha sis on co nse nsus.
37 Dea r, "From Truth to Disinte rested ness," 6 19-2 1.
38 Dasto n and Ga li son, "The Im age of O bj ec tivity," 82.
39 Th e phrase "ape rspec tiva l obj ectivity" is Lorraine Daston's, from "Objectivity and the
Escape fro m Perspecti ve." Additiona ll y, Dea r ha s suggested that th e negative character
of [absolute] obj ec tivity is ni cely ca ptured by Karl Po pper's we ll -know n noti on of a
"Third Wo rl d" of obj ective intelligibility, si nce (a) the Poppe ri an "Third World " is
hard to locate in any spec ifi c way a nd (b) th e ideas in it "d o not have to be, in any useful
se nse, true ." In Dear's words, "objecti ve know ledge is cha rac teri zed by its not being
sub jective . ... Tru th is bes ide the poi nt " (Dea r, "From Truth to Disinte restedness,"
6 19-20; Karl Pop per, Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach [Oxford, 1972],
chap. 4, "O n the Th eo ry of Objective M in d," 153-90).
4o Fri ed rich N ietzsc he, On the Uses and Disadvan tages of History for L ife, sec. 6, in his
Un timely Medita tions, tra ns. R. J. H ollingda le, w ith a n int roduction by J. P. Stern (Ca m-
brid ge, 1983), 89-95, at 93 ·
4 1 Martin H eid egge r, Being and T ime, tran s. Joa n Stambaugh (A lbany, NY , 1996), § 15,
pp. 62-67 (Ge rm an pagination).
4 2 See, fo r exa m ple. Mau rice Me rl eau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, trans . Colin
Sm ith (Lo nd on, 1962); John D ewey and Arthur F. Be ntl ey, Knowing and the Known
(Boston , 1949); Michae l Polan yi, Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy
(C hi cago, 1958); and Mar jo ri e G rene, Th e Knower and the Known (New York , 1966).
43 Johannes Fabian, "Ethnographic O bjecti vity Rev isited : From Rigo r to Vigo r," in Me-
gill , ed., Rethinking Objectivity, 8 1- 108; ori g. pub. in Annals of Scholarship 8 (199 1):
30 1- 28.
44 Johann es Fabian, '"Histo ry, L anguage a nd A nthropology," Ph ilosophy of the Social
Sciences 1 (197 1): 19- 47.
45 Fabian, "Ethnograp hi c Ob jecti vity Rev isited," 8 1. Fabian fo und this view in J. A.
Ba rn es's Three Styles in the Study of Kinship (Berk eley, 197 1).
46 Barnes thoug ht so in Three Styles, xx i. Of course, we ca n recogni ze here a comm itm ent
to "d isciplinary" obj ecti vity.
NO T ES T O PAGES I 2 1- 12 6 t 243
47 Fabian, "History, La nguage and A nthropology." 19. Anoth er way of pu tting this is to
say that Kuhn held that any pursuit of scientifi c kn ow ledge th at is worthy of th e name
m ust aim to follow one set of methods and a rri ve at one view.
48 Fab ian, "History, Language a nd Anth ropo logy," 25 , 27
49 Fabian uses the te rm objectification in a neutral, epistemologica l se nse, rath er tha n pejor-
atively, as many authors do, to designate th e turning of "pe rsons" into "m ere obj ects."
50 Fabian, " Hi story, Language and A nthropology," 22.
5 1 Fo r furth er d iscuss ion , see Grene, Knower and the Known, chap. 5, ""-.ant: Th e Knowe r
as Agent," 120 -56.
52 See Th eodore M. Po rter, "Ob jec ti vity as Sta ndardi zation: The Rheto ri c of Imperson -
ality in Measurem ent, Stati sti cs, a nd Cos t-Be nefit Ana lys is," in Megill, ed., Rethinking
Ob1ectivity, 197- 237; and, on a large r sca le, Th eodore M . Po rter, Trust in Numbers: Th e
Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life (Prin ce ton, J, 1995).
53 So m e of th eir wor k is cited in note 15, above. See also Pete r Dear, "Totiu.; in verba :
Rh eto ri c a nd Authority in the Ea rl y Roya l Society," Isis 76 (1985): 145-6 1, and " Jes uit
Math ematical Science and th e Recons tituti on of Experi ence in the E a rl y Seve ntee nth
Ce ntur y," Studies in the H istory and Philosophy ofScience r8 ( 1987): 133 - 75 . Th e soc iolo-
g ists of science Steve n Shapin a nd Si m on Schaffer have also contributed to thi s histori-
ca l stud y; see thei r Leviathan and the Air-Pump: H obbes, Boyle, and the Experimental L ife
(Princeto n, NJ , 1985); and Steve n Shapin , "The H ouse of Experim ent in Seventee nth -
Ce ntury E ng land," Isis 79 (1988): 373- 404, among oth er publications. See also th e
chapter, " umbers Rule the World ,'' in Ge rd Gi ge renzer ... [" et al.], The Empire of
Chance: H ow Probability Changed Science and Everyday Life ( Tew Yo rk , 1989), 235-70
(a ltho ugh The Empire of Chance was w ritten coll abo ratively by a tea m of auth ors, thi s
chapter was largely th e wor k of L o rrain e Daston a nd Theodo re M. Porter). That ob-
jec tivity became a n obj ect of histo ri ca l in ves tigati on - that is, a h1~·torical obj ec t- in
th e late twe nti eth centur y is itself interesting, a m easure of th e probl emati zation of
objectivity in our tim e. This fac t of course illust rates a "dial ec ti ca l" point.
54 D aston and Galiso n, " The Im age of O bj ectivity"; Dasto n , "O bj ec tivity a nd th e Esca pe
from Perspective" (th e quotation is from ''The Image of O bj ectivity,'' 98).
s 1 x : A Case Study in Historical Epistemology
Johann G ustav Droysen, Outline of the Principles of H istory, trans. E . Be nj amin A n-
drews (Boston, 1893), 4 -5 .
2 M ich ael J. MacLea n, "Johann Gustav D roysen and the D evelo pment of Hi sto ri ca l
H erm eneutics," H istory and Theory 21 (1982): 347-65, at 354-56; quotations at 355 .
3 Euge ne A . Foste r, M. A. Jobling, a nd P. G . T ay lor, "Jefferson Fathe red Slave's L ast
C hild," Nature, 5 November 1998, 27-28. Foster repo rts w ith "99 perce nt certainty"
that Eston H emings was fathe red by Jefferson or by one of Jeffe rson's d irect mal e- line
relatives. It shou ld be noted that th e titl e of the article, w hich was chosen by editors at
Na ture rather than by th e autho rs them se lves, is not acc urate. Th e D TA ev idence alone
244 t NOT E S T O P AG E 12 7
proved only that a male in th e Jefferson line fath ered someone in the Eston H emings
line - not that Thomas Jefferson him sel f fathered Eston Hemings. All the sa me, the
best ex planation of the currently ava ilable data seems to be the one th at tak es Jefferson
to be the fa ther of Eston.
4 A brief bibliog raphy is in order. Scot A. Frenc h and Edward L. Aye rs offe r a useful
account of some earlie r discussions of the H emings- Jeffe rson matter (and of Jeffe rson's
relation to ra ce a nd slave ry gene rall y) in their essay, "The Strange Ca ree r of Thomas
Jefferso n: Ra ce and Slave ry in America n Memory, 1943 - 1993,'' in Jeffersonian Legacies,
ed Peter S. O nu f (C harl ottesv ille, VA, 1993), 418-56. Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas
Jefferson and Sally H emings: An American Controversy (C harlottesv ille, VA , 1997) su r-
veys the ev ide nce conce rnin g the all eged H emings - Jefferson rel ationship as it was
known prior to the publication of the DNA res ults. (This wo rk is subseq uentl y cited by
page numbe r parenthetica ll y in the tex t.) The papers from the March 1999 confe rence
held to discuss the w ide r implications of the putative H emings- Jefferson relati onship
we re published in Jan Ellen Lewis and Peter S. Onuf, eds., Sally H emings and Thomas
Jefferson : H istory, Memory, and Civic Culture (Charlottesv ill e, VA, 1999). The Onuf-
Lew is volume also includes some so urce texts: Ca ll end er's allegations of 1 September
and 20 October 1802; an 1873 memoir by Mad iso n H emings, one of Sally's ch ildren;
Jefferson's musings on the charac ter of blacks (fr om hi s 1787 book , Notes on the State
of Virginia); and hi s specu lations, in a lette r of 1815 , as to how much d ilution by white
"blood" is needed to produce a white person from mulatto ancestors. Th e matter was
d iscussed aga in in "Forum: Thomas Jeffe rson a nd Sall y H emings Redux," William
and Mary Quarterly, 3rd se ries, 57 (2000): 121 -2!0, with co ntri buti ons by Jan Lew is,
Josep h J. Ellis, Lucia Stanton, Peter S. O nuf, Annette Gordon-Reed, Andrew Bur-
stein, and Fraser D . Neim an. Much material concerning Jefferso n and H emings is to
be fou nd on th e Thomas Jeffe rson Found ation Web site: http://www.monti cell o.org,
sea rch "Thomas Jefferson and Sally H emings."
Th ere is a Web site, edited by Eyler Robe rt Coates Sr., th at is la rgely de voted to
disputing th e claim that th ere was sex ual relati onship between Hemings a nd Jeffe rson:
see http:// www.geoc ities.com /Athens/7842 / jefferso nian s/ index. html. Coates has also
ed ited a simila rl y inflec ted book, The jefferson- H emings Myth: An American Travesty
(C ha rl ottesv ille, VA: Thom as Jefferso n H eritage Society, 200 1). Google searc hes will
no do ubt bring to light further discussions of this subj ect.
Fo r a co ntempo raneous account of th e 1999 confe rence, see N icholas Wade, "Tak-
ing New Meas ureme nts for Jefferso n's Pedestal," New York T imes, Sunday, 7 Ma rch
I 999, sec. I.
5 Q uoted from appendix B of Lewis a nd O nuf, eds., Sally H emings and Th omas Jeffer-
son, 259.
6 Joshua D. Rothman , "James Call end er and Social Knowledge of Inte rrac ial Sex in An -
tebellum Vi rginia," in Lewis and O nuf, eds., Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson, 98,
103, 104. See also th e restatements of this thes is in Rothm a n's Notorious in the Neigh-
borhood: Sex and Families across the Color L ine in Vi1ginia, 1787- 1861 (C harl ottesville,
NOTES T O PAGES 12 7- 13 0 t 245
VA, 2003), 32-33, 35 . We subseque ntl y cite these contributions parentheti ca ll y in th e
text as Rothman 1999 and Rothman 2003 .
7 The process of researching and writing the present chapte r was as fo llows: Shepa rd
a nd Megill we re skeptical of Rothma n's a rg um ent. Rothm an was kind enoug h to
make th e written ve rsion of hi s pape r available to Shepa rd , who th en prod uced seve ral
drafts of a pape r clarifying the epistemological issues in volved in Rothman's claims.
Megill , H a nenberge r, and Shepard then rev ised Shepard's paper fo r inclusion in the
present book.
8 See Gi lbe rt H arm an, " Inference to the Best E xpla nation," Philosophical R eview 74
(1965): 88-95 . O ne might also think of inference to the best explanation as eq ui va lent
to reasoning from the effect to the most lik ely cause.
A further terminologi cal note: the mea nin g att ributed to the wo rd explanation, as it
is used in th e "inference to the best ex pl anati on" lite rature, is not completely cong ruent
w ith th e use of explanation to denote a nswe rs to the q uestion "Why?" (ta kin g this ques-
ti on in th e sense of"W hat caused it '"). The use of explanation to d enote an a nswer to a
"Why?" question is of course high li ghted in chapte r 4. In our terminology, "inference
to the best explanation" wou ld bette r have bee n call ed "inferen ce to the best accou nt,"
since, alth oug h some of th e inferred "best ex planations" a re explanations in our sense,
some are bette r regarded as desc riptions or interpretations. H oweve r, the re is no need
fo r eve ry philosopher to use words in exactl y the same way in eve ry instance, as long
as the intended meaning is clear in each pa rticular instance. (Fo r ou r terminology and
the d istin ct ions that sup port it, see chapte r 4, at note 4 and throughout. Also, we return
to explanation below.)
9 Darwin mak es thi s clea r in hi s conclusion; see Darwin, The Origin of Species by Means
of Natural Selection or Th e Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, ed .
J. W. Burrow (New York, 1985), 455-58.
10 Q uoted by Paul Thagard, "The Best Explanati on: C riteria fo r Theo ry Choice,'' j ournal
of Philosophy 75 (19i8}: 76-92.
