Does history have a mortal sin?

One of the assignments for the class on the American Revolution I'm taking right now is to read Gordon Wood's The Radicalism of the American Revolution, some critiques of the book, and Wood's response. One of the more strident attacks on Wood came from Michael Zuckerman (sadly, you'll need a subscription to JSTOR to read those two). One of Zuckerman's complaints is that Wood relies on selective quotation that supports his thesis, ignoring a whole raft of quotations that endanger it. Wood fires back at Zuckerman, accusing him of only being able to conceive of the past in terms of the present.

What's interesting here is that both accusations are sins that historians are incapable of avoiding entirely.

Historians, almost by definition, choose those quotations that support their argument. Good scholarly work is presents evidence cogently, with a clear endpoint in mind all along. It's necessary to exclude some information in writing history. Historians tell stories of the past. To do so they have to select elements of the past to include in that story.

Wood's claim to be able to do otherwise aside, historians necessarily see the past in categories that we grasp in the present. It's impossible not to. To give a slightly absurd example: if we lacked the concept of the number three, how could we possibly have any understanding of the Trinity?

This isn't to suggest, of course, that selective quotation and presentism are acceptable. Far from it. It's the historian's responsibility to choose facts and quotations that are representative of a larger set of data. Similarly, historians must try to shed present prejudices and examine the past on its own terms, all the while recognizing that the present will shade their interpretations.

So is one worse? I'm not sure. I could make arguments on either side, but I don't have a strong feeling either way.

What memory? Whose memory?

The (fairly) recent controversy surrounding the Liberty Bell Center on Independence Mall in Philadelphia (for two perspectives, see the National Park Service's website and the Ad Hoc Historians Press) provides an excellent example of the debates surrounding monuments, popular memory, and history. The two chief questions in debates like these, what gets memorialized in public space and who gets to make that decision, still lack, as far as I know, good answers.

To sum up the facts of the Liberty Bell controversy: a local historian, Edward Lawler, Jr., discovered that the proposed site of the new home for the Liberty Bell is the same spot where the first presidential mansion, occupied by George Washington and John Adams, once stood. So far so good. Lawler also discovered that that, under Washington, the mansion's grounds also had slave quarters where Washington's eight slaves lived (though an emancipation law was passed in Pennsylvania in 1780, it detailed a gradual plan of abolition, and slaves remained in Pennsylvania into the 1840s).

Many, including Philadelphia African-Americans and the group of historians linked above, urged the National Park Service to, at the very least, mention the fact that slavery once existed at the place where the Liberty Bell, international symbol of freedom, would now rest. After some initial reluctance, the NPS agreed to some sort of memorial to Washington's slaves.

But the question of whether to acknowledge slavery at the Liberty Bell is not the key issue. Most people would, I believe, wholeheartedly support such a presentation.

The problem lies in formulating an appropriate process for determining what memories should be preserved in physical form. It's not as easy as just saying that "the whole story" should be told. It is impossible to ever capture the totality of the past. Details are lost (see a previous entry on the slipperiness of memory) and excluded. Suppose, for example, I discover that my great-great-great-great-grandfather owned this same plot of land in Philadelphia and ran an apothecary there. Would I be justified in arguing that my ancestor's shop was a part of the history of that site and should be memorialized? If we're working under the principle that the "whole story" should be told, the answer has to be yes. Such a solution is immensely unsatisfying unless we want all historical sites to become a mere clutter of relics and facts.

Another possibility is to publicaly recognize those portions of the past that are deemed culturally significant. The problem then becomes who gets to decide what counts as significant? It should come as no surprise that different groups within society are going to have different conceptions of what aspects of the past are worthy of being remembered. It's entirely plausible that the American Pharmacists Association would think my hypothetical apothecary tremendously important in the history of dispensing drugs in America.

Assigning responsibility to academic historians seems like one possibility. But they already have outlets for their opinions on history in myriad conferences and journals. Public presentations of history need to have the input of the public. I'm just not sure exactly how you do that.

Addendum: I forgot about this post by Tim Burke over Cliopatra that touches upon some of these issues.

Cross-promotion

Thanks to Jennifer's History and More for choosing me as its inaugural Blog of the Week. I'll be sure to get post some interesting entries (or at least one that I already have in mind) to try to show my worthiness.

