Volume 11
Written By Elizabeth Boyle
ARTICLES
Peter Wiles, "The Necessity and Impossibility of Political Economy," History and Theory 11, no. 1 (1972), 3-14.
In economics there is chronology but no history. Ideas may develop, but the motivation is always the same. This assumption gives economics a basic, workable simplicity, which manifests itself today as an obsession with methodology and simple assumptions. Economists try to deduce practical conclusions from much ratiocination and few data, and trespass into the normative. But history is positive. Public finance, monetary policy and detailed planning are normative, and these are the areas that impinge most closely upon in fact, that constitute political economy. Political economy is useful when we do not ask too much of it. The aspects of economics which it touches are precisely the least developed. As for politics, no adequate generalization is yet possible on how power is acquired or on how it is used. Therefore, there can be no scientific political economy.
Georges Duby, "L'Histoire des Systèmes de Valeurs," History and Theory 11, no. 1 (1972), 15-25.
Historical change occurs at many levels, and the tempo of change is very different at different levels. It is most abrupt at the superficial level of political events, of longest duration in the history of value systems, that is, of culture underlying political, economic, and even social change. For example, all the latter went through great transformation between 1125 and 1275, but the value-system of Abelard's contemporaries, at the earlier date, survived among the contemporaries of Jean de Meung, at the later; and only by reconstructing its continuity can one discern its actual changes of deep structure, toward a new recognition of the relativity of human cultures and away from the contemptus mundi. If the historian can preview the future at all, it cannot be by discovering any law of events which ignores the reality of deep structures.
Isaac Kraminick, "Reflections on Revolution: Definition and Explanation in Recent Scholarship," History and Theory 11, no. 1 (1972), 26-63.
Recent efforts to define or describe revolution have centered on discussions of the mode, impact, and purpose of political change. It is generally conceded that the characterization of revolution as strictly a violent mode of political change is too limiting, that such change must have an impact beyond ruling-class circles for it to be truly revolutionary, and that "revolution" has represented an effort to reconstruct society along theoretical principles animated by some vision of an ideal order, an ideology. That revolution is also a cultural phenomenon is emphasized in the most fruitful inquiry with respect to definition, the paradigm notion of Schrecker and Kuhn. The political explanation of revolution is decisive in each of the other models; the economic, sociological, and psychological.
REVIEW ESSAYS
Nancy S. Struever on Rhetoric and Philosophy in Renaissance Humanism. The Union of Eloquence and Wisdom, Petrarch to Valla by Jerrold E. Seigel, History and Theory 11, no. 1 (1972), 64-74.
Hubert J. O'Gorman on Social Change and History: Aspects of the Western Theory of Development by Robert A. Nisbet, History and Theory 11, no. 1 (1972), 75-89.
J. G. A. Pocock on The Idea of Perfect History: Historical Erudition and Historical Philosophy in Renaissance France by George Huppert and Foundations of Modern Historical Scholarship: Language, Law and History in the French Renaissance by Donald R. Kelley, History and Theory 11, no. 1 (1972), 89-97.
Jurgen Herbst on New Movements in the Study and Teaching of History by Martin Ballard, History and Theory 11, no. 1 (1972), 97-102.
William H. McNeill on The Nature of History: A Modern and Comprehensive View of History as an Art and as a Discipline by Arthur Marwick and Comment on Écrit L'Histoire: Essai d'épistémologie by Paul Veyne, History and Theory 11, no. 1 (1972), 103-109.
A. R. Louch on The Political Sciences by Hugh Stretton, History and Theory 11, no. 1 (1972), 109-113.
ARTICLES
Robert Stover, "Responsibility for the Cold War - A Case Study in Historical Responsibility," History and Theory 11, no. 2 (1972), 145-178.
