Volume 24
Written By Elizabeth Boyle
ARTICLES
Donald N. McCloskey and Robert Fogel, “The Problem of Audience in Historical Economics: Rhetorical Thoughts on a Text by Robert Fogel," History and Theory 24, no. 1 (1985), 1-22.
Both history and economics have rhetorics which limit their practitioners as to what sorts of evidence and what sorts of logical appeals they can make if they wish to retain an audience. The thesis of Robert Fogel's Railroads and Economic Growth could be summed up by a three-line proof, but Fogel used courtroom procedure, scientific jargon, statistics, simulation, and the traditions of economic and historical argument to persuade an audience of both historians and economists. It was a book about rhetoric in economics and history as much as one about American railroads, and it became the archetype of cliometrics because of its powerful argumentative form and its startling, compelling conclusion. Knowledge in history or economics is a social event, often a new style of conversation, a new way of speaking; Fogel managed to create that new way of speaking.
J. N. Hillgarth, “Spanish Historiography and Iberian Reality," History and Theory 24, no. 1 (1985), 23-43.
The quest by Spaniards for the meaning of the history of Spain and Spanish history itself has been influenced, oversimplified, and distorted by the power of certain myths. The central myth of Spanish historiography, that of "one, eternal Spain," grew out of an earlier idea that Spanish history is the history of a crusade in which the favored Catholic religion struggled with and triumphed over its rivals. Historiographers subscribing to this notion have reacted violently and even hysterically to the thought that the interaction of Christians, Muslims, and Jews is a main key to Spanish history. They have been influenced by the apparent success of Franco, who represented the centralizing tradition of Castile. Now Spain's greatest problem is the linguistic and regional separatist movements, and the failure to deal with them in time is at least in part owing to the refusal to recognize this too total concentration on Castile and its saving, "unifying" mission.
Marvin Levich, “Interpretation in History: Or What Historians Do and Philosophers Say," History and Theory 24, no. 1 (1985), 44-61.
There is a bifurcation between philosophy and history, and in particular, between the interpretations in the writings of historians and in the conceptualizations of philosophers. Philosophers believe analysis to be a supremely rational activity, and they are right. But almost all interpretations are long, complex, and difficult to reduce to the manageable object of philosophical analysis, and philosophers sometimes conclude that what cannot be cut down to analytical size is not worthy of cognitive study, Historical interpretation, and therefore history itseif, has suffered grievously from this inclination and from the attendant temptation to shnplify at the expense of the subject.
Andrus Pork, “Assessing Relative Causal Importance in History," History and Theory 24, no. 1 (1985), 62-69.
As Raymond Martin noted, historians can make objective judgments about relative causal importance. He constructs a philosophical statement showing that counterfactuals enable us to assess relative causal importance. To justify the counterfactual statement itself, historians usually intuitively try to find for a comparison some other real situation which is in some important respect similar to the possible situation reflected in the counterfactual claim. The question then becomes, "How do we know that the actual historical situation, the counterfactual situations, and the real comparison situations are similar in relevant aspects?" As Martin did, we must look at real cases of historical thinking to make a philosophical statement, which in turn leads to a new set of questions and so on. At some stage a statement that gives substantial support to the Marxist claim that history is a scientifically analyzable, law-governed process will be reached.
REVIEW ESSAYS
Philip Pomper on The Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution by Andrew Bard Schmookler, History and Theory 24, no. 1 (1985), 70-79.
Donald R. Kelly on Joseph Scaliger, A Study in the History of Classical Scholarship: Vol. 1. Textual Criticism and Exegesis by Anthony Grafton, History and Theory 24, no. 1 (1985), 79-87.
Jonathan M. Wiener on Theoretical Logic in Sociology, Volume 1: Positivism, Presuppositions, and Current Controversies by Jeffrey C. Alexander, History and Theory 24, no. 1 (1985), 87-90.
Peter Munz on Historische Vernunft by Jörn Rüsen, History and Theory 24, no. 1 (1985), 92-100.
