Clio's Battles

Jeremy Black

Description

To write history is to consider how to explicate the past, to weigh the myriad possible approaches to the past, and to come to terms with how the past can be and has been used. In this book, prize-winning historian Jeremy Black considers both popular and academic approaches to the past. His focus is on the interaction between the presentation of the past and current circumstances, on how history is used to validate one view of the present or to discredit another, and on readings of the past that unite and those that divide. Black opens with an account that underscores the differences and developments in traditions of writing history from the ancient world to the present. Subsequent chapters take up more recent decades, notably the post-Cold War period, discussing how different perspectives can fuel discussions of the past by individuals interested in shaping public opinion or public perceptions of the past. Black then turns to the possible future uses of the then past as a way to gain perspective on how we use the past today. Clio's Battles is an ambitious account of the engagement with the past across world history and of the clash over the content and interpretation of history and its implications for the present and future.

Preface
1. Introduction: Academic, State, and Public Histories
2. A Selective Narrative to 1650
3. The Long Eighteenth Century
4. The Nineteenth Century
5. The Twentieth Century
6. New States and the Possibilities of Lineage
7. The Historical Dimension of Manifest Destiny
8. Post-Communism and the New History
9. Western Europe
10. Contesting the Past, Claiming the Future
11. Historiographies of the Present
12. Historiographies of the Future
13. A Personal Note
14. Conclusions
Notes
Selected Further Reading
Index

Sujets

• Modern
• HISTORY
• Histoire
• Modern history
• General officer
• History of the Americas
• Historiography
• General
• United States
• Obermodern-Zutzendorf

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 01 juillet 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253016874
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