I 1 Quoted by K. T. Fa nn, Peirce's Th eory ofAbduction (The Hag ue, 1970), 8. Th e q uotation
is taken from an unpublish ed wo rk of 1903. Since, from all appeara nces, Fann offers a
reasonabl y reli able account of Peirce's th eo ry of abduction, we use it as a stand- in for
Peirce's own w ritin gs on the subject. This is acceptable in the present context, since we
a re not engaged in the hi stori ogra phic ta sk of reconstructing Peirce's th ought but are
instead using some ideas that Peirce put fo rwa rd to illuminate issues of spec ul ation and
ev idence in history.
12 Quoted by Fann, Peirce's Theo1 y ofAbduction, 21, from Cha rl es Sa nde rs Pei rce, Collected
Papers, ed . C ha rl es H a rtsho rne and Paul Weiss (6 vols.; Camb ridge, Mass., 193 1-35),
vol. 2, section 2.625 . Peirce returned often to Napoleon and abduction: see also vol. 5,
secti on 589 for another wo rdin g.
13 John R. Josephson, with Michael C. Tanner, "Conceptual Analys is of Abduction," in
John R. and Susa n G . Josephson, eds., Abductive Inference: Computation, Philosophy,
Technology (New York, 1994), 5.
246 t NOTES T O PAGES 13 1- 136
q See, agai n, chapter 4, w he re ex pl a nati o n is cl earl y disting uish ed from th e othe r three
tasks of hi sto ri ca l resea rch and w riting . That chapte r's emphasis o n th e causal se nse
of explanation is ha rdl y new, fo r it ca n be found throughout th e positivist phi lo-
sophi ca l t rad ition. See, m ost famo usly, Ca rl G . H em pel, "The Functio n of Gene ral
L aws in Hi sto ry" (1942), in Patr ick Ga rdine r, ed . Th eories of H istory (G lencoe, Ill.,
1965), 344-56. (In rega rd to the discu ss ion of states of mind , below, note that chapter
4 also allo ws inte nti ons to count as causes- th at is, we could legitim ately rega rd Cae-
sa r's alleged in tention , namely, to chall e nge th e Se nate, as causing hi s cross ing of th e
Rubico n.)
15 In thi s respect the present chapte r has a close affi nity w ith Aviezer Tucker's Our
Knowledge of the Past: A Philosophy of Historiography (New York, 2004), sin ce Tucker,
too, is conce rned with lookin g at how hi sto ri ans "ex plain th e ev id e nce." Like us,
Tucker was influe nced by th e " infe rence to the best explanatio n" lite rature. Tuck er's
book was publi shed o nl y a fte r we had completed all substanti ve wo rk on the prese nt
cha pte r. Hi s em ph asis on "explainin g" th e ev idence ca me to us as a we lcome confirma-
tio n of th e fruitfuln ess of thi s a pp roach.
From a more co nve nti o nal pe rspect ive, it may seem odd to see histo rian s as "ex-
plain ing" th e ev ide nce, rathe r th a n as offe ring an account of past eve nts and ex istents.
But from a n epi stemologica l point of view, these two operati o ns are eq uiva lent. Whe n
hi sto ri ans offe r justifi ed accounts of th e past, th ey a re also m a king se nse of, eve n "ex-
plain ing" (in th e stri ct se nse of th e te rm ), th e evidence. Simila rl y, in offe ring hi s theory
of "descent w ith m od ifi cati on," D a rw in "ex plain ed" (o r gave a n account of, o r made
se nse of) th e ex tant ev ide nce rel eva nt to hi s field-most notabl y, fossils that di ve rged
in fo rm from living o rgani sm s. L avo isie r did exactl y the sa me thing w ith respec t to his
fiel d of chemist ry.
16 Th aga rd, "Th e Best Explanation." Thagard 's accounts of consili e nce and simplicity
are much mo re rigorous than o urs. H ere, as elsew he re in the present book , philosophi-
ca l a rg um ents a re pursued o nl y as far as is needed to ill um inate hi sto ri ca l ~ esea rc h a nd
w riting-a nd no furth e r.
17 We assu m e for th e sa ke of this point th at the me mo ir reco rd ed and published in 1873
by S. F. Wetmore is in fact a n accurate account of Madison H e min gs's statements. See
Go rd on-Reed's impo rta nt d iscuss io n of th is issue, as we ll as of th e issue of Madison
H emings's own ve rac ity, in An American Controversy, 7-58. It should be noted that in
t he course of he r discussion Gordon-Reed employs, w ithout na min g it as such, the im -
po rta nt d istin ction bet wee n "to p-down" and "bottom-up" expla nati o ns th at we intro-
duce bel ow. So me furth e r refe re nces to Gordon-Reed 's boo k a re g iven in pa rentheses
in our text.
18 T o avoid e nta ngling th e reader in needless co mpl ex ities, we have not co nsid e red the
infe rences necessar y to establi sh our know ledge of Madison's circum sta nces-s uch as
th e infe re nce that the best ex pl a nati o n of th e Farm Book entry is th at H a rri e t H e mings
was in fact born, a nd so on.
19 R. G . Collingwood , An Essay on Metaphysics (Oxfo rd, 1940), 285 -95, describes action-
o ri e nted a nd state-of-m ind causes in g reate r deta il th a n we do he re. ote, howeve r,
NO TE S T O PAGES 136- 14 0 t 2.f7
that Collingwood's typology is not adequate fo r m aking se nse of all insta nces of hi s-
to rica l ex plan ati o n. In fact, he re as elsewhe re, Collingwood is bi ased towa rd forms of
histo ry that focus o n acti on, especiall y th e actions of indi vid ual s (as in trad iti ona l fo rm s
of politica l hi sto ry, where th e empha sis is on th e actions of states m en and politi cian s),
or of states treated as if they we re individ ual s. In a rticu latin g hi s th eo ry of hi stor iog-
raphy (in th e " Ep il egomena" of hi s Idea of History), Co llin gwood paid next to no at-
tentio n to fo rms of hi sto ry that foc us o n descr ibi ng a nd inte rpretin g st ructures, mean-
ings, me nta liti es, a nd th e lik e-fo rm s of hi sto ry that a re deployed in such wo rk s as
Jacob Burckhardt's Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy ( 1860) and Fe rn a nd Braudel's
th en unfinish ed Th e Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip ff
( 1949). See R. G . Collingwood, Th e Idea of H istory ( 1946), rev. ed ition w ith L ectures
1926-1928, ed . W. J. va n der Dussen (Ox ford , 1993), 23 1-3 15.
20 In eve ryday speec h we ofte n make a d irect causa l conn ection betwee n circumstan ces
a nd acti o n: " H e robbed th e sto re because he was poo r." As we hope we show in this
cha pte r, this can be a dangerously el lip tica l type of a rgu m ent.
21 After fo rmulating ou r top-dow n / bottom- up distinction, we discove red th at C. Behan
McCu lla g h uses a n identica l te rminology in McC ull agh, Th e Logic of H isto1y: Putting
Postmodernism in Perspective (Lo nd o n, 2004), 11 9.
22 On these points, see es pecially Go rdon-Reed's li st of " Items Supporting th e Asser-
ti o n that Thomas Jeffe rson Fathered Sa ll y H e m ings 's C hil d re n," in Gordo n- Reed,
An American Controversy, 2 11 -23 . Th e "coin cidin g" point is elabo rated on in Frase r
D . Neim a n, "Coincide nce o r Causa l Co nn ec ti on' Th e Relati o nshi p between Thomas
Jeffe rson's V isits to Mo nti cel lo a nd Sally H em ings's Conceptions," William and Mary
Quarterly, 3'd Se ri es, Vol. 57 (2000): 198-210. O n statistical ground s Ne im a n finds
some thing like a 99% probability that Jeffe rson was th e fa the r of H e mings 's children .
Un fo rtunatel y, Ne im an fa il s to state clea rl y all of th e pri or suppos itions und e r whi ch
hi s analysis ope rates, such as th e assu mption that all Hemings's children ha d the same
father. Thus we ca nn ot take se ri o usly th e high stati stica l probabi lity that he finds .
Still , it is strikin g, a nd m ay wel l be sig ni fica nt, th at the six reco rded children of Sa ll y
H em ings we re all co nceived w hen Jefferson was present at Montice ll o.
23 The re is no documenta ry reco rd of the ex iste nce of such a ch ild in Jeffe rson's pape rs,
alth ough the nam es and birth dates of five children bo rn to Sa ll y H em in gs do a ppea r
in those papers. Further, Sa ll y H emings's kn ow n son, Mad iso n H e mings , did no t m e n-
tion a sur viving o lde r siblin g named Tom in hi s 1873 memo ir (note 4, above), alth oug h
he did me nti o n a ch il d bo rn to his moth e r aro und 1790 w ho di ed in in fa ncy (a nd who
thu s coul d not have bee n "Pres ident Tom" ).
Among th e desce nda nts of an Africa n-A mer ican, Thomas C. Woodso n (ca . 1790-
ca . 1879), the re was a long fami ly traditi on hold in g that th eir ancesto r had bee n bo rn
of Sa ll y H emings a nd Thomas Jeffe rso n, and when thi s tradition became known out-
side th e family it was wide ly assumed that Thomas Woodson was none oth er than th e
" Pres ident T om" refer red to by Ca lle nde r. But th e re is absolute ly no doc um e ntary
record linking Thom as Woodson to Mo nticel lo, a nd the DNA tests on Woodson's de-
sce nd a nts showed that the y d id not ca rry the Jeffe rso n Y chromosome. These two facts,
248 :j: KOTES T O PAGE S 14 0- q 3
tak en toge the r, appea r to torpedo co mpl etely th e cl aim that Th omas Woodson was
Jeffe rson's son .
O n Woodso n a nd "President T om," see Rothman 1999, J02-3; Go rdon-Reed, 67-
75; a nd Th omas Jeffe rson Found ati o n, '" Repo rt of the Resea rch Co mmittee o n Thomas
Jeffe rson and Sa ll y H e mings " (January 2000), append ix K, "Assess me nt of Thomas
C. Woodson Conn ec ti o n to Sall y H emings," http:// www.monticell o.o rg / pla ntation /
he mingsco ntro /append ixk .html .
24 Note th at a full li stin g of hypotheses would include ma ny more, fo r exa mple: "The
resi d ents of A lbe m a rle County desi red to fo ll ow th e no rm s of their society." We have
listed o nly th ose of Rothm a n's hypotheses t hat a re controve rsial and th e refo re impo r-
tant to determin in g the best explanati on of the ev idence.
25 Th ose at lo nti ce ll o a re a n exce pti on, of course. Bo th slaves a nd no nslave s at Mo nti-
ce ll o kn ew w ho Sall y H em ings was. But we reite rate t hat both th e deg ree to w hich
they kn e w about he r (all eged} relatio nsh ip w ith Jeffers on a nd the degree to whic h they
spo ke w ith oth e r slaves or Jeffe rson's neig hbo rs have not been establi shed .
26 See be low fo r a detai led descriptio n of the circum stantial assoc iati o ns.
27 Th e tex ts of 1 Septe mbe r a nd 20 Octobe r 1802 a re transcribed in append ix B, pp. 259-
6 1, of Lewis a nd O nuf, ed s., Sally H emings and Th omas Jefferson, t he volume w here
Rothma n 1999 of co urse appea rs.
28 See Port Folio (Phila delph ia ), 10 Jul y 1802, 21 6. Rothman cites lin es fro m th e poem at
Rothm a n, 1999, 94 -95, 11 0, n. 23, a nd Rothman 2003, 30, 252, n. 44. Th e fo llow ing is
the all egedl y cruc ia l pa ssage:
Fo r mak e all like, le t bla ckee nab
De w hite womans .. . dat be de trac k!
Den Quashee !th e blac k man's name I de w hite wife wi ll hab,
A nd m assa Jef. shall hab de black.
29 See also, o n Ca ll end e r's campaign of all egati o ns aga in st Jeffe rson, M ichael Durey, With
the H ammer of Truth: James Thomson Callender and America's Early Na tional H eroes
(C ha rl ottesv ill e, VA, 1990), 157-63.
Rothman 2003, 30, also draws attention to a few lines in the Washington Federalist
in Se ptember 180 1. The iss ue of September q , 180 1 (p. 2, col. l ), refe rs to "a m an very
hi g h in office" (Jeffe rson was pres ide nt at th e tim e} w ho "has a numbe r of yell ow chil-
dre n, and . .. is addi cted to golden affect ions." Th e repo rt also refer s to a " M r. J." The
re port suggests th at "if they [these all ega tions] a re false a nd mal icio us th ey o ug ht to be
contrad icted." (We are in de bted to Lucia Stanton fo r giv ing us a tran sc ripti on of th ese
lines, a nd to Mary H ac kett fo r fi nd ing a nd tra nsc ribing th em ).