Christopher Parker on The History Men: The Historical Profession in England Since the Renaissance by John Kenyon, History and Theory 24, no. 1 (1985), 100-108.
ARTICLES
Peter L. Janssen, "Political Thought as Traditionary Action: The Critical Response to Skinner and Pocock," History and Theory 24, no. 2 (1985), 115-146.
A polemical and reductionist critical response to Skinner and Pocock has inhibited an appreciation of the true potential of their historiographical discussions for the practice of political theories. An important step in understanding the history of political thought in its duality - as both being about acts of political discourse over time and as itself being political - is to recognize the "traditionary" nature of discursive acts. Following Pocock and Skinner, we should speak not of tradition as objects carried on, but of the nature of that carrying on, that activity of handing down through language. A traditionary act involves subscription to a fairly sophisticated account of the development of a particular form of practices through time and the identification by the actor of his act as part of that development. This subscription allows us to overcome the categorical dichotomies such as history versus philosophy, autonomy of texts versus ideas as expressions of social relations, voluntarism versus determinism, and language as either restrictive or instrumental, which underlie much of the contemporary methodological dispute.
J. J. Drydyk, "Who is Fooled by the ‘Cunning of Reason’?" History and Theory 24, no. 2 (1985), 147-169.
After 1807, Hegel contrasts microhistorical chaos with macrohistorical order, the "cunning of reason." Agents interact blindly, but reason integrates all interactions, and this is the development and expression of rationality. No particular state dictates or precludes any subsequent outcomes; to allow the cunning of reason is to deny that causal relations are decisive for historical events. Ends are extraneous to objects, which suffer violence in achieving them. Consequently historical progress must also be regarded as extraneous to the objective social world, and this world must be assumed to suffer violence as progress is achieved. If anyone was fooled by the "cunning of reason," it was Hegel.
Zachary Sayre Schiffman, "Renaissance Historicism Reconsidered," History and Theory 24, no. 2 (1985), 170-182.
A revisionist view incorrectly identifies a growing awareness of historical and cultural relativity by scholars of Roman law in sixteenth-century France with a modern historical consciousness. Friedrich Meinecke more correctly identified historicism as the juncture of the ideas of individuality and development. The perception by these Renaissance scholars of successive changes in language and law only constitutes an awareness of individuality, not of an idea of development. They conceived of an entity as unfolding from a germ or essence, an essential quality which defined it as an individuality. They could not conceive of an entity as developing in relation to its circumstances.
REVIEW ESSAYS
Martin Jay on The Legitimacy of the Modern Age by Hans Blumenberg and Robert M. Wallace, History and Theory 24, no. 2 (1985), 183-196.
Guenther Roth on Force, Fate, and Freedom: On Historical Sociology by Reinhard Bendix, History and Theory 24, no. 2 (1985), 196-208.
Irmline Veit-Brause on Deutsche Geschichte 1800-1866: Bürgerwelt und Stärker Staat by Thomas Nipperdey, History and Theory 24, no. 2 (1985), 109-221.
Bruce Mazlish on The Iron of Melancholy: Structures of Spiritual Conversion in America from the Puritan Conscience to Victorian Neurosis by John Owen King III, History and Theory 24, no. 2 (1985), 221-228.
ARTICLES
Jörn Rüsen, "Jacob Burckhardt: Political Standpoint and Historical Insight on the Border of Post-Modernism,” History and Theory 24, no. 3 (1985), 235-246.
Revolution and industrialization meant for the patrician Burckhardt the end of Western civilization and the dehumanization of men and women. He upholds the idea of the historical unity of European culture as the core of historical consciousness while characterizing his own time as the breakdown of historical continuity in Western civilization by "anth ropo logi zing,"" structuralizing, "and "aestheticizing "history. He surpasses the age of revolution by having recourse to the suprahistorical nature of the human mind, using his historical topics as paradigms of transhistoric potentialities of human life. The historian sits in untimelv contemplation of the creative forces of the human mind in history, recalling the importance of culture in a time of increasing loss of culture. In evaluating Burckhardt's postmodernist, apolitical attitude, we should not forget the historical experience which Europe and especially Germany have had with antimodern thought.
