Reading History
Some options for choosing narratives; and on ideas
The present is fleeting. News abounds, but without context it’s a lot of noise — and doom. The “news cycle” abandons quickly whatever is happening today and yet resurfaces the same-old, same-old, again and again.
(Back in college I used to watch the MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour, as it was called, which was one of the better sources of news and analysis. After a while, though, the “talking heads” all said the same things over and over.)
It could be good practice to read or listen or watch the best news you can find, from a variety of sources, for three months on, then three months off, and see what you notice.
The future is unknown. All pundits can do is attempt to predict, and all sci-fi aficionados can do is to speculate.
That leaves the past: history. By definition, all you really have is your own personal memories of what’s happened during your lifetime, colored by whatever was happening to you and your loved ones at the time. Plus whatever other people have told you they experienced, especially old people! Plus whatever you read from historians. True, in some cases, you might be able to investigate primary sources on your own, manage your own reconstruction of the past from the evidence, and write your own analysis and narrative, but that’s more than most people are up for.
Since I’ve been wrapped up lately in progress/progressivism, I was thinking to write today about the difference between the Progressive Era (a historical time period), progressivism (a political philosophy and party affiliation), and Progress as an idea or a movement (for example as featured in yesterday’s post). But Dan posted the other day about the historian’s dilemma in offering critique — and intervention! — when it comes to “bad history.”
Which has me asking myself a wider question:
How might a lifelong learner approach the problem of how to read history?
Let’s divide into two parts. The first gets at the kinds of books you might choose — and they’ll probably be books. The second focuses in on three specific concerns about ideas in history.
Choose Your Narrative
History is usually told as a narrative, a story, chronologically, maybe with flashbacks. It’s ostensibly a tale of “what happened.” That said, within the genre, options to read vary widely. Let’s talk first about some options related to scale: time scale and spatial scale (geography).
Most stories are told in micro scale. They have various characters, with protagonists and antagonists, and they have events, things that happen to the characters. There’s also a setting, a backdrop, and any number of things that contribute to plot and mood. In fictional stories, there’s dialogue, which in non-fiction is usually replaced with quotations, ideally taken from primary sources. It’s fascinating to listen to historical figures speak in their own words. Micro scale histories are a great place to start. They include biographies, most military history, or anything covering a single major event or a relatively small-scale and geographically well-defined place.
The main supplement you’ll need when reading micro histories is a timeline. Children are often taught history through stories, often slightly fictionalized or mythologized (idealized, simplified), and if that’s that last time most people have read or learned history, it’s likely they have no “sense of history” or the sense of where specific people or events fit in a larger context. Learning dates comes in. Consulting maps comes in.1
At the complete opposite end of the temporal and spatial scale is what’s come to be known as Big History. It takes, literally, a cosmic scope, with human history fitting within the biggest picture.
Big History is an academic discipline which examines history from the Big Bang to the present. Big History resists specialization, and searches for universal patterns or trends. It examines long time frames using a multidisciplinary approach based on combining numerous disciplines from science and the humanities, and explores human existence in the context of this bigger picture. It integrates studies of the cosmos, Earth, life, and humanity using empirical evidence to explore cause-and-effect relations…
Source: Wikipedia
Somewhere trending toward the Big side of things fall larger narratives covering whole civilizations. The time scale expands to centuries or even millennia, and the spatial scale covers a whole country or continent, or even the world as a whole. Civilization-scale histories tend to adopt a particular flavor or theme. They may be traditional political histories with elite, influential people driving the narrative and major events such as wars, or they may be more institutional, environmental, economic, cultural-social, science and technology, etc.
One important characteristic of national or civilization-scale histories is the extent to which they are more mainstream or more revisionary/alternative in perspective. From considerations of scale, we need to turn to considerations of purpose and perspective. What is “mainstream” varies (slowly) over time, but what’s presented tends to be the accepted view of things, both from the perspective of the general populace and of established scholars, in other words “the establishment.”2 It used to be, that various versions of a mainstream narrative — also known as the “master” or “grand” narrative — were taught to students all the way from elementary school, through high school, through college, at increasing levels of detail and complexity. Today, for political reasons, even starting in grade school, children may be taught revisionary or alternative rather than mainstream, establishment histories! Think CRT/critical race theory, the 1619 Project, conservative religious history as taught in parochial or home schools, etc. Personally, I find alternative “anarchist” approaches to history to be an important corrective, if they’re theoretically strong, usefully provocative for understanding (not belligerent), and built on solid, accumulated evidence. One must be seriously cautious about alternative or revisionist histories, but that is hardly to say that mainstream histories don’t also have an agenda!
In summary, here are some quick tips for selecting history to read:
Note the temporal and spatial scale: micro, Big, civilizational.
Be sure you have access to a timeline and maps, as supplements, especially if you’re reading micro-scale history.
What kind of history is it thematically, e.g. economic, political, environmental, science and technology, etc.?
Who is the author? What are his or her academic or institutional credentials? What’s the political stance, if it’s obvious? Is the history, effectively, an apologetic for a particular perspective?
Who is the book targeted to, in terms of audience? Hint: who are the reviewers writing blurbs on the back cover?