_30 Durey, With the Hammer of T ruth, 157-60; Gordon- Reed, 62.
3 1 H e refe rred to H emings as a "slut as co mmon as th e pav em e nt," w ith "fiftee n o r thirty"
differe nt love rs "of all colours." H e r chil d re n we re a " yell o w litter," and Jeffe rson se nt
fo r he r fr o m "'th e kitchen, o r pe rhaps the pigstye" (Rothm a n 1999, 95, Rothman 2003,
30; a nd Gordon-Reed, 6 1-62).
32 T o be fa ir, however, we m ay co nsider th e fact t hat sat iri sts often have th e freedom
to moc k politi cia ns fo r the ru mo rs th at su rround them , w he reas jo urn ali sts ge nerally
NO T ES T O P AG E S 14 6- 154 :j: 249
conside r themselves bound to speak o nl y of things fo r whi ch th ey beli eve they have
adequate ve rifi cation. Thus it wou ld not be surprisin g if th e Port Folio dogge rel we re
w ritte n in response to ce rtai n rumors of miscegenatio n. H oweve r, such rum o rs woul d
not count as knowledge o n th e part of the dogge rel's auth o r, nor do we as hi sto ri ans
have strong en oug h g ro und s fo r claiming to be certa in of the precise inte nt of the au-
th o r of th e dogge rel.
33 Edmund Genie r, " Is Justified Tru e Belief Kn owledge?" A nalysis 33, no. 6 (June 19 6 ):
3
121 -23 . For exa mpl e, I mig ht say to a no th e r pe rson, "Eith e r yo u have a pe nn y in your
poc ket o r you a re flyin g to Barcelo na tomorrow." Suppose I thought I saw th e pe rson
put a pen ny in hi s poc ket, but it was in fac t a dim e. Yet, alth o ugh the pe rson has no
penni es, quite by acc id ent it turns o ut that he is flyin g to Barcelona tom o r row, w he re,
unbe know n to m e, hi s ri ch uncl e lives. In such a case m y statement to th e pe rson turn s
o ut to be true . But I can not be said to have known that it was true - it o nl y turned out
to be tru e by acc ide nt.
34 See the following passage at Ro thm a n 1999, 103, which we here offe r in abbreviated
fo rm (emphases added) : "That Ca ll end er got so much of th e [Jeffe rson - H e mings]
story rig ht is a re m a rkable testimony to th e ex tent and transmiss ion of social knowledge
about private inte rrac ial sexual affai rs in Virgini a comm uniti es . ... Not everyo ne in
Albema rl e had info1mation for Ca ll ende r because not eve ryon e had heard the story, but
we sho uld not do u bt Ca ll e nd e r's asse rtio n that nea rl y eve ryone in th e county he men-
ti o ned it to believed it. G ive n w hat Vi rg inia ns already knew a bout sex a nd slave ry in
th eir society in gene ral, they did not need to have hea rd the deta ils of Jeffe rson's rela-
ti o nship w ith H e mings to believe that he might be sexua ll y in vo lved w ith he r." H ad
Ro thm a n tho ug ht se ri o usly about w hat he says in thi s passage, he mig ht well have
gotten beyond its co nfu sio ns. Know ing th at some thing is a quite common soc ial prac-
ti ce is not equiva lent to know ing what such and such a pa rticul a r pe rson d id, no r d oes
hearing a story eq uate to having information.
35 Ca ll e nd e r was a ng ry with Jefferson because the president wou ld g ive him neith e r co m-
pe nsati on no r respect fo r hi s suffe ring a nd imp ri sonm e nt und e r the Federa li st A lien
and Sed iti on Acts (Rothm a n 1999, 92-94; also Durey, With the Hammer of Truth,
143-57).
s Ev EN : Counte1factual H istmy
N iall Ferg uson, ed., Virtual H isto1y: .1ltematives and Cou11te1foctua/.s ( ew Yo rk, 1999).
2 Va ri o us re viewers d i sc u ssAx1~· & ,-4/lies at http://www.amazon.com : search "Axis & A l-
li es Boa rd Ga m e."
3 Ri chard J. Eva ns, " Tellin g It Lik e It Was n't," H istorically Speaking, 5, no. (Ma rch
4
2004): 11 - 14 {reprinted from BBC Histo1y Magazine, D ecember 2002 ).
4 R. G. Collingwood, Th e Idea of H1~·to1y, with L ectures 1926- 1928, ed. W. J. va n der
Dussen, rev. ed. (Oxfo rd, 1994), 214 .
5 See ibi d., 24 6, w he re Collingwood decla res th at "the re is o nl y one hi sto ri ca l wo rld ,"
and re jects th e relevance of "imag inary wo rlds" to hi sto ry. F e rg uson co rrectl y notes
250 t NOTES T O P ACES 154 - 16 1
in hi s introduction to Virtual Hist01y that the "id ea list position" of Collingwood and
Oakes hott "rul ed out counterfact ualism" (50).
6 Ca rl G . H empel, "The Function of General Laws in Hi story," in Th eories of History,
ed. Patrick Ga rdin er (Gl encoe, IL, 1960), 344 - 56.
7 R. G . Collingwood, An Essay on Metaphysics (Oxfo rd, 1940), 296-3 12, especially 304ff.
The ca r-acc id ent exa mpl e appea rs in Collingwood 's chapter on "Causati on in Practical
Natural Science," not in his (disappointing) chapte r, "Causation in Hi sto ry."
E 1 c HT: Fragmentation and the Future of Historiography
Peter Nov ick, Th at Nob le Dream: The "Objectivity Question " and the American H istorical
Profession (New York, 1988).
2 James T. Kl oppenberg, "Objectivity and Hi stori cis m : A Century of Am erica n Histori-
ca l Writin g," American Historica l Review 94 ( 1989): 10 1 r-30, at 1029.
3 Nov ick ag rees with this interpretati on in "My Co rrect Views on Eve rything," American
H istorical R eview 96 (1991): 699- 703, at 702. (In this piece Nov ick responds to four
co mm entari es on Th at Noble Dream prese nted at th e Ame rica n Hi storical Association
annual meeting in D ecember 1990. O ne of th e comme ntaries was an ea rli er version of
this cha pter.)
-I Let me co rrect a possibl e mi sread ing here: all parad igms a re un gro und ed . If they
we ren't ungro und ed , they wouldn't be parad ig ms.
5 Kathryn Kish Skla r, "A Call fo r Compa risons," American Historical R eview 95 (1990):
I I 09- 14, at I I l I.
6 The te rm paradigm needs , in any case, to be viewed wi th suspi cion. All too often it
is defin ed in a loose way th at in vites a usuall y unnoticed sli ppage from the notion of
an "ex planatory theo ry" to th e much broader notion of an "inte rpreti ve perspective."
The term goes back to Thomas S. Kuhn , Th e Structure of Scientific Revolutions (C hi-
cago, 1962). Ma rga ret Maste rman, in "The Nature of a Paradigm ," in Criticism and
the Growth of Knowledge, ed. Imre Lakatos and Al an Musgrave (Ca mbrid ge, 1970),
59-89, pointed out the multiple meanings of th e term in Kuhn's stud y. Not surpris-
ingly, in returning to these matters in the seco nd edition of Structure, Kuhn substituted
for "paradigm " the more va riegated notion of a "disciplinary matrix"; see Thomas S.
Kuhn, "Pos tface- 1969," in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed. (C hi cago,
1970), 174-2 10, es p. i 83-87.
7 Daniel J. Walkowitz, "The Ma king of a Feminin e Professional Id entity: Social Wo rk-
ers in the 1920s," American Historical Review 95 (1990): 105 1-75 , at 1074.
8 This response is most close ly assoc iated with Thoma s H askel l. See espec iall y Th omas
H askel l, "Professionalism versus Cap italism: R. H. Tawney, Emil e Durkheim , a nd
C. S. Peirce on th e Disinterested ness of Profess ional Communiti es," in T he Authority
o_f Experts, eel. Thoma s H askell (B loomington , IN, 1984), 180- 225, espec iall y 207. Es-
se ntially th e sa me position is to be found in th e w ritings of a numbe r of oth er histori-
an s who likewise appea l to a d isc iplin ary co nsensus that would ove rcome confli cting
NO TE S TO PACES 16 2 - 166 t 251
positions. For exam pl e, see David H ollinge r, "T. S. Kuhn's Th eo ry of Science and Its
Impli catio ns for Hi sto ry," in Paradigms and Revolutions: Appraisals and Applications of
Th omas Kuhn's Philosophy of Science, ed. Gary Gutting (Notre Dame, IN, 1980), 195-
222, at 212-13, 21 6- 17; and Kl oppenberg, "Objec ti vity and Hi storicism," 1029. For
Nov ick's run -th rough of these iss ues, see That Noble D ream, 570-72, and 625-28.
9 Les t I be misund erstood , I am not a rg uing fo r interdi sciplina ry unifi cati on. The more
that one knows, throug h th e ex perience of hav ing a rgued with them, about how the
practition ers of oth er d isciplin es argue, th e less likel y one is to think that the different
mod es of a rgum ent are co mpatibl e enough for any one person to practice them at the
same tim e. Thus I am deeply suspicious of noti ons of conve rgence betwee n differe nt
d isciplines.
10 Nov ick, Th at Nob le Dream, 361-4 11.
I I Ibid., 496.
12 I bor row the term grand narrative fr om J ea n - Fran ~o i s Lyota rd , although th e d efini -
tion offe red here is m y ow n. See J ea n - Fra n ~o i s Lyota rd , Th e Postmodern Condition :
A Report on K nowledge, tran s. Geoff Bennin gton and Brian Massu mi (Minneapoli s,
1984), xx iii -xx iv a nd th roug hout. See also chapte r 9 in this volum e.
13 Leona rd Kri ege r, Ranke: The Meaning of History (Chi cago, 1977), 100- 104, 130-3 1,
160-63, 226-28, a nd th roughout.
N 1 NE: "Grand Na rrative" and the Discipline of History
Pete r Burk e, "Overture: The New Histo ry, Its Past and Its Future," in N ew Perspectives
on Historical Writing, eel. Peter Burke (Ca mbridge, 199 1), 1.
2 See, for exa mpl e, th e discussion entitl ed "History th e G reat Catch-All ," in Jacq ues Bar-
zu n and H enry F. Graff, The Modern Researcher, 4th ed. (San Diego, 1985), 8-13.
3 With rese rvations and mod ifica tions, I borrow the term grand narrative fr om Jea n-
Fran~ois L yotarcl , The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. Geoff Ben-
ningto n and Brian Mass umi (M inneapoli s, 1984), xx iii (o rig. pub. in French, 1979).
Th e term mi ght we ll be taken as d esignat ing an all-embrac in g sto ry, arra nged in be-
g innin g-m iddl e-end o rder - the most obvious mea nin g, g ive n Ari stotle's influence on
our view of narrati ve. W ith out necessarily re jecting the A ri stotel ian view (fo r it does
fit part of th e hi sto ry recounted here), I intend the te rm more broadly, to d esig nate a
vision of cohe rence - in particular, a vision of coherence broad enough to sup po rt
objec ti vity cl aim s.
4 For exam pie, see H orst Walter Blanke's H istoriographiegeschichteals Historik (Stuttgart-
Bad Ca nn statt, 199 1), a n 809- page accou nt of the Ge rm an trad iti on of hi stori ogra-
ph y afte r 1750. Other surveys of (parts of) the hi sto ry of modern Western histori og-
raphy -each on a different scal e and with different emphases-incl ude Geo rg G .
Iggers's Historiography in the Twentieth Century: From Scientific Objectivity to the Post -
modern Challenge (H anove r, N H , 1997), which is in pa rt a pol emi c aga inst so-ca ll ed
postm ode rnism; Michael Bentley's Modern H istoriography: An Introduction (London,
252 t NOTES TO PAGES 167- 169
1999), a ca refu l and ve ry condensed survey; a nd Donald R. Kelley's Fo rtunes of Histo1y:
Historical Inqui1y Ji-om H erder to Huizinga (New H aven, C T , 2003), an erudi te defense
of history as an attempt both to awa ken and to assuage our curiosity about the past.