CLIO S BATTLES

CLIO S BATTLES
Historiography in Practice
JEREMY BLACK
This book is a publication of
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS Office of Scholarly Publishing Herman B Wells Library 350 1320 East 10th Street Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2015 by Jeremy Black
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z 39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Cataloging information is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-0-253-01675-1 (hardback) ISBN 978-0-253-01681-2 (paperback) ISBN 978-0-253-01687-4 (ebook)
1 2 3 4 5 20 19 18 17 16 15
For DANIEL JOHNSON
Contents
PREFACE
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
1 Academic, State, and Public Histories
2 A Selective Narrative to 1650
3 The Long Eighteenth Century
4 The Nineteenth Century
5 The Twentieth Century
6 New States and the Possibilities of Lineage
7 The Historical Dimension of Manifest Destiny
8 Post-Communism and the New History
9 Western Europe
10 Contesting the Past, Claiming the Future
11 Historiographies of the Present
12 Historiographies of the Future
13 A Personal Note
14 Conclusions
NOTES
SELECTED FURTHER READING
INDEX
Preface
THE WEIGHT OF THE PAST IS HEAVY AND INSISTENT, AT TIMES brutally apparent, but frequently more prone to insinuate and influence. This weight is presented as positive - offering continuity and lessons from experience; and yet also as negative, indeed, a curse. As an instance of the latter, empowerment through grievance is especially damaging, in particular, locating both grievance and empowerment in a misleading, as well as destructive, historical context. Linked to this empowerment is the prevalence of history wars, disputes about how to present the past, which are the heavily historicized equivalent of the American culture wars. These disputes take the could of academic discussions about how the past could be presented, and turn it into a should of how the past should, indeed must, be explained. In this context, the past becomes a validation for the present and, as such, a matter of great significance. History, whose muse is Clio, is thereby made the ammunition of politics, and this ammunition is potent precisely because the past serves as the basis for ideas and practices of identification.
This use of the past is contested and, therefore, there is a variety, even confusion, in this book. This variety reflects not only these history wars but also, more broadly, the Janus-faced character of the past, as, at the same time, the solace of continuity and the sore of grievance. Moreover, whether or not they are affected in these cases by politics, memory and history vie as interpreters, each able to take the approach of continuity or that of grievance. In the following study, I focus on some of these aspects of what is, at once, the kaleidoscopic variety of readings offered of the past and yet also, more narrowly, a tension between readings that unite and those that divide. These readings focus on historiography in terms of the content of the past that is offered, and its political implications, and not on the theoretical frameworks of the historical methods employed; although these methods can play a major role in the direction of research, and thus the content, that is offered.
This book takes forward interests I have developed in earlier studies, and is aimed in particular at student courses on historical method and public history. There is, in chapters 2 to 5 , a long historical section, an account of history-writing from the ancient world to the here and now, in which I underscore the differences and developments in traditions of history writing. The choice of what to cover in these chapters reflects the need to adopt a multiple perspective on developments in this writing, rather than to envisage simply a central intellectual and political course for historiography. The latter approach, with its assumption that it is obvious what must be covered, is of limited value at the global level, where the range in traditions of history-writing is highly pronounced.
The focus in this book, in chapters 6 to 11 , is on recent decades, notably the post-Cold War period; that since 1989. In this focus, there is a deliberate eschewing of Eurocentrism. There is considerable material on Asia, but without suggesting that it represents one, non-Western view on history. Indeed, the contrasts, in 2014, in content and tone between the claims of re-launching the caliphate and the pursuit of nationalist disputes between China and Japan are striking. I also consider the challenges facing the Western academic concept of history at the present time. In chapter 12 , I turn to the possible future use of the then past, which is a way to open up thought about how we do the same today.
Bridging public history and historiography, this book is an ambitious account of the engagement with the past across world history, one focused on history wars. This book discusses the links between the popular and academic approaches to the events and relevance of the past, and also considers their contrasts. In my discussion of popular history, my emphasis is on the discussion of the past by ministers, other politicians, and opinion leaders - for example the editors of newspapers - and not by academics. That emphasis is not intended to ignore the many practices in which scholarship is engaged in institutions that present history to the public, such as museums, memorials, historical sites, national parks, libraries, schools, historical societies, and films. Indeed, some of this scholarship, and certain aspects of the heritage industry connect with this discussion of popular history by ministers, politicians, and commentators, not least with debates about the merits of continuity or change.
There is an instructive problem in the use of the term public history. In the United States, as in Britain, this term commonly refers to history as it is presented at public sites. In practice, in these countries, public history usually represents a consensus view at a given point of time. However, it might also display a highly politicized view of what the public ought to think about a particular historical event, as is the case with many American Civil War monuments. Such a politicized view can reflect, as well as lead to, debate and dissension.
The use of the term to refer to the presentation at public sites clashes with another understanding of public history, that of history as it is deployed by news outlets, pundits, and politicians. They aim to create a consensus about how their readers and listeners ought to understand their country s past, while frequently decrying other views. There, indeed, is a possible confusion with the official and institutional usage of history referred to above in this very paragraph. It is instructive that the especially helpful publisher suggested dropping the term public history except when referring to history as it is presented in public contexts and use something along the lines of the employment of a selective interpretation of the past used for partisan purposes - propaganda. 1
It is unclear, however, as this book will demonstrate, why public history, in the sense of the history produced by public institutions, should be treated as necessarily less partisan than that deployed by politicians, pundits, and news outlets. That is certainly not the perspective gained from a global approach. Popular history might be seen as an acceptable alternative term to public history to describe the history thus deployed by politicians and others; but it is unclear why the term public should be detached from the people and applied simply to state institutions. As a related point, institutions can be privately owned or managed. A range of issues and practices certainly emerged over the twentieth century to engage and negotiate spaces between academic historians and the public, and there is an important literature linked to this engagement. One of the central challenges of that literature, of those debates about presentation, is how to deal with the contested perspectives that are a subject of this book. Historians indeed operate through advancing diverse perspectives. However, my focus is not on the academics, but on the politicians and the public, each of whom I see as more significant for historiography.
In a book of this type, there is a tendency for the historian to sink himself or herself into the subject, and to avoid personal comments. That is a worthy tradition, but I feel it necessary in this book on my subject to express my own views. I am a pluralist, aware and respectful of different practices and traditions, but I am also convinced of the value, indeed necessity, of the freedom of thought and expression. In an interaction of past developments and present circumstances, that freedom varies greatly around the world.
I have benefited while writing this work from the opportunity to discuss the subject with fellow scholars, but also with others involved in the presentation and use of history. I am particularly grateful to John Blair, Penelope Corfield, John France, Bill Gibson, Bill Purdue, Kaushik Roy, Nigel Saul, Richard Toye,