Sixteen works are analyzed to shed light on historical practice in regard to praising, blaming, and ascribing responsibility. Agents are held responsible for the Cold War only if (1) they had an opportunity to prevent it (2) specified goals or norms required that they utilize that opportunity, but, instead (3) their actions, under the circumstances, brought about the Cold War. Historians' diverse ascriptions of responsibility reflect different views as to opportunities, applicable goals or norms, appropriate standards for determining culpability as distinguished from answerability, and bases for comparative judgments. Analysis also discloses that Dray's thesis regarding the interdependence of moral and selective causal judgments is simplistic.
Tracy B. Strong, "History and Choices: The Foundations of the Political Thought of Raymond Aron," History and Theory 11, no. 2 (1972), 179-192.
The apparent liberalism of Raymond Aron's thought can be understood only in the context of the questions asked by the "continental" philosophical tradition. Aron contends that the strong neo-Kantian and existentialist trends which came together in Weber's work serve to split man off from meaningful intercourse with the social world. Aron intends to re-establish that intercourse. He attempts to show precisely what the consequences and responsibilities of making choices are for a man "thrown" into the world. Politics becomes focused around the choice of values in a world delineated only in negative terms. Aron's program yields a low number of generalizable empirical conclusions and policy recommendations, and this is instructive to those who wish to practice "good" social science.
Renate Bridenthal, "Was There a Roman Homer? Niebuhr's Thesis and Its Critics," History and Theory 11, no. 2 (1972), 193-213.
In 1811-1812 Barthold Georg Niebuhr claimed that Roman historiography had its Homer, an indigenous poetic oral tradition. A century and a half of debate on this point seems to have come to a close, inconclusively. Niebuhr's hypothesis was not verifiable, since too much had been lost even of the known writers. He posited three stages in the development of civilizations: a completely poetic period, a mythico-historical period, and an historical period. Niebuhr thought he could reconstruct the Roman ballads on this framework by scraping off accretions of misinformation resulting from the biases of ancient historians. His elaboration of this hypothesis stands as unique, but also tends to overshadow his larger contributions: his overall method, and the breadth of his critical treatment of early Roman history.
Balkrishna Govind Gokhale, "Gandhi and History," History and Theory 11, no. 2 (1972), 214-225.
The combination of influences from the disparate religious traditions of Hinduism and Jainism was the dominant element in Gandhi's philosophy of history. Selected parts from the Christian biblical tradition and the works of Tolstoy and Ruskin were used only to sharpen the concepts inherited from the Hindu-Jain tradition. Progress takes place in the inner being of man rather than in the extension of man's power over nature and other men, the stuff of conventional history. History teaches ethical lessons and is stated in periods and cycles which are parts of cosmic processes. Gandhi envisions a peasant-centered society of village republics in which the work-creativity conflict is reduced to a minimum. Thereafter, he believed that man would ultimately embrace the doctrine of nonviolence and genuinely realize his own being as a part of God.
REVIEW ESSAY
John M. Murrin on A Little Commonwealth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony by John Demos; Four Generations: Population, Land, and Family in Colonial Andover, Massachusetts by Philip J. Greven, Jr.; A New England Town, the First Hundred Years: Dedham, Massachusetts, 1636-1736 by Kenneth A. Lockridge; The Half-Way Covenant: Church Membership in Puritan New England by Robert G. Pope; and Peaceable Kingdoms: New England Towns in the Eighteenth Century by Michael Zuckerman, History and Theory 11, no. 2 (1972), 226-275.
ARTICLES
Arnaldo Momigliano, "Tradition and the Classical Historian,'" History and Theory 11, no. 3 (1972), 279-293.
The "great" historians of ancient Greece and Rome emphasized the emergence of new institutions, habits, and vices; they were dominated by the sense of change. Histories sought to describe changes in the past which would help future generations to recognize the causes and foresee the consequences of similar changes. Implicit in the whole attitude of the Greeks and Romans toward history was that the variety of events was somehow inherently limited. None of the texts available to us gives a satisfactory account of long-term changes in laws and customs. Violent change during wars and political revolutions is the preferred subject. Finally, the cumulative importance of a "minor" historiography in ancient Greece cannot be underrated. City and temple chronicles emphasized the individuality of each Greek center and collected the local myths.