5 Thomas Bender, "Wholes and Pa rts: The Need fo r Synthesis in Ameri ca n History,"
journal ofAmerican H isto1y 73 (1986): 120-36; responses by Nell Irvin Painter, Richard
Wightman Fox, and Roy Rosen zweig, and a res ponse to the responses by Bender were
published as "A Round Table: Synthesis in American History," journal of American
H istory 74 (1987): 107-30. See also, on th e question of a "master narrative" for Ge rm an
history, Michael Geye r and Konrad H. Ja rausch, "The Future of the Ge rman Past:
Transatl an ti c Reflections for th e 1990s," Central European H ist01y 22 (1989): 229-59,
esp. 23.f-47·
6 For an accou nt operating on a more spec ific level, that of America n historiography, see
Peter Nov ick, That Noble Dream : Th e "Objectivity Question" and the American Historical
Profession (New York, 1988). Th e p rese nt chapter might be read as an attempt to lay
out a deep background to Novick's book. See also chapter 8, which is, in part, the "for
dummies" ve rsion of thi s chapter.
7 Th e most striking excepti on, among hi sto ri ans whom we mi ght oth erw ise be tempted
to designate as professional, is the Swiss histori an Jacob Burckhardt. At the begin-
ning of The Civilization of the Rena1J-sance in Italy ( 1860), Burckhardt wrote that
"the same stud ies that have se rved fo r this wo rk might eas il y, in oth er ha nds, not
on ly receive a wholl y d ifferent treatm ent and appli cati on, but lead also to essentially
different conclusion;'' (my emphasis). In making th is amazi ng claim to (a kind of) non-
authoritati veness, Burckhardt was doing nothi ng less than deny ing the notion of His-
tory. By the same token, he was all ow ing th e "dialectical" or "object-oriented" objec-
tivity of the art co nnoisse ur to triumph ove r "absolute" objectivity (see chapte r 5 fo r a
discussion of these categories); Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in
Italy, trans. S. G . C. Middlemore, with a new introdu ction by Peter Burke and notes by
Peter Murray (H arm ond swo rth , UK, 1990), part 1, "Int roduction," 19.
8 Kose lleck makes this a rgument in "Die Entstehung des Koll ek tivsing ul a rs" (section
5. 1.a. of"Gesc hichte") in Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe: HistonJ-ches L exikon zurpolit1J-ch-
sozialen Sprache in Deutsch/and, ed . O tto Brunner, Werner Conze, and Reinhart Ko-
selleck, 8 vols. (Stuttgart, 1972-1997), 2: 64 7-53, quotation at 652. For a brief account
in English, see Reinhart Kosell eck, "On the Disposability of Histo ry, in Futures Past:
On the Semantics of Historical T ime, trans. Keith Tribe (Camb ridge, MA, 1985), 198-
212, at 200-202 (cf. note 28, below). Kosell ec k develops a point made by hi s teacher
Karl Liiw ith, who contrasted the "s ubsta nti ve sin gular" character of th e Ge rman die
Geschichte with the lac k of any equiva lent term in Greek (Ka rl Liiw ith, "Mensch und
Gesch ichte" (1960), in Der Mensch inmitten der Geschichte: Philosoph ische Bilanz des 20.
Jahrhunderts, ed. Bernd Lutz [Stuttgart, 1990J, 228).
9 Robert F. Be rkhofe r Jr., "The C hallenge of Poetics to ( orm al) Histori cal Practice," in
The Rhetoric of Interpretation and the Interpretation of Rhetoric, ed . Paul H ernadi (Dur-
ham, NC, 1989), 188-89. H ow does one get from a concern with context to the notion
that the re is finally onl y a single context? In practice, it is an easy passage from the
NO TE S TO PAGES I 69- I 7 I t 253
obse rvation th at a work of hi story is "contex tu all y rich" to th e conclusion that "every
mean ingfu l precinct, person, or decision has been accoun ted fo r and integrated" by the
story that it tell s; see Michael Kamm en, "Hi sto rica l Kn ow ledge and Understanding,"
in Selvages and Biases: The Fabric of History in American Culture (Ithaca, TY, 1987), 37.
1o Louis 0 . Mink, "Na rrative Form asa Cognitive Instrument," in Historical Understanding,
by Louis 0. Mink, ed . Bri an Fay, Eugene 0. Golob, and Ri chard T. Vann (Ithaca, NY,
l 987), 194-95 ·
11 Leonard Kri ege r, Time's Reasons: Philosophies of History Old and New (C hicago, 1989),
xi and throug hou t. Kri ege r's commitm ent to "th e trad itional discipline of histo ry" led
him into some polemica l misread ing when he turned to the histori ography of th e 1960s
and 1970s (see espec iall y ix-x ii and r-6), but this is no denia l of the larger merits of the
book. See a lso Leonard Kri ege r, Ranke: The Meaning ofH isto1y (C hicago, 1977), where
a similar a rg um ent is adva nced, although in a less ge neral form.
12 Kri ege r, Tim e's Reasons, 170.
13 The standa rd account of unive rsal history in th e ea rl y mode rn period is Adalbert
Kl em pt, Die Siikularisierung der universalhistorischen Auffassung im 16. und 17. Jahrhun-
dert: Zurn Wandel des Geschichtsdenkens im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert, Gottinger Bausteine
zur Geschichtswissenschaft, vol. 31 (Giittingen, 1960). See also the discussion entitl ed
"Universa l Hi story: A Troubl ed Tradition" in Ernst Breisach, H istoriography: Ancient,
Medieval, and Modem (C hi cago, 1983), 177-85. In the late twentieth century, unive rsal
hi story was rev ived in a ve ry different, but still quasi-theological context: see Francis
Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man ( ew York, 1992), espec ially chap. 5,
"A n Idea fo r a Unive rsal Histo ry," 55-70.
14 Imm anuel Kant, "Id ea for a Universal Histo ry from a Cosmopolitan Point of View,"
trans. H . B. N isbet, and "A n Old Question Raised Again : Is the Human Race Con-
stantly Prog ress ing?" trans. H. B. N isbet, in Political Writings, ed. H ans Reiss (Ca m-
bridge, 199 1), 41-53, and 177-90.
15 Kant, "Idea fo r a Unive rsa l History," 41, 51 -53 .
16 Ibid., 53 .
17 Kant, "An Old Question Raised Again ," 180, 181.
18 Ibi d., 182. O n Kant's attitude towa rd the French Revolution, see Leonard Kriege r, Th e
Ge1ma11IdeaofFreedom (Bosto n, 1957), 104-5.
19 For the most deta iled statement of this view, see G . W. F. H egel, Th e Philosophy of
Histo1y, trans. J. Sibree (New York, 1956). For an abb rev iated prese ntati on, see th e end
of H egel's Elements of the Philosophy of Right, ed . Allan W. Wood, trans. H. B. Nisbet
(Ca mbridge, 199 1), §§34 1-60, pp. 372-80 ("World History"). In Hegel the theo logica l
underpinnings of gra nd narrati ve are particul arl y ev ident; note his famous asse rtion
that "the History of th e World ... is th e true Theodicaea, th e justification of God in
Hi sto ry" (Philosophy of H ist01y, 457). O n th e role of "Chri sti an theol ogy of hi story"
in H egel, see L aurence Dickey, Hegel: Religion, Economics, and the Politics of Spirit,
1770- 1807 (Ca mbridge, 1987), 149.
20 Fried rich van Schiller, "Was heiss t und zu welc hem End e studiert man Unive rsal-
geschi chte?" in Uberdas Studium der Geschichte, ed . Wolfgang H a rd tw ig (Mu ni ch, 1990),
254 :j: NO T ES T O PACES r 7 1- 173
18-36, at 27, ava il abl e in Engli sh as "Th e Nature and Va lue of Universa l History: An
In augural Lec ture [1 789]," H istory and Th eo1y 11 (1972): 32 1-334, at 327.
21 Mink notes thi s in " a rrati ve Form," 189.
22 See Johann Gottfried H erd er, "A. L. Schli:izers Vo rstellung se iner Un ive rsal-Historie,''
in Siimmtliche Werke, ed . Bernhard Suph an , 33 vols. (Berlin, 1877- 19 13), 5 : 436- 40,
at 438; and August Wi lhelm von Schli:izer, Vorstetlung seiner Universal-Historie, 2 vols.
(Gi:ittingen, r 772, 1773), vol. 2, "Vorbericht," as cited in Reill , Th e German Enlightenment
and the Rise of H istoricism, 47, 232-33, n. 59·
23 See Rank e's excu rsu s, entitl ed by hi s ed itors " Die U nive rsalgeschichtssc hreibung seit
d em 16 Jahr hundert," appended to th e introduction to hi s course of Summer Semester
1848 ["Erster Teil der We ltgesc hi chte oder Geschi chte der alten Welt"], in Aus Werk
und Nachlass, by Leopold vo n Rank e, ed . Walther Peter Fuchs and Th eodo r Schieder,
4 vols. (Vienna, 1964-75), vol. 4, Vorlesungseinleitungen, ed . Volk er D otterwe ich and
Wa lther Peter Fuchs, 208- 10.
24 Kriege r establi shes this in g reat deta il: see his Ranke, 103, 107, r 12 - 15, 124, 151-52,
a nd elsew here. For documentation of Ra nk e's concern w ith unive rsa l hi sto ry, see the
entri es for "Uni ve rsa lgeschi chte, -Historie," in th e Sachregister of Rank e, Aus Werk und
Nachlass, 4.
25 Leopold von Ranke, [Die Notwendigkeit universalgeschichtlicher Betrachtung], in Ranke,
Aus Werk und Nachlass, 4 : 296-98, at 297-98; trans. Wi lm a A. lgge rs as "The Role of
the Particular and th e Gene ral in the Study of Universal Hi story (A Manuscript of the
1860s)," in Th e Theory and Practice of H istory, by Leopold vo n Ranke , ed . Georg G. Ig-
ge rs a nd Konrad von Moltk e, with new translations by W ilm a A. Igge rs and Konrad
von Moltk e (New York , 1983), 57-59, at 58-sg.
26 Leopold von Ranke, "Neuere Gesc hi chte se it dem Anfang d es 17. Jahrhu nderts (28.
O ktober 1867- ro. Marz 1868)," [Einleitung], in Ranke, Aus Werk und Nachlass, 4: 4 11-
32, at 411. As Kriege r rightly noted, " repeatedl y, [Ra nk eJ insisted that the historian's
success in perceivin g the obj ec tive co herence of unive rsal history was onl y a matter of
time" (Ranke, 103).
27 Leopold von Rank e, "!dee der U nive rsa lhisto rie" !lecture sc ript of 183 1-32], in Ranke,
Aus Werk und Nachlass, 4: 72-89, at 74-75; tran s., in part, by Wi lma A. Igge rs as "On
th e C ha racter of Hi sto ri ca l Science (A Manuscript of th e 1830s)," in Ranke, Th e Theory
and Practice of History, 36.
28 Reinh a rt Kose ll ec k has argued that the eme rge nce of the term history (die Geschichte)
as an obj ectless "collective singul ar" d ates from the late eig htee nth ce ntury: "Onl y from
around 1780 can one talk of 'histo ry in gene ral ,' ' histo ry in and for itse lf,' and ' history
pure and sim ple,'" as distin guished from the hi sto ry of X and th e hi story of Y (Rein-
hart K ose ll ec k , "O n th e Disposability of Hi story," in Futures Past [note 8, above.I, 200).
We might speculate that th e grow ing domina nce in the ninetee nth century of th e "col-
lective si ngu la r" notion of histor y co mpensated for the deferral to th e future of the tell-
ing of the g ra nd na rrative noted he re. When the gra nd narrative is see n as (re)tellable
now, there is no need to insist semantica lly on History 's unity. The situati on changed,
howeve r, when th e telling of the grand narrative was deferred.
NO T ES T O PACES I 73- I 75 :j: 255
29 Ranke, "Idee der Un ive rsa lhistori e," 82-83; see Ranke, "O n the C harac ter of Histori -
ca l Science,'' 44.
30 Leopold Ranke to H einrich Ranke, lette r of Marc h 1820, in Leopo ld vo n Ranke, Das
Briefiverk, ed . Walther Peter Fuchs (H amburg, 1949), 18 (translati on from Kri ege r,
Ranke, 36 1, n. 13).
3 1 /. B. Bury, "Th e Science of History," in Th e Varieties of History from Voltaire to the
Present, ed . Fritz Stern, 2nd ed . (New York , 1972), 21 9.