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, "The Rani of Sirmur: An Essay in Reading the Archives,” History and Theory 24, no. 3 (1985), 247-272.
A "reading" of archival material on the Rani of Sirmur shows the soldiers and administrators of the East India Company constructing the object of representations that becomes the reality of India. The Rani emerges only when she is needed in the space of imperial production. Caught between the patriarchy of her husband, the Raja of Sirmur, and the imperialism of the British who deposed him, she is in an almost allegorical position. Both patriarchal subj ect- formation and imperialist object-constitution efface the dubious place of the free will of the sexed subject as female. In the cracks between the production of the archives and indigenous patriarchy, today distanced by the waves of hegemonic "feminism," there is no "real Rani" to be found.
Hans Jaeger, "Generations in History: Reflections on a Controversial Concept,” History and Theory 24, no. 3 (1985), 273-292.
If one renounces the ambitious goal to derive a universal, historical rhythm from a biological, generational succession, an examination of limited phenomena from a generational perspective will frequently turn out to be productive. New developments in intellectual history and in the history of art will tend to be represented by new age cohorts. In political, economic, and social history, generational communities are often less easily recognizable. Pronounced generational breaks which may affect an entire society apparently occur only after decisive historical events, such as wars, revolutions, and great economic crises. Even then, a generation is most easily recognized where it is clearly (theoretically or artistically) articulated.
Michael S. Roth, "A Problem of Recognition: Alexandre Kojève and the End of History,” History and Theory 24, no. 3 (1985), 293-306.
Given the evolution of his thought, Alexandre Kojève can be read as either the source of "engagement" and "existential Marxism" or as an early exponent of the postmodern rejection of the attempt to make meaning out of historical directionality in favor of an analysis of how history or discourse is constructed. Through the mid-1940s, Kojève was willing to accept that historical time is in the process of stopping, making it possible to grasp retrospectively, even anachronistically, the meaning and direction of history. By the late 1940s, Kojève had come to believe that history is definitively over, and there is no substance left to fight about. Whereas the end of history had been a goal worth struggling for, it is now simply a description of reality in which there is nothing else to do, except perhaps to remind others that there is nothing left to do.
REVIEW ESSAYS
Linda Orr on The Clothing of Clio: A Study of the Representation of History in Nineteenth-Century Britain and France by Stephen Bann, History and Theory 24, no. 3 (1985), 307-325.
Jurgen Herbst on The Philosophy of History Teaching: History and Theory, Beiheft 22, History and Theory 24, no. 3 (1985), 325-336.
Barry M. Kātz on Marxism and Totality. The Adventures of a Concept from Lukács to Habermas by Martin Jay; Adorno by Martin Jay; and Permanent Exiles: Essays on the Intellectual Migration from Germany to America by Martin Jay, History and Theory 24, no. 3 (1985), 336-347.
A Bibliography of the Publications and Manuscripts of R. G. Collingwood, with Selective Annotation
”Manuscripts, 1900 to 1941,” History and Theory, Beiheft 24 (1985), 1-31.
”Books, Book-Length Works, and Collections of Essays,” History and Theory, Beiheft 24 (1985), 31-60.
”Essays and Essay-Length Publications in Philosophy,” History and Theory, Beiheft 24 (1985), 60-73.
”Essays and Briefer Publications on Archaeology and Roman Britain,” History and Theory, Beiheft 24 (1985), 73-77.
”Reviews,” History and Theory, Beiheft 24 (1985), 77-83.
”Translations,” History and Theory, Beiheft 24 (1985), 83-84.
”Short Title Index,” History and Theory, Beiheft 24 (1985), 85-89.
Cover image: Cathedral in Palma, Spain, by Mathilde Cureau (29 April 2018)
