Volume 26
Written By Elizabeth Boyle
ARTICLES
Richard T. Vann, “Louis Mink's Linguistic Turn," History and Theory 26, no. 1 (1987), 1-14.
The development of Louis Mink's philosophy of history is traced beginning with his classic essay "The Autonomy of Historical Understanding"(1965) and culminating in "Narrative Form as a Cognitive Instrument"(1976). Mink's thoughts on history during this period were marked by an everdeepening interest in the textuality and intertextuality of historical accounts, in the modes of representation which historians adopt and use to produce their "reality effects," and in the effort to mediate between what he was to call the New Rhetorical Relativism and the claim that histories are in some sense true. Mink's response to Hempel's "The Function of General Laws in History," the beginning of Mink's consideration of narrative in "The Autonomy of Historical Understanding" and later in "History and Fiction as Modes of Comprehension," his association with Hayden White, his critique of a paper by Arno Mayer, and the beginning of Mink's final thoughts in "History and Narrative" and "Narrative Form as a Cognitive Instrument" are considered in elaborating the development of Mink's philosophy of history.
Samuel P. Hays, “Theoretical Implications of Recent Work in the History of American Society and Politics," History and Theory 26, no. 1 (1987), 15-31.
Five concepts are presented which together form elements of a theoretical framework for American history: 1) persistent inequality from one stage of history to another under the impact of massive transforming social and political influences; 2) systematization, referring to the way in which people sought to organize institutions in both private and public affairs so as to integrate people and resources into ever larger systems of human action; 3) differentiation, which is the realm of human identity and meaning, of understanding personal possibilities and limitations, and of choosing whether one seeks to be similar to or different from others; 4) interactions among levels of scale, of which the aspects of perception, personal networks, and institutions are especially important; and 5) innovation and response, or change and response to change. Each concept is well rooted in recently accumulated evidence. Together they constitute useful building blocks of theory which enable one to integrate the vast and often diffuse outpouring of literature in both social and political history.
John F. Tinkler, “The Rhetorical Method of Francis Bacon's History of the Reign of King Henry VII, “ History and Theory 26, no. 1 (1987), 32-52.
Classical rhetorical theory distinguished three kinds of genera of oratory - the judicial, the deliberative, and the demonstrative- and there are features of each in Francis Bacon's History of the Reign of King Henry VII. The demonstrative genus provided the basic shape of classical and humanist rhetorical history, while the deliberative and judicial methods also contributed significantly. The judicial method in particular may be very important for modern standards of history-writing. The fact that Bacon employed rhetorical strategies to shape his history suggests that the development of historiography is not as free from "literary" techniques as many historians might like to believe. The inadequacies, by modern standards, of Bacon's classicized historiographical methods and understanding do not condemn the art of rhetoric itself. Small shifts in rhetorical technique or emphasis could reflect significant changes of literary perception and philosophical approach, and different historical periods encourage the use of new and different rhetorical topoi.
Charles G. Salas, “Collingwood's Historical Principles at Work," History and Theory 26, no. 1 (1987), 53-71.
Collingwood's attitude toward literary sources is related to the method of selective excavation. But as an excavator, Collingwood came in for some criticism from his fellow archaeologists. Collingwood's treatment of four historical problems is considered: why Caesar invaded Britain, why Augustus did not, how the Claudian conquest proceeded, and why Hadrian built his wall and vallum. Collingwood concluded that Caesar intended to conquer, Augustus did not, and that the vallum served a civil rather than military purpose. In trying to identify past thought Collingwood approaches literary sources and archaeological remains with particular questions in mind. Questions and answers being correlative, this often amounts to having made up his mind in advance. When he comes to the evidence itself, he sees what he expects to see (what makes sense); occasionally what he sees is not in fact there. Where Collingwood creates a history, Peter Salway sometimes seems to be summarizing a subject. With Collingwood, however, we more than participate in processes of thought, we actually see the connections. Collingwood makes the real rational, and no historian of Roman Britain has done that better.
REVIEW ESSAYS
Jonathan Friedman on Islands of History by Marshall Sahlins, History and Theory 26, no. 1 (1987), 72-99.