32 Ibid., 217, quoting Th oma s A rn old, L ectures on Modem H istory (New York , 1874), 46.
33 Kriege r, Ranke, 242.
34 Bury, "Scien ce of History," 210.
35 Co mpare thi s w ith Rank e's famous statement: "I wished to ex tingui sh, as it we re, m y
se lf, and onl y to recount th ose things that powerfu l fo rces all owed to appear, that ove r
th e course of ce nturi es em erged and became strong w ith a nd through one an oth er";
see Leopold von Ranke, Englische Geschichte, vomehmlich im Siebzehnten jahrh undert,
Fi.inftes Buch, "Einl eitung," in Siimmtliche Werke, 2 Au A. (Leipzig, 1867- 1890), 15 : 103.
36 Bury, "Science of History," 213, 216.
37 Ibid .. 219.
38 Johann Gustav Droysen, Outline of the Principles of History, tran s. E. Benjamin An-
dre ws (Boston , 1893; translation ofDroysen, Grundrij3 der H frtorik, 3rd ed., 1882), §8 1,
p. 47- Th e Outline offers a n encapsulated ve rsion of refl ections th at are presented at
g reater length in th e posthumous ly publish ed manuscr ipt of hi s lec tures: see Johann
Gustav Droysen, Historik, ed. Peter Le yh, 3 vols. (Stuttga rt, 1977 [vols. 2 and 3 are
noted as forthcom ing , but as of April 2006 this impo rtant wo rk ha s not yet appeared]).
The Ley h ed iti on includ es the text of th e 1882 editi on of the Grundrij3 (4 13-88).
39 Droyse n, Outline of the Principles of History, append ix 2, "Art and Method," 11 8. Com -
pare Droysen, Historik, 69: "Th e acti viti es that our science conce rn s itse lf with ... are
onl y hi storica l because we conceive of them as histori ca l, not in themselves and obj ec-
ti vely, but rath er in a nd through our exa minati on [Betrachtung]" (the passage com es
from the manuscript o f Droysen's lec tures of 1857).
40 H ayde n Wh ite, "Droyse n's Historik: Histo rical Wri ting as a Bourgeois Science," in
Th e Content of Form (Ba ltim ore, 1987), 83-103, at 99. See also Jorn Rusen , Begrijfene
Geschichte: Genesis und Begriindung der Geschichtstheorie}. G. Droysens (Pade rborn ,
Ge rm any, 1969), 11 9.
41 Note Droyse n's statement in the first part of Outline of the Principles of Hist01y, 6: "Ob-
servation of the present teac hes us how, from different points of view, eve ry matter
of fact is diffe rently apprehended , desc ribed and conn ec ted with oth ers; how eve ry
tra nsaction in private as we ll as in public life receives explanati ons of the m os t various
kin ds. A man w ho judges careful ly will find it difficult to gath er out of th e plenitude
of utterances so diffe rent, even a moderate ly safe and perm anent picture of w hat has
bee n done and of what has been purposed." See also, on this th eme, th e manuscript of
hi s 1857 lectures, Historik, 11 3-14, 236-38.
But Droysen's recogniti on of interpretive mu ltipli city on a theoretical level did not
mean that he accepted it in practice : both as a man and as a hi stori an he was a deeply
256 :j: NO TE S T O PAG E S I 75- 176
co mmitted Prussian nationalist. O n this point, and on Droysen's "m ave ri ck" status in
the Ge rma n histo rica l t rad iti on mo re ge nerall y, see Michae l ). MacLea n, "Johann G us-
tav D royse n and the Dev elopment of Hi stori ca l H ermeneuti cs," H istory and Th e01y 21
(1982): 347-65 .
42 Ra nke, "Th e G reat Powe rs" (1833), t rans. Hil dega rde Hunt Yo n Laue, in Ranke, The
Th e01y and Practice of H isto1y (note 25, above), 65- 10 1, es p. 99-10 1. H e re Ranke con-
tend ed that "world hi sto ry does not present su ch a chaoti c tumult, wa rring, and plan-
less success ion of states and peo pl es as ap pea r at first sight" (100). Ra nk e's d iscove ry of
a bas ic unity was aid ed by hi s insistence, endemic among nineteenth -ce ntury Eu ropea n
intellectual s, on seeing European histo ry as world hi sto ry. O n Rank e's unive rsalism gen-
erall y, see Kriege r, "Elements of Ea rl y Hi stori cism: E xpe rience, Theo ry, and History
in Ranke," H istory and T heo1y 14 (1975): 1- 14, esp. 9- 14. O n Droyse n's re jection of the
conce pt of a Eu ropea n system of th e g reat powe rs, see Geo rg G . lgge rs, T he German
Conception of Histo1y: Th e Na tional T radition of H istorical T hought fro m H erder to the
Present, rev. ed. (Middl etow n, CT , 1983), rn6-7.
43 See Droyse n, Outline of the Principles of H istory, sec. 73, p. 44: "Even the na rrow, the
ve ry na rrowest of hum a n relations, strivin gs, ac ti viti es, etc., have a process, a hi story,
and are fo r the pe rsons in volved, hi sto ri ca l. So fa mil y hi sto ries, local hi sto ri es, special
histories. But ove r all th ese and such histo ri es is H istory ."
44 ov ick , in T hat Noble Dream, ge nerall y sup po rts my cl aim that twe nti eth-ce ntury pro-
fess iona l hi sto ri a ns (at least, American professional hi stori ans) la rgel y confo rmed to the
third attitude. A substanti al essay coul d be written on how thi s is so, but note th e fo l-
lowi ng points: (1) 1ov ick established th at insistence on autonom y was wides pread in
th e histori cal profes sion (36 1- 4 11 ). Insistence on auton om y is perh aps the m ost char-
acteristi c third-attitude positi on, sin ce it implies th at hi sto ria ns a re in prin cipl e ca pable
of arriving at a view of histo ry unta inted by irreleva nt exte rn al influ ences, with out
requiring that they actu all y d o so. (2) H e established th at hi stori ans had a widespread ,
but consistentl y th wa rted, conce rn with "conve rgence" in histo ri cal interpretation
(206-7, 320-2 1, 438, 457-8, 465 and passim ). Desire fo r a si ngle authoritati ve na rra-
tive, com bi ned with its pe rpetual fa ilure to appea r, is defi nitive of the third atti tude.
(3) H e established th at fr agm entation was wide ly seen as a bad thing (577-9 1 an d pas-
sim ). This suggests the view that a single authoritative na rrative is a good thing, eve n
if it ca n never be told . (4) H e established the long-sta nd ing pe rsistence of "the idea
and id ea l of'objec tivity'" (1), a noti on th at hi sto ri ans we re perfectl y willing to concede
coul d neve r be rea li zed. Aga in, g rand na rrati ve is relegated to a n id ea l level.
45 Consid er H . G . Wel ls, T he Outline of H ist01y, Being a Plain H ist01y ofL ife and Mankind,
2 vols. (1920; repr., New Yo rk , 1921 ), w hich emph atica ll y does not con fo rm to th e view
just noted (see es peciall y Wells's chap. 41, "Th e Possibl e Unificati on of the World into
One Comm u nity of Know ledge a nd W ill ," 2: 579-89). In thei r embar rassed reaction
to We lls, professional histori ans eve r sin ce the 1920s have de monstrated their co nvic-
ti on that thi s so rt of thing is j ust not done in histori og raph y.
46 Droysen, Outline ofthe Principles ofH ist01y, § 15, p. 15. See also Jo hann G ustav Droysen,
Vorlesung iiber das Zeitalter der Freiheitskriege, 2 Au fl., 2 vols. (Goth a, 1886), 1 : 4: "Our
NO T ES TO PAGES 176- 178 :j: 257
fa ith g ives us th e consolation that a divine hand bea rs us u p, th at it directs th e fates of
g reat and sm all. And the science of history has no hi gher tas k tha n to justify thi s fa ith:
th ereby is it science. It seeks and fi nds in that chaoti c ocea n lw zlsten Wellengang ] a d i-
rec tion, a goa l, a pla n." Ru se n, in Begriffene Geschich te, particul arl y stresses D royse n's
comm itment to a H egelia n gra nd na rrative of freedom ( 126-30, and passim).
47 See Wilhelm D ilthey, T he Formation of the H istorical World in the H uman Sciences,
ed. Rudolf Ma kkreel and Frithjof Rod i (Prin ce ton, N J, 2002; orig. pub. in Ge rm a n,
T927); Michae l Oa keshott, Experience and Its Modes (Ca mbri dge , 1933), esp. 92-96; a nd
M ichael Oa kes hott, "The Activity of Being an Hi sto ri an," in Rationalism in Politics and
Other Essays ( ew York , 1962), 137-67, esp. 166-67.
48 Collingwood 's phil osoph y ge nerall y, and hi s theo ry of hi sto ri og raph y in particul ar,
raise ma ny in te res ting theo retica l and exegetica l puzzles that I ca nnot cons ide r here.
Among many other d iscussions of Collin gwood's wo rk, see Lou is 0 . Mink , Mind,
History, and Dialectic: T he Philosophy of R . G. Collingwood (B loomington, IN, 1969);
W. J. va n de r D ussen, Hist01y as a Science: Th e Philosophy of R. G. Collingwood (Th e
H ague, 198 1); and W illiam H. Dray, H isto1y as Re-enactment: R . G. Collingwood;· Idea
of H isto1y (Oxfo rd , 1995).
49 Much of the "Epil egomena" to Th e Idea of Histo1y is a im ed at a rg uing out thi s point:
see R. G . Colli ngwood, T he Idea of H istory, rev. ed., with L ectures 1926-1928, ed . W. J.
van de r D usse n (Oxfo rd, 1993), 205-334, esp. 266-302. For a conde nsed ve rsion of the
a rgum ent, see R. G . Co llingwood , An Autobiography (Oxfo rd , 1939), chap. 10, "Hi story
as the Self-Knowledge of Mind," ro7- 19. In T he Idea of History Collingwood notes the
Kanti a n roots of hi s theo ry seve ral ti mes (60, 236, 240).
50 Fo r some releva nt passages, see Collingwood , Idea of H istory, 109, 136, 156.
51 Ibi d., 21 0, 23 1.
52 Collingwood, An Autobiography (Oxfo rd , 1939), 77. Su bseq uentl y cited in th e text by
page numbe r.
53 In thi s chapter of An Autobiography Collingwood identi fied three R. G . Collingwoods,
one of whom lived "as a professional thinke r" (15 1), w hile the othe r two respec tively
believed in and agitated fo r the unity of theo ry and practice.
54 Histori ans w ho read Collingwood usuall y fa il to attend to An Autobiography . Combined
with th eir third-attit ude prej ud ice fo r well -defi ned d isc ipli na ry boun da ries, thi s may
expl ain why Collingwood 's deni als of hi sto ri og raphi c autonom y have so ofte n bee n
ove rl ooked. Fo r exampl e, th e methodology fo r the hi story of politi cal th oug ht assoc i-
ated with Q uentin Skinn er, ). G . A. Pocock , and seve ra l oth er hi sto ria ns was partl y in -
spi red by a n "autonomi st" readi ng of Coll ingwood; see Skinner, "Meani ng and Under-
standi ng in th e Hi story of Ideas," H istory and T heory 8 (1969): 3-53 . But when Pococ k,
fo r instance, wrote that interco urse betwee n hi sto ry and theo ry begets pse udo- hi story,
so that, lik e owl and eagle, the two ought to "stay ou t of each othe r's fli ght-path s," and
th at, in another st riking simile, th ey a re lik e shi ps pass ing in the nig ht that might ex-
cha nge in fo rm ation, but are trave lin g on radica ll y d ifferent co urses, he a rticulated a
position in sha rp oppos iti on to Collin gwood's; see Pocock, "Poli tical T heo ry, Hi story,
and Myth: A Sal ute to John Gunnell ," Annals of Scholarship 1 (1980), 3-25, at 23, 2+ It
258 t NOTES TO PAGES 178- 182
is a standard herm eneuti c observation that interp rete rs find in what th ey interpret only
th ose things th at they a re rea dy to see; the obse rvati on also happens to be tru e.
55 Colli ngwood, Idea of Histo1y, 282-302.
56 Ibid., 247 (my emphas is), 246.
57 Schlozer, Universal-Histoire (note 22 above), vol. 2, "Vo rberi cht."
58 Ranke, [Die Notwendigkeit universalgeschichtlicher Betrachtung] (note 25, above), 297.
59 America n Hi stori ca l Assoc iation, Program of the One H undred Seventh Annual Meeting,
December 27-30, 1992, Washington, D.C. (Was hin gton, DC, 1992), 40.
6o When I first worked out the above lin e of a rg um ent, in the ea rl y 1990s, I did not
anticipate th e extent to w hi ch a Foucauld ian co mmitm ent to what we might call
"pa rad igm-thinkin g" would become in flue nti al in parts of the histo ri ca l discipline
(see chap. rn, es p. the last two sections). The dogmatism of such commitm ents marks
them as a reve rsion to attitude 1.