Kucinich and Edwards (?!)

As you may have heard by now, Dennis Kucinich and John Edwards have a joint strategy for the Iowa caucuses that involves their supporters switching their votes to the other if their first-choice candidate isn't viable in a given precinct. Hell, I didn't explain that very well. An example: suppose only 10% of the people at a caucus are Kucinich supporters. Since 15% is the cutoff, they need to shift their allegiance. Kucinich has called on his supporters to go over to Edwards. And vice versa.

Obviously, the first scenario is going to happen a lot more than the second. The latest Iowa polls have Edwards surging and Kucinch, well, in the low single digits, where he's been all campaign long.

Over at Daily Kos, there's a fair amount of bewilderment at this. The standard line-of-thought is this: Kucinich is, by far, the most leftist candidate in the race. Edwards is about as centrist as you can get this side of Lieberman. There's no way they'd ally.

But here's the thing. Turns out Edwards isn't as much a centrist as everyone (me included) thought. Congressional Quarterly recently ranked the 100 senators based on how frequently they voted for the Bush agenda. Guess who voted against Bush the most. Ted Kennedy? Russ Feingold? Nope. John Edwards. I was shocked when I heard that.

Now there's more to selecting a candidate than finding the one who's the least like Bush. But it might just be that Edwards, not Dean, is the next best thing for Kucinich supporters (it depends, of course, on which of Kucinich's stance people like. If it's the anti-war fervor, Dean's their guy. But on domestic issues it look as if Edwards might be closer to Kucinich than Dean. Who knew?)

Are good schools a myth?

I occasionally take a look at the discussions that go on at the Princeton Review website. Someone started a recent thread with the slightly starting claim that there's not much of a difference between "good" schools and "bad" schools. To support his (?) claim, the poster points to the fact that the same material is covered at schools all over the country. Organic chemistry at MIT, for example, is going to be pretty similar to organic chemistry anywhere else.

It might be the case that similarities like this hold for certain subject areas. Math and the natural sciences seem likely candidates for a fairly standardized curriculum. The humanities and social sciences present an entirely different picture. For one thing, there's much less of a progression of knowledge. There's no need, for example, to know the history of ancient Rome to study the American Civil War. On the other hand, it's hard to get far in mechanics without a knowledge of calculus. A history major at Swarthmore isn't going to learn the same things as a history major at Penn State. That's not to say the topics covered at either one of those schools is superior to the topics covered at the other, merely that education does vary across schools.

But there's a deeper issue at play. College is not just about what you learn, but how you learn it (along with a lot of other things, of course, but I'm sticking to academic concerns for now). A case in point. I'm taking a history course at UPenn this semester whose first class session was yesterday. A few quotations from Penn students on why they're taking the course (during the inevitable going around the circle and saying a bit about yourself):

"I want to move beyond a textbook history."

"I'm looking forward to discussions rather than just listening to lectures."

"My other history classes here have been really fact-based and I'm interested in doing more analysis."

None of these statements even come close to any experience I've had in history courses at Swat. None of my classes has had a textbook. Discussion is a hallmark of a Swarthmore education (granted, the discussions aren't uniformly great, but I find it well-nigh impossible to be involved in a class discussion and not intellectually engaged, often more so than while listening to a lecture). Facts versus analysis? Swarthmore history courses invariably emphasize the latter more than the first. I've learned dates because dates stick in my head, not because professors (with one exception) have displayed a large concern with transmitting a set of facts to their students.

Perhaps it's a bit of Swarthmore snobbery (of which there is a great deal at Swat, I assure you), but Swarthmore seems to have provided me a better education in history than typical Penn history majors receive.

Where you go to school matters. Personal initiative and responsibility probably matter more, but good schools give you the opportunities for higher level learning.

Another reason to blog

Brian Weatherson has a post over at Crooked Timber about the possible consequences in finding employment for grad students blogging. The gist of it is that, provided you say intelligent things, an internet presence is a good thing. This makes good sense. I'd like to offer another possible benefit for young academics who blog.