J. L. Gorman on Writing History. Essay on Epistemology by Paul Veyne and Mina Moore-Rinvolucri, History and Theory 26, no. 1 (1987), 99-114.
Georg G. Iggers on Von der Aufklärung zum Historismus: Zum Strukturwandel des Historischen Denkens by Horst Walter Blanke and Jorn Rusen, History and Theory 26, no. 1 (1987), 114-121.
William Outhwaite on Studies in the Theory of Ideology by John B. Thompson, History and Theory 26, no. 1 (1987), 121-127.
ARTICLES
William H. Dray, "J. H. Hexter, Neo-Whiggism and Early Stuart Historiography," History and Theory 26, no. 2 (1987), 133-149.
J. H. Hexter, an American historian of early seventeenth-century history, terms himself whiggish and claims whiggishness is returning after the misguided popularity of Marxism. The distinction "whiggish" is more elusive than his claim suggests, and the accuracy of its application to Hexter's claim is unclear. Three characteristics commonly assigned to whig interpretation by its critics can be seen as reflections of broader, unresolved historical issues. These are: attention to political and constitutional issues; a tendency to refer to the present in interpreting the past; and a belief in inevitability. It is difficult to ascertain whether Hexter's attention to political matters is a result of his view of them as intrinsically important to historical inquiry or as particularly relevant to historical accounts of Stuart England. The charge of presentism cannot confidently be made against him, as he is not guilty of anything as crude as anachronism, and subtle presentism is neither avoidable nor necessarily reprehensible. Inevitabilism is not only difficult to define, it is not displayed by Hexter. If he displays the weaknesses of whiggishness it is only through implication, in the body of ideas underlying his text.
David Carrier, "Piero della Francesca and His Interpreters: Is There Progress in Art History?" History and Theory 26, no. 2 (1987), 150-165.
The existence of conflicting interpretations in literature, history, and art history casts doubt on the ability of any interpretation to be true to the facts. The role of the art historian is complicated by this reconsideration of what is valuable in interpretation. Progress in the history of art is difficult to ascertain. The scope and diversity of twentieth-century criticism of Piero della Francesca's Renaissance frescoes is difficult to compare to his less extensive Renaissance criticism by Vasari. While the antirelativist would be comfortable setting individual interpretations against a set of ahistorical standards, the relativist avoids evaluating differing interpretations as more or less valuable. Both relativism and antirelativism steer evaluations away from the notion of truth in interpretation. The marginalization of truth is furthered by the lack of "facts" in art. The flexibility of the data in art history makes multiple interpretations unavoidable. Only by acknowledging the inevitable coupling of form with content and the meaninglessness of searching for truth outside of the limiting structures of form, can truthful representations occur in pictures and in narratives.
John L. Herkless, "Economic Change and the Idealist Revival in Historiography at the Turn of the Century." History and Theory 26, no. 2 (1987), 166-179.
Idealism, and the neo-idealism of the turn of the century which was an extension as well as a revival of idealism, holds that it is impossible to know whether reality exists outside the mind. Rather, objects of perception are formed by the perceiving mind. The sense made out of these objects is thus subject to changes in that perceiving mind. Positivist liberalism conversely asserts that fixed, rational laws govern existence. German society at the end of the nineteenth century was so ridden with change that the static positivism of the National Liberals was rejected by German historians, led by Max Lenz in the 1880s, and replaced by a return to the idealism of Ranke. The neo-idealists looked for dual causalities, studying the interaction of economics and politics and holding that history was engaged in change as well as recording it. Two theories resulted from German idealism, both capable of accounting for changes in institutional frameworks over time: Marxism and the German historical school of economics, the Kathedersozialisten.
REVIEW OF REVIEWS
Seymour Drescher, "Eric Williams: British Capitalism and British Slavery," History and Theory 26, no. 2 (1987), 180-196.