6 1 F. R. Anke rsmit, "H istoriography and Postmodernism," H isto1y and Th eo1y 28 (1989):
i 37-53, at 137·
62 Ibi d., 149. For Ank ersmit's reflections on "th e pull of the frame," and on "notation," see
hi s "The Rea li ty Effect in the Wr itin g of Hi story: Th e Dynamics of Historiographical
Topology," in H isto1y and Tropology: The Rise and Fall of Metaphor (Be rkeley, 1994),
125-61, at 150-53, 157. O n the concept of notati on, see Rola nd Barthes, "Th e Rea lity
Effect," in The Rustle of Language, trans. Richard H owa rd ( ew York , 1984), 141 - 42.
63 See espec iall y Jacques De rri da, "Diffe rance," in Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass
(C hicago, 1982), r-27. The noti on of originary difference is d istinct fr om the radical
textualism that is sometim es-bu t I think mostl y mi stakenl y- inferred from Derri-
da's w ritin gs.
64 See N icholas Resc her, Th e Strife of Systems: An Essay on the Grounds and Implications of
Philosophical Diversity (Pittsburgh, 1985), xi, 276-77, and passim.
65 Mattel D ogan and Robe rt Pahre, Creative Marginality: In novation at the Intersections of
Social Sciences (Boul de r, CO, 1990). See also Cliffo rd Gee rt z, "Blurred Genres: The
Refigu rati on of Social Thought," in L ocal Kn owledge: Fu rther Essays in lnte1pretive
Anthropology ( ew York, 1983), 19-35 . The term "blu rred genres" is potentiall y mis-
leadi ng, howeve r, since "blurring" might suggest lack of clarity and "ge nre" that the
change is simpl y a matter of literary mode.
66 Perha ps the central text- if central is the appropriate term here - is J ea n -F ra n ~ois
Lyota rd , The Postmodern Condition . For a rather di sappointing attempt to survey some
of the many uses of the term , see All an Megill, "'What Does th e Term 'Postm ode rn'
Mean?" Annals of Scholarship 6 ( 1989): 129-5 1.
67 See, fo r example, th e com ments of a university ad mini st rato r conce rn ed with matters
of tenure, prom otion, and rev iew: "We ra rely recog ni ze that 'multicultural' ten sions
ca n be fo und not onl y in matters of ethnicity and race, but also between and among
ou r d isciplin es .. . . I have been struck by how utterly distinct th e wo rld views of facu lty
members from d ifferent d isciplines ca n be." See Raymond ). Rodr igues, "Rethinking
the Cultures of Disciplines," Chronicle of Higher Education (29 Ap ril 1992), B1-2.
68 See, among others, Sharon T rawee k, "Border Cross in gs: Narrative St rategies in Sci-
ence Studies and a mong Ph ys icists in Tsukuba Science C ity, Japa n," in Science as
NOTES TO PAGES I 82-1 84 t 259
Practice and Culture, ed . Andrew Picke ring (C hi cago, 1992), 429-65 . Trawee k's theme
of ma rgin ality, or th e co nditi on of being bachigai (out of place), is much la rge r than the
titl e of he r articl e suggests; she offers an entire intellectu al itinera ry. O n the epistemo-
logical benefi ts of conce rn with marg inali ty, see Sandra H a rding, "Afte r the Neutrali ty
Idea l: Scie nce, Pol itics, and 'Strong Ob jectivity,"' Social Research 59 (1992): 567-87,
esp. 577-85.
69 Ferna nd Braud el , Th e Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age ofPhilip ff,
trans. Si5n Rey nolds, 2 vols. (New York, 1973), 2 : 1238.
70 The vau nted third -attitude sta nda rd of au tonom y also does this. Fo r if the autonomy
of hi story is a va lue, why not "th e autonomy of intellec tual hi sto ry" (Leo na rd Kri ege r,
"The Autonom y of Intell ec tu al Hi sto ry," j ournal of the History of Ideas 34 f 1973]: 499-
516)? And if the auton om y of intell ec tual hi story is a va lue, why not th e autonom y of
all other hi stori es, such as ea rl y mode rn French or late- mode rn American?
71 H a ns Kellner demonstrates thi s in "Diso rd erl y Co ndu ct: Braudel's Medi ter ranea n
Satire (A Rev iew of Reviews)," Histo1y and Theo1y, 18 ( 1979): 197-222; rep r. in H ans
K elln er, Language and H1~·torical Representation: Getting the Sto1y Crooked (Mad ison,
W I, 1989), 153-87.
72 Fe rna nd Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism : 151h-1 8th Centuiy, tran s. Sian Reynolds,
3 vols. (New York , 198 1-84).
i3 Paul Vey ne, Writing H istory: Essay on Epistemology, trans. Mina Moore-Rinvolucr i
(M iddl etow n, CT , 1984), 26: "Histo ry with a capital H . . . does not ex ist. Th ere onl y
ex ist ' histo ries of . . .'" (this is, of course, a reve rsal of what Kose llec k, whose notion
of the "coll ective sin gul a r" use of the term Geschichte [histo ry! was mentioned ea rli e r
in thi s chapter, saw as happening in the late eightee nth century). See also Fran~ois
Furet, whose move from "na rrative history" to "problem-o riented hi sto ry" was ai med
at ove rcom ing the present "proliferation of hi stori es" (Fr a n ~o i s Furer, " Introduc-
ti on," in In the Workshop of History, trans. Jonathan Mande lbaum l C hicago, 1982], 13-
20, at 16).
74 O n wome n and the w riting of hi story (both "professional" and "amateur"), see Bon-
nie G . Sm ith, Th e Gender of Histo1y: Men, Women, and H istorica l Practice (Camb ri dge,
MA, 1998).
75 Fo r th e po liti ca l sc ience con nec ti on, see William 0 . Aydelotte, All an G . Bogue, and
Robert Willi am Fogel, eds., The Dimensions of Quantitative Research in Histo1y (Prince-
ton, N J, 1972), "Int roducti on," esp. 3- 14; fo r the anthropology connec tion, see L ynn
Hunt, ed., The New Cultural H istory (Be rkel ey, 1989), " Introduction," esp. 1- 12, a nd
chap. 10 in thi s volume.
76 See Peter ov ick, Th at Noble D ream, 59 1, n. 20, d iscussing the Uni versity of C hi cago
Hi sto ry Department: "At the Univers ity of C hicago .. . as of 1987 full y half of th e
members ... also held appointments in othe r units of the uni ve rsity, and oth ers were
heav il y in volved in area stud ies programs without appo intive powe rs. Yet fo r all th is,
the ove rwhelming majority wou ld unhesitatingly and unequ ivocally id enti fy them-
se lves as histori a ns, with other commi tme nts relegated to a subo rdinate positi on. "
77 H e re the work of L yota rd is suggestive: see Lyotard , Th e Postmodern Condition, esp.
sec. 13, "Postm ode rn Science as the Sea rch fo r Instabiliti es," 53-60.
260 t NOTES T O PAGES 184-186
78 Cons ider the fo ll owing announ cement, from the University of C hicago: "As of July
1, [19841 the d epartments of biochemistry and molecul a r biology and the department
of molecular genetics and cell biology replaced the departments of microbiology, bio-
chemistry, and biophysics and theoretical biology" ("B iological Sciences Reorgani-
zation Refl ec ts Curre nt Areas of Study," University of Chicago Magazine 7 [Summer
1984]: 3- 4, quoted in 1ov ick , That Noble Dream, 585, n. 13). Common commitment to
"scientific method" makes it eas ier to move the locati ons of what are thus perceived as
mere internal boundaries. See also Gerard No iriel, "Foucault and Hi sto ry: The Lessons
of a Disillusion," journal of Modern Hist01y 66 (1994): 547- 68, at 567-68.
79 Thomas S. Kuhn , The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed . (Chicago, 1970).
So Since the popularity (o r not) of history books sometimes arises as an issue, it is perhaps
worth pointing out that The Structure of Scientific Revolutions has sold fa r more copies
than any "academic" wor k by a historian, and more copies than all but a few "popular"
works of history. From its original publication on March 5, 1962, through Janu ary 199 1
it sold 768,774 copies. Moreover, the citation data g ive cl ea r evidence that many schol-
ars intellectually active from the late 1960s through the 1980s actuall y read the book, at
least in part.
81 Collingwood, Idea of History, 246. He of course omits to note that the histo rical world
is accompan ied by an infinite number of counte rfactua l ones. O n this point, see chaps.
4, 6, and 7 in this volume. The point is interestingly developed in Geoffrey Hawthorn,
Plausible Worlds: Possibility and Understanding in History and the Social Sciences (Ca m-
bridge, 199 1), wh ich also deals with issues of necessity and conti ngency in history.
82 See Hayden White,Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe
(Baltimore, 1973); Stephen Bann, The Clothing of Clio: A Study of the Representation
of History in Nineteenth-Centwy Britain and France (Ca mbridge, 1984); White, The
Content of the Form (note 40, above); Kelln er, Language and H istorical Representation
(note 7 1, above); Philippe Ca rrard , Poetics of the New History: French Historical
Discourse from Braudel to Chartier (Baltim ore, 1992); and, by F. R. Ankersmit, books
and articles too numerous to mention, but see, for a short stateme nt of his characte ristic
position, 'The Use of Language in the Writing of History," in Working with Language:
A Multidisciplina1y Consideration of Language Use in Work Contexts, ed. Hywell Cole-
man (Berl in , 1989), 57-81.
83 See, fo r exa mple, Jon athan D. Spence, The Death of Woman Wang (New York , 1978);
N atalie Zemon Davis, Th e Return of Martin Guerre (Cambridge, MA, 1983), and
Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and Their Tellers in Sixteenth-Centwy France (Sta n-
ford, CA, 1987); Robert A. Rosenstone, Mirror in the Shrine: American Encounters with
Meiji japan (Cambridge, MA, 1988); and David Farber, Chicago '68 (C hi cago, 1988).
84 The obvious exemplar is Kuhn, StructllreofScientific Revolutions . Bringing aid to theory
was a conscious intent on Kuhn's part; see "Introduction: A Role for History," 1-9, at
1: "History, if viewed as a repository for more than anecdote or chronology, could pro-
duce a dec isi ve tran sfo rmation in th e image of science by which we are now possessed."
85 Herodotus, The Hist01 y, trans. David Grene (C hicago, 1987), 1.32, pp. 47-48; 1.91,
pp. 76-77; and 1.5, p. 35. These passages a re worth reading and rereading for the
insight they offer into H erodotus as historian. Only a fter the fall of Croesus, the King
NO T ES T O P AGES 187- 19 1 t 261
of Lydi a, d oes th e full mea ning of eve nts happenin g fi ve ge nerations previously, and
of var ious past oracl es, become clea r. Because the ups and downs of human affa irs can-
not be pred icted, H erodotus relays to us th e stories of both th e g reat and the small, not
presuming to kn ow now how events wi ll turn out later.
86 Ranke, "Neue re Geschichte seit dem Anfang des 17. Jahrhund erts (28. O ktobe r
1867-10. Marz 1868)," 412: "Geschichte beginnt mit Chronik und endi gt mit Essay,
das ist, in der Reflexion i.iber die historisch en E reignisse, die dart besonders Ank lang
find et. " Rank e ap pears to have used thi s passage as ea rl y as the summer semester 1853
offering of th e course. Macaulay's actual words were "history begins in novel and ends
in essay"; see Thomas Babington Macaulay, "Hi story and Literature" (1828), exce rpted
in Stern, ed., Varieties of H istory (note 31, above), 73.
TEN: Coherence and Incoherence in Historical Studies
See Lynn Hunt, ed., The New Cultural HistOI)' (Berkeley, 1989); and Victoria Bonnell
and Lynn Hunt, eds., Beyond the Cultural Tum: New Directions in the Study of Society
and Culture (Berk eley, 1999), espec iall y th e ed itors' introductions. Th e latte r is no. 3-1 in
a book series, "Studies on the History of Society and C ulture," that Bonnell and Hunt
edited . Th e list of titl es preceding the title page of Beyond the Cultural Turn gives a
good idea of the ra nge and kind of topi cs embra ced by th e new cultural hi sto ry.
2 Th e Cambridge Modern Histo1y: An ,.Jccount of Its Origins, Authorship, and Production
(Ca mbri dge, 1907), quoted in E. H. Ca rr, What Is H1~·tory? ( ew York , 1962), 3; J.B.