As Brian points out, having a blog is a good way of standing out from a mass of other applicants. Beyond the name recognition bit, having a reasonably well-known blog gives you a giant sounding board for your ideas. Writing about topics that interest other academics is likely to elicit some sort of feedback that, ideally, helps hone your own thinking and writing. I'm not sure responses to a blog post would ever reach the usefulness of suggestions from advisors, scholars at conferences, or peer reviewers but there's no reason that worthwhile feedback can't be given in non-traditional places like blogs. The key here is that blogging about your academic work opens up the audience that can provide constructive comments. Who's to say enlightening ideas only come from within the academy?

If only historians could write like journalists...

Over the weekend I read Tony Horwitz's Confederates in the Attic (see the the sidebar below for a link). Like most books by journalists, its eminently readable, filled with engaging anecdotes and striking descriptions. The pages fly by.

But, like many books by journalists, the analysis presented was overly personalized and a mite superficial.

To get my expectations out of the way: the book is for a class on memory and historical consciousness that I'll be taking this spring (yeah, I'm a dork and have started to read the books for my classes before those classes even start). I tend to hold books that I encounter in an academic setting to a higher standard than something I pick up on a whim.

The book is largely a recounting of Horwitz's travels through the South in search of what the Civil War means to Southerners almost a century and a half after the war's close. Horwitz has a personal interest in the war, too, and his journey is a rekindling of his childhood fascination with the conflict. He encounters a wide cast of characters, from the "liberal Confederate" reënactor who rubs bacon grease in his beard to a young black tourguide at the state capitol in Montgomery, chockful of Confederate memorials.

Every story brings to light some aspect of contemporary Southern culture, complete with all its contradictions. Where Horwitz fails is his inability to explain or even fully recognize those contradictions. Why do some Southerners cling to the War, rejoicing upon discovering ancestors that fought for the Cause? Why do others display apathy towards the conflict, arguing that the past is past and therefore unimportant?

It's entirely possible, of course, that answers to these questions don't exist. It's absurd to think that the South has a unified view towards the Civil War. But to present such a multifaceted picture of the South without delving a bit deeper limits Horwitz's work to a travelogue. A fascinating and enjoyable travelogue, but a travelogue nonetheless.

At least some of them dress better than Dan Marino

I've been watching some preview coverage of the Eagles-Packers game tomorrow on TV. The chic pick seems to be the Packers. One of the chief reasons given is that the Eagles can't stop the run, and the Packers have a premier back in Ahman Green who will shred the Eagles defense.

It's absolutely true that the Eagles run defense is less than stellar. They've had boatloads of RBs get 100 yards against them this season. The thing is, the team with more rushing yards doesn't win the game. The team with more points wins the game. Everyone seems to be ignoring the fact that in spite of the Eagles putrid run defense, they've won ten of their last eleven games.

Including one against those sames Green Bay Packers. Ahman Green had 192 yards rushing in that game. Final score: 17-14 Eagles.

Rushing yards don't matter. Points do. And the Eagles don't give up many points.

(Oh, and one more thing. Why do sportscasters use "defense" as a verb? As in "He defensed that pass." I can't figure this one out.)

Why Pete Rose doesn't belong in the Hall of Fame (at least not now)

Stephen A. Smith of the Philadelphia Inquirer argues that America is the land of second chances, so Pete Rose deserves a second chance, namely reinstatement into baseball and induction into Cooperstown. Violent criminals are given assistance in finding jobs after spending time in prison, after all. And Pete Rose's crime was far from violent. Why shouldn't baseball go out of its way to help Pete Rose rehabilitate himself?

The difference is that ex-cons need jobs to survive. Pete Rose has been living just fine off his name for decades. Baseball doesn't owe him anything... baseball gave him his fame and an opportunity to earn money for the rest of his life.

Pete Rose screwed up. He bet on baseball, probably on games he was managing. He then lied about it for 14 years. Only recently, as his window of Hall of Fame eligibility is closing, has he come forward with an admission of guilt. Excuse me for not finding his apology all that sincere. Rose's confession is entirely self-serving... he wants in the Hall, nothing more. Until Pete Rose shows some genuine concern for the welfare of basball, he doesn't deserve a place in the Hall of Fame.

Tug McGraw, 1944-2004

Former Phillies closer Tug McGraw lost his battle with brain cancer yesterday.

I'm too young to remember him pitching, but the footage of McGraw striking out Willie Wilson in Game 6 of the 1980 World Series is emblazoned on my mind. There are few moments that enter the collective consciousness of a city... that's one of Philadelphia's right there.