Eric Williams's Capitalism and Slavery is a classic in the sense that it irreversyibly altered our most basic way of looking at an historical event. Writing the book in 1944, Williams broke with the century of histories portraying the British abolition of slavery as a humanist event, a moral victory. His account of slavery in the British colonies was innovative in introducing the notion that economic, rather than moral, factors were decisive in the motivation and success of the abolitionists. The two farthest-reaching claims of Capitalism and Slavery are that British colonial slave production and the slave trade enabled the industrial revolution to take place in Britain, and that the abolition movement resulted solely from changes in the British imperial economy. Though few historians since Williams have agreed with him on the centrality of industrialization in the slave colonies and abolition, his work has resulted in the inclusion of economic factors in all recent accounts of slavery and its abolition. By writing a simplistic history with a global context, Williams made it impossible for subsequent historians to write about abolition as an isolated moral act of the British Empire.
REVIEW ESSAYS
David Carr on Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time by Reinhart Koselleck and Keith Tribe, History and Theory 26, no. 2 (1987), 197-204.
John Kirkland on The Prophets of Extremity: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida by Allan Megill, History and Theory 26, no. 2 (1987), 204-213.
H. V. Emy on The Great Arch: English State Formation as Cultural Revolution by Philip Corrigan and Derek Sayer, History and Theory 26, no. 2 (1987), 213-222.
Lewis D. Wurgaft on Self Psychology and the Humanities: Reflections on a New Psychoanalytic Approach by Heinz Kohut, History and Theory 26, no. 2 (1987), 222-233.
ARTICLES
Jörn Rüsen, "The Didactics of History in West Germany: Towards a New Self-Awareness of Historical Studies,” History and Theory 26, no. 3 (1987), 275-286.
The didactics of history traditionally are assigned no role in the academic discipline of history, influencing the students, rather than the practitioners, of history. The developments of the categories of history and pedagogy in West Germany serve to illustrate the actual field of the didactics of history -questions of how one thinks of history; the role of history in human nature; and the uses to which history can be put. In the 1960s and 1970s, as part of an emerging process of historical self-awareness and a concern with curricular reform, the didactics of history developed into a distinct field. Historical didacticians became more involved with the discipline of history, although they were still associated with pedagogy. Currently, four issues form the focus of the didactics of history. They are the methodology of instruction, the function of history in public life, the establishment of goals for historical education in schools, and the analysis of the nature, function, and importance of historical consciousness. The didactics of history can be defined as an investigation of historical learning, the basic question of which asks how our experience and interpretation of the past influences our understanding of the present and our conception of the future.
Roy Mash, "How Important for Philosophers is the History of Philosophy?” History and Theory 26, no. 3 (1987), 287-299.
The current academic discipline of philosophy frequently emphasizes historical aspects of philosophy. Many writers claim that the history of philosophy is indispensable to philosophy. Of the three sorts of reasons for this indispensability - pragmatic, homely, and farfetched - only the third sort holds up. Even the homely reasons point only to the usefulness of the study of the history of philosophy to the practice of philosophy, not its indispensability. The main pragmatic reason for studying the history of philosophy is that most philosophical scholars are also studying it. This is not an enduring reason. The chief farfetched reason for studying philosophy historically involves seeing the philosophical activity as one possessing the characteristics of a self on which psychoanalysis can operate. Thus history serves to summon up "repressed" events in philosophy's past. The analogy here is strained and the goal obscure. Homely reasons are that history provides contemporary philosophers with role models and inspiration, as well as warnings of the pitfalls of trains of thought. The history of philosophy is not unimportant for philosophy, just overemphasized. The implications of this conclusion for the academic practice and teaching of philosophy is substantial.
Avihu Zakai, "Reformation, History, and Eschatology in English Protestantism,” History and Theory 26, no. 3 (1987), 300-318.
History gained a central role under the Protestants in the Reformation and Counter-Reformation as the revelation of scriptural prophecy. Protestant historiography endowed the Reformation with sacred importance by making it a signal of the Apocalypse. Protestant historians made Augustine's ethereal, timeless dialectic between good and evil earthly and immediate. In Protestant historiography, the Church of England, which was believed to have practiced correct Christianity since the time of the Apostles, played the role of Good, while the Roman Church played that of Evil. The struggle between the two churches was interpreted as an historical dialectic with an imminent end associated with the Apocalypse - the demolition of the Church of Rome. The Protestants turned to history for evidence that they were drawing closer to this Apocalyptic end. The history written by Protestants out of their newly historicized consciousness was a nationalistic one, in which the interpretations of the role of England changed over time.