Does the work seem mainstream or revisionary/alternative? Both perspectives are useful, but you should be especially careful of the source (author) and evidentiary and interpretive quality of revisionary or alternative histories.
Ideas in History
I’ll also bring up three relatively specialist concerns.
First is a special thematic type of history, intellectual history or the history of ideas. There is also the history of philosophy, and histories of ___ thought (political thought, scientific thought, literary thought, and so on). Histories of this type, whether biographical or civilizational in scope, trace an intellectual thread of some sort that’s woven across historical times and places, as an idea or a movement. Histories of this type, for me, are important to “think with.” They aren’t reports. They’re narrative constructions, but of a sort that are grounded and weighted by — hopefully — some of the greatest thinkers (and doers) of the past. That said, histories of ideas can be potentially distorting and dangerous IF: 1) they’re not based on concrete historical people or events (it’s pure abstraction); 2) they don’t include lots of direct quotations of primary sources, well-sourced and contextualized; or 3) they’re anachronistic by trying to read a present-day controversy or phenomenon back into a time when it wouldn’t have made sense. Nevertheless, if chosen carefully, one hopes that intellectual histories can help uncover past wisdoms in ways assimilable to better understanding and wisdom for today.3
Which leads to the next concern, having to do with classic texts, sometimes referred to as Great Books, or even sacred texts. These are significant volumes (usually not scraps or fragments) that contain well-developed thoughts from the best thinkers or most active and experienced humans in history that nevertheless bothered to reflect on and write down what they learned. Classic texts aren’t just “primary texts,” which can include everything from newspapers or accounting books or diaries. They’re texts that have been deliberately passed down from generation to generation as worthy of being published, preserved, included in libraries, and incorporated into educational programs. Classic texts have interpretations (commentaries) develop around them, they’re responded to and cited by subsequent thinkers and writers, and they can be studied not only in their own right but also in terms of their reception history. (Reception history is a concept applied most often to biblical texts, but it applies equally to any classic text that has come down through the ages and via a long tradition of readers.) I advocate for lifelong learners to draw up their own personal canons of most important texts and other artistic creations, works they go back to again and again, think along with, cite in their own creations, whose ideas and forms permeate their persuasive endeavors and life philosophies.
A final special concern has to do with History itself when effectively personified, becoming a Force driving human beings, their cultures and civilizations, whole nations and Peoples, along through time and space. This is the philosophy of Hegel and some of his heirs like Karl Marx. Arguably, Christianity itself plays a role, with its idea of a deliberate beginning to time and creation, a clear trajectory (“economy”) playing out according to God’s purposes, and a final consummation or End coming sooner or later. I want to inject a note of caution with respect to History taking too strong a directional or purposive or teleological view, as it “unfolds” in space and time. If some trajectory is thought to be inevitable, or unquestionably good, or according to the “will of God” (which is, in reality, the will of whoever is interpreting “for” God), you’re in the realm of ideology and of an attempt to conform reality to someone’s Idea. Suffice to say, that kind of worldview may stop at nothing to make sure everything comes out “according to Plan,” and even to speed things up by deliberately sweeping away whatever obstacles stand in the way. History like this may claim to be heaven sent, but in all likelihood, in reality, it is hell bent. Beware.
In sum:
Do read intellectual history. But equally, do apply criteria to make sure it’s well supported and calibrated.
Do read classic texts and develop a personal canon — and also read interpretations and studies, and about the reception history.
Beware buying into philosophies of history, certainly any that demand followers to act in destructive ways.
I’d love to hear what kinds of history you like to read.
What have you learned about the best ways to approach history as a source of understanding about human beings or to gain wisdom?
The World History Encyclopedia has timelines, maps, and well-organized and high-quality narratives. Wikipedia isn’t bad, either, for basic information or introductions to mainstream topics. The more obscure or more controversial the time or place, the more discretion you’ll need to use in selecting sources.
It’s been several years since I hit upon the idea of the Overton Window as applied to acceptable or mainstream political discourse. Recently I’ve seen the concept referred to everywhere! I think it’s valuable, and I don’t see why it couldn’t apply as much to historical narratives as to contemporary political debate.
Reading primary texts alone is notoriously difficult, since there is no help with context or interpretation. It’s so easy to go off and make it say what you want it to. (The difference between exegesis or interpretation, and eisegesis, i.e. reading in your own meaning, is apropos.) That said, no intellectual history should be read without studying directly in the primary sources. Ideally the historical account will include plenty of direct quotations, citations, and references, to get you started. Once you’re deep in, feel free to engage and disagree with any interpretive guide.
A quick comment: I quite agree with your assessment that (as I would put it) history can be focused at a variety of levels from the microscopic, say TEN DAYS IN LONDON: MAY 1940 by John Lukacs, or from a high-altitude that can take a panoramic view, such as THE PASSING OF THE MODERN AGE & THE LAST EUROPEAN WAR, both by John Lukacs. Indeed, I chose the Lukacs books not only because he's a personal favorite, but because of his ability to write at both “personal” level and at the “trends” level of history. Big history (although no natural history to speak of) and very personal encounters. I think view historians can successfully manage switch-hitting, as it were, but some of the best can.