Bury, "The Science of Hi sto ry," exce rpted in The Varieties of History from Vo ltaire to the
Present, ed . Fritz Stern, 2d ed. (New York, 1973), 209-23, esp. 21 9- 20. Stern also ex-
cerpts Lord Acton's 1898 "Letter to the Contribu tors to th e Cambridge Modern Histo1y,"
which runs along a similar track (24 7- -19).
3 Jean-Fran~o i s Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition : A Report on Knowledge, tran s. Geoff
Bennington and Brian Massumi (Minn ea polis, 1984). For a discussion of how the no-
tion of a g rand narrative (often called "universal histo ry" ) has shadowed th e histori -
cal discipline from its beginning, see chapter 9 in thi s volume. Th e most erudite and
searching discussion of the role of coherence in Western historical writing is Leon-
a rd Kri ege r, Time's Reasons: Philosophies of H istory Old and New (C hicago, 1989). The
fulcrum of Kriege r's boo k is the destabili zati on of histori cal coherence that occu rred
around th e beginning of th e twentieth ce ntury (107 and elsewhere); its motive is the
need to engage with the academic and politica l radica lism s that Krieger held had en-
tered into the discipline by the late 1970s and ea rly 1980s.
4 On the need for written reco rds, see G. W. F. H egel , Lectures on the Philosophy of World
Hist01y: Introduction: R eason in Histo ry, tra ns. H. B. isbet (Cambridge, 1975), 13; on
the state as required for hi story, see G . W. F. Hegel, The Philosophy of History, trans. J.
Sibree, ed. C. J. Fried ri ch ( ew York, 1956), 111.
5 For a brief account of th e Anna/es school, see Pete r Burke, The French Historical
Revolution: The AnnalesSchool, 1929-89 (Cam bridge, 1990).
6 The title of th e journal has va ried sl ightl y since its fo unding; it is now called Anna/es:
H1J-toire, Sciences Socia/es.
262 t NO T ES T O P AG E S 19 1- 195
7 A lthough ove r fi fty, Bloc h voluntee red fo r a rm y se rvice in 1939. In th e midst of the
F re nch coll apse, he esca ped to E ng land fro m Dunkirk a nd then returned home via
Brittany. Late r, in 1943, he beca m e a Resistance leade r in L yo n, fo r w hich activity he
was shot by th e Ge rm ans in Jun e 1944. Betwee n milita ry se rvice a nd the Res istan ce,
hi s Jew ish ancestry led to hi s exclusion fro m hi s teac hing pos iti on unde r Vichy's anti-
Se miti c laws .
8 U biratan D 'A mb rosia, " Febvre, Lucien," in Encyclopedia of H istorians and H istorical
Writing, ed . Kell y Boyd , 2 vols. (Londo n, 1999), 1 :379·
9 O n Be rr, see W illi am R. Key lor, Academy and Community: T he Foundation ofthe French
H istorical Profession (Ca mbrid ge, MA, 1975), cha p. 8, "H enri Be rr a nd the 'Terrible
C rav ing fo r Sy nth esis.'"
1o Fern and Braudel, T he Meditenw1ean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II,
tra ns. Sian Rey nolds, 2 vols. (New York , 1973).
1 1 Braudel, Mediterranean, l : 14.
12 T wo of th e most insig htful reade rs of The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World,
J. H. H ex te r a nd H ans Kellner, emph as ize the incoherence of th e work: see J. H. H ex-
te r, "Ferna nd Braude l a nd th e Monde braudellien .. . , " Journal of Modem H isto1y 44
(1972): 480-539; a nd H ans Kellner, "Diso rde rl y Condu ct: Braud el's Med ite rranean
Satire (A Rev iew of Rev iews)," H istory and T heory 18 (1979): 197-222, rep r. in H ans
Kel ln e r, Language and H istorical Representation: Getting the Sto1y Crooked (Mad ison,
W I, 1989), 153-87.
13 Lu cien Febvre, "D e 1892 a 1933 : Exam en de consc ience d' un e hi stoire et d'u n histo-
ri en: L e~o n d 'ouve rture au College de France, 13 dece m bre 1933," in Combats pour
l'h i~·toire (Pa ri s, 1992), 16. O ri g. pub . in 1953 .
14 Lucien Febvre, "Contre !'esprit de spec ialite: U ne lettre de 1933," in Febvre, Combats,
104-6.
15 Febvre, " Le~o n d'ouve rture," 16.
16 A li st of the ed itors and ad viso rs of th e In ternationa l Encyclopedia of Unified Science
is give n on the ve rso of th e titl e page of Thomas S. Ku hn , T he Structure of Scientific
Revolutions (C hi cago, 1962), w hi ch origin all y ap pea red as vol. 2, no . 2 of the Encyclo-
pedia . The connection to the Encyclopedia was sti ll signa led in som e, gene rall y ea rl y,
printin gs of the book's second ed ition (C hi cago, 1970), befo re d isappea ring fr om sight
in late r p rintings. Of cou rse, Kuhn's wo rk co m pletely blew apa rt th e idea of a single,
u nive rsa l fo un dati on fo r all the sc iences.
17 Febvre, " Le~o n d'ouve rture," 12 .
18 L ucien Febvre, "Vivre l'hi stoire: P ropos d' initi ati on" (talk at th e Eco le No rm ale Su-
per ieure, 1941), in Febvre, Combats, 20.
19 Febv re, "Vivre l'histoire," 20.
20 Ma rc Bloc h and Lu cien Febv re, "A nos lecteurs," Annalesd'histoiret!conomiqueet sociale
1 (1929): I.
21 See Bury, "Science of Hi sto ry," es p. 219-20. W ith out spec ifica ll y mention in g Bury,
Fe bvre attac ks thi s notion of history in his " Le~o n d'ou ve rture," 8.
22 Th ese coll ec tive initiati ves are th e foc us of Kell y A nn Mul ron ey, "T ea m Resea rch and
lnterd isc ipli na rity in French Social Science, 1925- 195 2" (Ph D d iss., Unive rsity ofV ir-
NOTES TO PAGES 195-20 1 t 263
g ini a, 2000). A n im portan t statem ent is Lucien Febvre, " Pour une hi stoire d iri gee: Les
recherc hes coll ec tives et l'aven ir de l'histoire," pu bli shed in Revue de synthi:se in 1936
a nd reprinted in Combats, 55 - 60.
23 See Febv re, Combats, 419-38; publi shed in E ngli sh as "A New Kind of Hi sto ry," in
A New Kind of H istory and Other Essays, by Lucien Fe bvre, ed. Pe ter Burk e, trans. K.
Folca (New Yo rk , 1973), 27-43. I subsequ entl y cite both ve rsions in th e text, F rench
pagin ation preceding the E ng li sh.
24 W illiam H. McNe il!, "Fe rn and Braude l, H istor ian," ln stituto Fe rnand Braudel de
Economi a Mun d ial, Braudel Pape rs, no. 22, onlin e at www.braudel.org.br/ papin g22
.htm (copy right date 2003, accessed Ma rch 2004).
25 Fe rnand Braudel, "Hi stoire et soc iologie," in Ecrits sur l'h istoire (Pa ri s, 1969), I05, 120-
21. For an E ng li sh translati on of thi s essay, see Braude l, On H isto1y, trans. Sa rah Mat-
th ews (C hi cago, 1980), 64-82.
26 Braudel, " Hi sto ire et sc iences sociales: La tong ue d uree," in Braudel, Ecrits sur l'histoire,
82-83; for an E ngli sh translation of this essay, see Braude l, On H isto1y, 25-5+
2i "Une vie pour l' hi stoire" (interview w ith Braude l conduc ted by Fra n ~o i s Ewald and
Jea n-Jacq ues Broc hi er), Magazine litteraire, no. 2 12 (November 1984), 22.
28 Imma nuel Wa lle rstein, "B raudel a nd lntersc ience: A Preac her to E m pty Pews?" (pa-
pe r fo r the 5th Jou rn ees Braud el iennes, Bing hamton U nive rsity, [Oct. 1-2, 1999], on-
lin e at www.fbc.b ing hamto n.edu / iw jb.htm (copy ri ght date 1999; accessed Se ptember
2003). Wa lle rstein's a rticle led me effi cientl y to th e p rev ious seve ral q uotations.
29 Wall erstein , "B raudel a nd ln te rscience."
30 Gera rd oiri el, Sur la "crise" de l'histoire (Pari s, 1996), 94-96 (th e passages in quota-
tion m a rk s a re a ll from Braudel) . O n th e fragmentati on them e, see Fra n ~o i s Dosse,
L'histoire en miettes: Des "Annales" a la "nouvelle histoire" (Pa ri s, 1987), esp. 161-247.
3 1 See Febv re, "Po ur un e hi stoire d iri gee," 55-6o.
32 Noiriel, Sur la "crise," 92-IOo; q uotation at 97.
33 I d raw here on "Sur une fo rme d' hi stoire qui n'est pas la notre: L 'hi sto ire hi stori -
sa nte," in Febvre, Combats, 114-18, q uotati on at 117. For Be rr 's views, see H enri Be rr,
L'histoire traditionnelle et la syn these historique (Pa ri s, 192 1), w hi ch includes a sec tion in
chapter 2 entitl ed "Discuss ion avec un histo rien histo ri sa nt" datin g from 191 1; cited in
Febvre, Combats, i 15.
34 W hen in 1969-70 two third-gene rati on Annalistes, Pie rre Gau be rt and Robe rt Ma n-
dro u, visited the U ni versity of Toronto, the conflict of the Annalistes w ith their sup pos-
ed ly entrenched trad iti onali st opponents was one top ic of conve rsation. The re was some
do ubt, at Toronto, th at the Annalistes we re as margina l in the F rench hi stori ca l profes-
sion as they seemed to be cla imin g (pe rso nal recoll ecti on). Th e doubt was justified .
35 Lyn n Hunt, "Frenc h Hi sto ry in the Las t Twenty Yea rs: The Rise a nd Fa ll of theAnnales
Paradigm," Journal of Contemporary H isto1y 21 ( i986): 209-24. Su bseq uent page refer-
ences a re g iven in th e text.
36 Jacq ues Revel, "The Anna/es: Co nti nu ities and D iscontinuiti es," Review 1, nos. 3-4
(W in te r/ Sp ring 1978), 16, 17, 18. In suggesting a turn away from "Ma n" as the un ifying
obj ect of analys is, Revel evokes Michel Foucault's well- k nown hypothes is of" th e death
of m an ."
264 t NOTES T O PAGES 20 1- 204
37 Fra n ~o i s Furet, "Beyond the Anna/es," Journal ofModern H1~-iory 55 (1983), 389-4 10, at
390-92. (I fo ll ow L ynn Hunt in focus in g on th e Revel and Furet a rticl es. Th e Furet
article is a mino r variant of the int roduction to hi s boo k , In the Workshop of H istory,
trans . Jo nathan Mandelbaum [Chi cago, 1984].}
38 Hunt, "Rise and Fall of the Anna/es Paradigm," 215-218.
39 Furet, " Beyond the Anna/es," 397.
40 Ibid., 404 -5 .
41 Vers io ns of thi s pos iti o n include E rn st Bern heim , Lehrbuch der H istorischen Methode
(M uni ch, 1889); C ha rl es-V icto r L anglois a nd Cha rl es Seignobos, Introduction to the
Study of H istory, trans. G . C. Berry (New York, 1904; o ri g . pub. in French, 1898); and,
ce rtainly bes t kn ow n, R. G . Collingwood, Th e Idea of H istory. rev. ed., w ith Lectures
1926- 1928, ed . Jan van d er Dussen (Ox ford , 1993; or ig . pub. in 1946).
42 In bri ef, the "old" cu ltural history was co mmitted to th e notion th at it is both possible
and va lu abl e to w rite th e histo ries of cultu ral obj ects and practi ces w hil e also ma intain-
ing that these obj ects a nd practi ces have some element of aesth etic , m oral, or intellec-
tual va lue that exceeds th e socio-historical co nditi ons unde r wh ich th ey we re produced.
Th e new cultural hi sto ry utterl y d eni es that this ca n or sho uld be do ne; ind eed, even
th e possibi lity of such a projec t does not appea r on its rada r scree n .
Fo r o ne statement of th e old cultural history, see Jacques Barzun , "C ultural Hi s-
to ry: A Synthesis," in The Varieties of H istory, 387-402; fo r a sur vey, see Dona ld R.
Kel ley, "The Old C ultural Hi story," History of the Human Sciences 9 (1996): 101- 26.