Donald R. Kelley, "Ancient verses on New Ideas: Legal Tradition and the French Historical School,” History and Theory 26, no. 3 (1987), 319-338.
Romantic, po st- Revolutionary French historiography can be described as "ancient verses on new ideas." The "new history" of this period, with its antiquarian nature, shared more with its predecessors than its practitioners acknowledged. Historical and legal scholars of the Restoration belonged to a long intellectual tradition of a shared hermeneutical "community of interpretation," based on common origins, though not necessarily goals. A belief in the historical grounding of knowledge and judgment united Restoration historians and legal scholars to their predecessors. Debate over the origin of private property, the central human right advanced in the Napoleonic Code, united the two sorts of scholars, who examined the origins of the right of private property in the context of the history of laws, both Germanic and Roman. The establishment of private property proves to rest on the logic of feudalism, ironically overthrown in the Revolution while providing continuity in historiography before and after.
REVIEW ESSAYS
R. F. Atkinson on La Philosophie de L'Histoire et la Pratiques Historienne D'Aujourd'hui (Philosophy of History and Contemporary Historiography) by David Carr, William Dray, Theodore F. Geraets, Fernand Ouellet, and Hubert Watelet, History and Theory 26, no. 3 (1987), 339-346.
C. Vann Woodward on The Past is a Foreign Country by David Lowenthal, History and Theory 26, no. 3 (1987), 346-352.
Theodore S. Sarbin on Freud for Historians by Peter Gay, History and Theory 26, no. 3 (1987), 352-364.
John J. Compton on Maurice Merleau-Ponty: Between Phenomenology and Structuralism by James Schmidt, History and Theory 26, no. 3 (1987), 365-373.
Herbert A. Arnold on German History in Marxist Perspective: The East German Approach by Andreas Dorpalen, History and Theory 26, no. 3 (1987), 373-381.
The Representation of Historical Events
Hans Kellner, “Narrativity in History: Post-Structuralism and Since," History and Theory, Beiheft 26 (1987), 1-29.
Two new ways of looking at forms of knowledge were practiced in France roughly between 1965 and 1985. The postwar Annales school of history broke from "narrative" historical accounts to "nonnarrative" accountssynchronic, quantitative accounts not in story form. At the same time, the structuralists (eventually replaced by the poststructuralists) made history a special target as they began questioning the primacy and security of meaning and the strategies for constructing meaning in narratives. If structuralism and its aftermath is to be said to have had an effect on history, it would be the reinvention of reading, conceiving reading as a more complex and elusive process than it formerly had been, and exposing more and more of the accepted, fundamental components of human life as constructions. Three writers, Paul Ricoeur, F. R. Ankersmit, and Hayden White, recognize narrativity as a worldview, rejecting the Annales school distinction between narrative and nonnarrative history. These three see story history as a genre. They agree with the poststructuralists on the allegorical nature of history, but their arguments are, unconventionally, morally based. Their discussions of the constructions of narratives serve less to undermine history than to reground it as a humane discourse.
C. Behan McCullagh, “The Truth of Historical Narratives," History and Theory, Beiheft 26 (1987), 30-46.
Recent studies of historical synthesis have denied the possibility of "truth" in historical narratives, which they state impose meaning on a series of events. An historian is, however, capable of writing a true history, true in the sense that his or her narrative provides a fair representation of its central subject. Descriptions represent the world when they give us an idea that resembles part of the world itself. A subject can be said to be fairly represented if an author follows certain procedures: events must be presented chronologically; the main changes that occurred in the subject must be described; there must not be descriptions or omissions which might give a misleading impression of the subject; and the subject should be explained at a consistent level of generality and with a consistent level of detail. An historian motivated by preconceptions rather than the desire to represent a subject fairly, will not write a true history. Preconceptions are not incompatible with writing true histories, however, as long as they are discarded when an historian learns that they are incompatible with a fair representation. Analysis can be supplementary to, but is never a substitute for, accurate historical representation of a subject.
Stephen Bann, “The Odd Man Out: Historical Narrative and the Cinematic Image," History and Theory, Beiheft 26 (1987), 47-67.