Ehud Sprinzak, "Weber's Thesis as an Historical Explanation,'" History and Theory 11, no. 3 (1972), 294-320.
Max Weber's analysis of the Protestant origins of the spirit of modern capitalism is often alluded to, but is generally held to be untenable. Neither the approval nor disapproval rests on a clear vision of what Weber meant. The most destructive argument decries Weber's one-directional and unicausal relationship between Protestantism and capitalism. Others argue that he mislocated the rise of modern capitalism, misinterpreted Protestantism, and misunderstood Catholicism. Yet Max Weber's self-assigned task was not to analyze the official intentional doctrines of Protestantism, but to call into question the ability of the social sciences to contribute to the settlement of major historical questions. The four most substantial arguments made against his thesis were anticipated by Weber and invalidated by his own cautious remarks. It is clear that Weber was interested primarily in the logical structure of his argument and that only by tracing his explicit methodological rules could a key to his thesis be suggested.
CLASSICS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY
Friedrich von Schiller, "The Nature and Value of Universal History: An Inaugural Lecture [1789] ,'" History and Theory 11, no. 3 (1972), 321-334.
Our contact with men of distant lands has made possible the notion of universal history. All societies are members of the same human civilization, though at different stages in its development. From the small sum of known past events the universal historian selects only those whose influence on contemporary life has been essential and readily discernible, and moves backward in time toward the origins. This produces an aggregate of world-changes which fit together only in a disconnected and fortuitous way. But his philosophical understanding transforms the aggregate into a coherent whole: the unity of the laws of physical and human nature allows him to infer backward to phenomena which had been left hidden or unrecorded. The universal historian transplants his reasoned harmony into the nature of things, a teleological principle into the course of world history. This elevates our every deed to immortality in the progression toward human perfectibility.
Bruce Mazlish, "The Tragic Farce of Marx, Hegel, and Engels: A Note,'" History and Theory 11, no. 3 (1972), 335-337.
Marx begins his Eighteenth Brumaire by attributing to Hegel the remark that "all facts and personages of great importance in world history occur, as it were, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce." Marx has stung us here with another of his famous inversions. For Hegel, in the passage in question, describes repetition in world history as a mark of ratification, sanctifying what has happened. He has not "forgotten" to add, the first time as tragedy, the second as farce; for such an addition would utterly contradict what he is saying. Actually, Marx borrowed the whole tragedy-farce notion from comments by Engels in a letter dated December 3, 1851. Marx has, however, held fast to Hegel's formulations about man being free only when he comprehends his history.
REVIEW ESSAYS
Neil Harris on An Unsettled People: Social Order and Disorder in American History by Rowland Berthoff, History and Theory 11, no. 3 (1972), 338-345.
Jean-Marie Goulemot on The Enlightenment: An Interpretation. Volume II: The Science of Freedom by Peter Gay, History and Theory 11, no. 3 (1972), 345-352.
Bruce Kuklick on The History Primer by J. H. Hexter, History and Theory 11, no. 3 (1972), 352-359.
Michael Kammen on Writing American History: Essays on Modern Scholarship by John Higham and Carl Becker on History and the American Revolution by Robert E. Brown, History and Theory 11, no. 3 (1972), 359-368.
Bibliography of Works in the Philosophy of History 1500-1800
COMPILED BY ASTRID WITSCHI-BERNZ
Astrid Witschi-Bernz, "Introductory Note," History and Theory, Beiheft 12 (1972), 1-2.
Astrid Witschi-Bernz, "Bibliography of Works in the Philosophy of History-1500-1800," History and Theory, Beiheft 12 (1972), 3-50.
Astrid Witschi-Bernz, "Main Trends in Historical-Method Literature: Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries," History and Theory, Beiheft 12 (1972), 51-90.
Cover image: Mahatma Gandhi with a crowd of textile workers during a visit to Darwen, Lancashire (1931)