43 Hunt, ed., Th e New Cultural H isto1y.
44 C li ffo rd Gee rtz, Th e !nte1pretatio11 of C11/t11res: Selected Essays (New York, 1973).
45 Ian Ha cking, "The A rchaeology of Foucau lt," in Foucault: A Critical R eade1; ed . David
C. H oy (Oxfo rd, 1986), 27, quoted in Pat ri cia O'B rien, "M ichel Fo ucault 's History of
C ulture," in Hunt , ed., Th e New Cultural History, 45.
46 Pi erre Bou rdi eu, Outline ofa Th eory of Practice, trans. Richa rd N ice (Ca mbrid ge , 1977;
o ri g. pub. in French , 1972]}; Pi erre Bourcl ieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the fud-
gementofTaste, tran s. Ri chard N ice (Ca mbrid ge, MA, 1984). O ri g. pub. in French, 1979.
47 For an ove rview, see H. A ram Veeser, eel., Th e New H istoricism Reader (New York,
1994).
48 Bo nn el l and Hunt, eds., Beyond the Cultural Tum.
49 Ri chard Biernac ki, "Method and Meta ph or afte r th e New C ultural Hi sto ry," in Bon-
nell a nd Hunt, eds., Beyond the Cultural Turn, 62. Subsequent page refe rences a re given
in th e text.
50 Geertz, Interpretation of Cult11res, 14, quoted in Biernacki, "Method and Metapho r,"
63-64.
51 Robert Darnton, Th e Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural Histo1y
( ew York , 1984); Lynn Hunt, Politics, Language, and Class in the French Revolution
(Be rkel ey, 1984). An ea rli er comm en tato r who pointed out the all -embrac in g, and
thereby empty, cha racte r of th e new cultura l hi storian s' appa rently o ntologica l ap peal
to "culture" is Ma ril yn St rathern, "U biquities" (rev iew of Hunt , eel., New Cultural
H ist01y), A nnals of Scholarship 9 ( 1992): 199-208.
NO T ES TO PAGES 205-206 t 265
52 Bonnell and Hunt, eds., Beyond the Cultttral Turn, 1.
53 Th om as S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed . (C hi cago, 1970); Ar is-
tid es Ba ltas, Kostas Gavroglu , and Vassi liki Kin di, "A Discussion with Thoma s S.
Kuhn ," in The Road Since Structure: Philosophical Es;ays. 1970-1993, with an At1tobio -
graphical Interview, by Thomas Kuhn , eel . Jam es Co na nt and Joh n Hauge lancl (C hi-
cago, 2000), 300.
54 D av id H ollinge r, "T. S. Kuhn's Theory of Sc ience and Its Im pli cati ons for Hi sto ry,"
in Paradigms and Revolutions: Appraisals and Applications of Thomas Kuhn's Philosophy
of Science, ed. Gary Gutting (Notre D am e, 1980), 11 7-36. O rig . pub. in American
Historical Review 78 ( 1973): 370-93 .
55 Trai an Stoianov ich, Fren ch H istorical Method: Th e Anna les Paradigm, with a forewo rd
by Fernand Braudel (Ith aca, NY, 1976); Burke, French Historical Revolution . O ne co uld
cite many oth er exa mpl es.
56 For one rece nt instance among hi stori ca l theorists, see Miguel A. Ca brera, "O n L an-
guage, C ulture, and Social Ac tion ," H istory and Theo1y, Th eme Issue 40(200 1): 82- 102.
Cab rera suggests that history "is currentl y und ergoin g a new change of parad ig m."
This m ea ns, of course, that " hi sto ri ans m ust adopt [my emph as is I a ne w agenda fo r
hi stori ca l resea rch" ( 100). H e th en goes on to outline w hat thi s age nda must be.
57 Kuhn , Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 162, 16+
58 Ibid .. 16+
59 Foucault's equati on of kn ow ledge w ith power offe rs-nefariously, I think - a justifi-
cati on fo r judging hi storians accordin g to th e supposed authenti ci ty o r in auth enti city
of th eir politi cal commitm ents rath er than on g rounds of th e meth odolog ica l va li d-
ity a nd insi ght-creating ca pacity of their work . That such a politica l mode of judg-
m ent actuall y is applied w ithin th e present-day Ame ri ca n historical profess ion seems
clear from some rece nt, notori o us cases. Th e best know n is th e rece ptio n of Michael A.
Bell es il es 's Arming America: The Origins of a National Cun Culture (New York , 2000).
Bell es il es's wo rk rece ived ma jor pri zes, and he was g ranted tenure at a pres tig ious
unive rsity, Emory. H e see ms to have rece ived these benefits in la rge m eas ure because
ea rly, all eged ly ex pert reade rs of hi s wo rk became orgas mi c at his cl aim that private
gu n ow nership in th e Un ited States befo re the C ivil War was rare-a cl aim that could
be see n as supporting the ca mpaig n fo r g un co ntrol. It appears that , as a res ult of their
pass io nate politi ca l soli da rity with Bell es iles, these reade rs failed to notice som ethin g
that o ug ht to have been obvio us to th em: th at Bellesil es 's ev idence d id not suppo rt his
cl aim. Why worry abo ut ev idence w hen th e good poli tica l cause is being served?
But eventuall y the in co nveni ent truth ca m e out. Bell es il es's tenure at Em ory was re-
vo ked, as was hi s Bancroft Pri ze, spo nsored by Columbi a Uni ve rsity, w hi ch had bee n
awarded to him for hi s having w ritten th e best wo rk in Ame ri ca n hi sto ry published in
the yea r 2000. Also, hi s publisher, K nopf, w ithdrew the book from circul ation. These
were almost unprecedented ac ti ons, and hono rable ones on the part of th e in stituti ons
co nce rn ed . For d isc uss ion of the Bellesi les G1se, see th e Nerusletter of th e O rga ni za -
tion of A m eri can Hi sto ri ans fo r February 2003 (ava il able on the Web at www.oa h.org /
pubs/ nl / 2003feb). Th e anonym ous articl e, "Columbi a Un ive rsity Resc ind s Bancroft
26 6 t NO T ES T O P AG E S 2 0 / - 212
Prize," recounts som e of the main facts of the case, but the best en tr y into the issues
is provid ed by the " Report of the Investi gative Comm ittee in the matter of Professor
Michael Bellesiles," dated 10 Jul y 2002, by Stanley Katz (chair), H anna H. Gray, and
Laurel Th atc her Ulrich, w hi ch conclud es that "the best that ca n be sa id lm y emphasis.I"
of Bell es il es 's work is that it is "unprofessiona l and mislead in g" and "deeply Aawed."
(The report is ava ilabl e at www.emory.edu /cen tral/ NEWS / Releases / Final_Report
.pdf; quota ti o ns at 18- 19.)
The OA H 's res ponse to the Bellesil es case has been d istur bingly eq uivoca l. In the
sa me issue of the Newslette1; it publish ed a n a rticl e by P rofesso r Jon Wi ener, "Emory's
Bel les il es Report: A Case of Tunnel Vision," that a ppea red to be w ritten on the prin-
cipl e that eve ry Left perspective, no matter how poorly grounded, is worthy of sup-
po rt. Also, to my kn ow ledge, th e OA H has not yet revoked the Bi nkl ey-Stephenson
Pr ize, fo r best article in the j oumal of American H istory fo r 1996, th at it g ran ted to the
fore runn er of Bellesil es 's book, his articl e, "The O ri gin s of G un C ulture in th e Un ited
States, 1760- 1865," Journal ofAmerican History 83 ( 1996): 425-55. The matte r of Bel-
lesiles can be pu rsued through Google sea rches, or via www.hnn .us o r www.h- net.org.
A far m o re responsibl e stud y of the hi sto ry of g un co nt rol in the U nited States is Saul
Co rn ell , A Well-Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers and the Ongins of Gun Control
in America (New York, 2006).
60 Kri ege r, Time's Reasons, I 66-67.
6 1 See, in thi s rega rd , John Hi gham, " Beyond Consens us: The Hi sto ria n as Moral C riti c,"
.~merican H istorical Review 67 (1962): 609- 25. Higham suggested that historians ought
to ac tivate a distinction between "causa l hi story" and "m oral hi sto ry," entertaining
both as " rec ip roca l modes of und erstand ing, eac h of w hi ch suffers fr om neglec t of
th e other" (622). I see littl e of such an orientati on in the current blithe talk of historio-
graph ic paradigms.
CONC L US I ON
L eopold Rank e, "P reface to the First Ed ition of Histori6 of the Latin and Germanic
Nations," in Th e Th eo1y and Practice of Histo1y, by Leopold von Ra nk e, ed . Georg G.
Iggers and Kon rad vo n Moltke, trans . Wilm a A. Iggers and Ko nrad vo n Moltke ( 1ew
York, 1983), 135-38, at 137 (translat ion altered).
2 Amazo n. com , hi story e-ma il newsle tter of 11 May 200 1. Amazon.com no longe r se nds
out such e- m ail s, but some se nse of the readers' res ponses to "popular" history books
such as the o nes noted above ca n be gauged from the "c ustomer rev iews" that a re posted
on th e major bookseller sites, es pec ially www.amazo n.com .
3 Pearl H arbor [moviel, directed by Michael Bay (Bu rbank , CA: Touc hsto ne Pi ctures,
200 1).
4 Somew hat ironica ll y, the attempted closen ess actually und erscored the hi sto rica l in-
authenti city of Titanic, since th e charac ters of th e drama - th eir dress, physiques,
bear ing, vo ices, lang uage, class relations, desires, sexual behav ior, and aspirations-all
had to be calcu lated acco rd ing to what a present-day audience wou ld find understand-
NO T ESTO P AGES212-2 1 ) t 2 67
abl e, em path etic, a nd interesting . Th e characters thus cl as hed quite dramatically w ith
th efumishings. See Titanic [mo viej, d irected by James Cameron (Santa Mo ni ca, CA :
Lightstorm Entertainm ent, 1997).
5 The Civil War !'PBS telev ision se ri es j, 1990, nin e episodes, Ken Burns a nd Ri c Burns,
produ ce rs (A lexand ri a, VA : P BS Vid eo, 1989).
6 Com m enting on The Civil Wai; Ken Burns hig hlig hts its "ca reful use of archiva l pho-
tograp hs, li ve m ode rn cinematography, music, narration, and a chorus of first-perso n
voices that together did mo re th an m erely recount a hi sto ri ca l sto ry. It was something
th at a lso became a kind of'emoti onal a rchaeology,' tr ying to un ea rth the ve ry heart of
the Ame rica n expe ri ence; li stening to th e g hosts and ec hoes of a n alm os t in express ibl y
wise past." (Ken Burns, "W hy I Decided to Mak e The Civil War, " at th e PBS Web site:
http://www.pbs .org /civil wa r/ film /) .
7 Th e World at War [Thames Tel ev ision se ri es], 1973, twenty-six episodes, d irected by
T ed C hild s and Martin Smith V II, produced by Je rem y Isaacs (New York: H ome Box
Office, 200 1).
8 Pity the hi storica l biographer nowad ays w ho d iscove rs that his su bjec t has no
lnnerlichkeit whatsoever. If there is no "th e re" th ere, w hat is o ne to do? Thi s dil emm a
may in part exp lain Edmund Morris's interes ting but hi stori ographi ca ll y d isastrou s
fi ctionalized bi ography of Ronald Reagan, Dutch:;{ Memoir of Ronald Reagan (Ne w
York , 1999), wh ich in ve nts cha rac ters who neve r ex isted (and fails to d istingu ish th em
from the chara cters w ho actuall y did ex ist}. But is Morri s's proced ure so su rprising?
Surely, where issues of identity a re uppermost, ev idence tends to become a matter of
mere "loca l color," intend ed to add verisimilitude to the na rrat ive rather than to es tab-
li sh th at it is true.
9 The fo rem ost theo rist of hi stor ical exper ience is F. R. Ankersmit: see hi s S 11 blime
H istorical Experience (Sta nford, CA, 2005).
IO Maya Jasa noff, Edge of Empire: Lives, Culture, and Conq11est in the East, 1750-1850
(New York , 2005), 1.
11 Th omas H. Bisson, letter to the editor, Atlantic, 17 June 2005.
12 See David Barstow, W ill iam J. Broad, and Jeff Ge rth , " H ow th e White H ouse Em -
braced Disputed A rm s In tell ige nce,'' New York Times, 3 October 2004, on lin e at
http:// www.nyt imes.com I 1004 / I 0/ 03 / i nternati onal / m id d leeast / 03tube.htm I (oth er
sites findabl e via Google); and James Risen, State of War: Th e Secret H1~·to1y ofthe CL~.
and the Bush Administration (New York, 2006).