Goya's and Manet's painted images, and Jean Renoir's cinematic image of historical executions have the power under the ideology of the image to reveal the truth of a moment outside of historical narrative. At the same time, these images are pulled back into the narrative from which they have been removed. The works of these three artists can be used to trace changes in the relationship of the image to historical narrative and its connection to photography and cinema. Goya, working in the early nineteenth century, uses the power of the scopic drive in a strategy which can be called the "witness effect." He deploys the traditional codes of post- Renaissance art in his composition, leading to a detemporalization of his image. Fifty years later, Manet's scene of execution includes an element outside the domain of codes, an element not symbolic, but indexical-the smoke coming out of the soldiers'gun barrels. The conception of the smoke as a sign of actuality is made possible by the invention of photography, which asks of the historical narrative, "Could such a fact, as it is narrated, have been photographed?" The third scene of execution, a still from a history film, is in a state of narrative nonexistence. The execution will be thwarted as the film continues. Renoir accommodates the historical imagination through allowing the image to assert both its presence and its absence. He articulates the gap between the reality and theatricality of visual representations of history.
John Passmore, “Narratives and Events," History and Theory, Beiheft 26 (1987), 68-74.
Every human being is born into a world of stories. Western society has tended to differentiate types of stories, distinguishing, for example, between history and fiction. Recently, the major intellectual task undertaken by many influential thinkers has been that of destroying these distinctions, and insisting on resemblances rather than differences. According to this train of thought, history is as much "imaginative literature" as is fictional writing. Argument in favor of this view is often begun by reducing the description of an historian's data to "scattered events." But, being born into a world of stories, an historian actually works with events only in story-form. It is misleading to compare the concept "event," which belongs to the ontological mode, to "narrative," which belongs to the linguistic mode. "Event" is further ambiguous because "events" can be distinguished ontologically or evaluatively. Historians deal with "event-descriptions," not events, and these descriptions can be correct or incorrect.
Jerzy Topolski, “Historical Narrative: Towards a Coherent Structure," History and Theory, Beiheft 26 (1987), 75-86.
In attempting to establish a correspondence between the content of historical narrative and that of past facts, F. R. Ankersmit identifies a "mechanism" which enables one to arrive at a narrative representation of the past. He asserts that the mechanism cannot be called a "translation," since the correspondence is indirect. Narrative is, however, closer to the truth than he has stated. Historical narratives can be evaluated on their proximity to the truth by the degree of their coherence. Coherence can be judged on two criteria: the kind of temporal content and the kind of conceptual organization of the worldview of the annalist. The chronicle emerged in the late Middle Ages. Temporally, the chronicler uses retrospection to introduce causal links in a chain of events. The worldview of the chronicler provides the conceptual organization. Strictly historical narratives took form in the nineteenth century and have a temporal organization which is both retrospective and prospective. The control of the theoretical organization of a narrative by an historian can be said to be one of the fundamental rules whereby historiography becomes a more and more coherent and integrated presentation of the past.
Jörn Rüsen, “Historical Narration: Foundation, Types, Reason," History and Theory, Beiheft 26 (1987), 87-97.
Historical narration is a system of mental operations defining the field of historical consciousness. It is poetic in that it is the performance of creative activity by the human mind in the process of historical thinking. The purpose of historical narration is to make sense of the experience of time in order to orient practical life in the course of time. Three elements distinguish an historical narration from other forms of narration: an historical narration is tied to the medium of memory; it organizes the three dimensions of time (past, present, future) in a concept of continuity; and it establishes the identity of its authors and listeners. In order to develop the concepts of continuity and the stability of identity, an historical narration must fulfill four functions: affirmation, regularity, negation, and transformation. Four types of historical narration correspond to these four functions: traditional, exemplary, critical, and genetical. There is a natural progression through these four types of narration, with critical narration serving as a catalyst. The four types are present in all historical texts, one dominating, the others secondary. Modern historical studies are unique in being informed by theoretically and methodologically organized empirical research. The articulation of theories in history means a progress in reasoning. This affects the role of the concept of continuity of time, which is no longer a given and has become a subject of discussion.
Cover image: Polyptych of St. Anthony, by Piero della Francesca (ca. 1470)
