Histo Review

Gertrude Himmelfarb

Told history of British Marxists. She criticized them for being unwilling to examine inconvenient histories.

Daniel Miller on material objects

Objects don't mean the same thing across time. Objects give us information about people that written records don't.

Edward Said on Orientalism

Occidentals writing about the "Orient" are 1) inaccurate of orientals and 2) tells us about occidentals. Furthermore historians bring back the exotic rather than the mundane, and as a result the exotic fills in for the whole identity.

Edward Hallett Carr on facts

A fact is like a sack, it won't stand up until you put something into it. Story of the gingerbread man becoming a fact. Facts are built by those who record them (Athens told by elites). Modern historians get caught with too many facts while others have too few. Story of Gustav Stresemann, Weimar diplomat. Facts do not come to us in a pure form; historian must be imaginative in working with the minds of his subjects; history is always of the age it is told. Historians should be inputting and outputting at the same time; reading and writing; negotiating with the past.

Emile Durkheim - 1902

Combine all the social sciences to discover cause and effect. History merges with sociology, economics, psychology. History is distinct in that it can handle primary sources and historical perspectives of the past. Therefore, historians do social sciences of the past.

Macaulay

Go to the beer halls

Clifford Geertz

Thick reading vs. thin reading

Joan Scott on gender

"The point of this new historical investigation is to disrupt the notion of fixity, to discover the nature of the debate or repression that leads to the appearance of timeless permanence in binary gender representation. This kind of analysis must include a notion of politics and reference to social institutions and organization - the third aspect of gender relationships." p. 390-1

Karl Marx - 1845

All historical writing must focus on real men. Ideas come from these real men and real conditions. These real conditions will inevitably lead to proletariat control.

Edward Hallett Carr on progress

Ancient historians had no belief in progress; the past and future were dead. Judeo-Christian philosophy made history teleological, and Renaissance thinkers made the telos secular. Thus was born secular progressive history. History is progress through the transmission of acquired skills. The bookmarks of this history are relative. Progress is picked up by different groups at different times; this means one group's progress is another group's decline. History as progress is written objectively when it rises above the social requirements of the day and when it casts an eye on the anticipated future. The past is written as it is expected to contribute to the future. History is always, therefore, progressing.

Social Science

Bottom up history based on data. Society not individuals. The only worthwhile facts are big data.

Marx - the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

Class controlled the revolution; Emperor Louis controlled the masses and the superstructures.

E. P. Thompson - 1963

Class is relationship of political organization. History should give voice to those on the bottom. He wrote about the formation of the English working class. Gives agency to proletariat. Appeals to second wave of Marxists.

Thomas Carlyle - French Revolution

Dramatic telling of Louis XVI execution by senseless mob. French people were bloodthirsty, dishonorable and wanted war. King was kind, loving and good. Social history orbits around great men.

Hayden White on emplottment

Facts and the emplottment you use inform each other. Facts have intrinsic value; they derive their meaning from the emplottment they land in. Emplottment is decided by the ideology of the historian. There are several ways to emplot a story: Romantic (drama, emotion, quest, heroes); Tragic (fate driven conflict that results in death); Comic (odd things happen, then pleasant resolution); Satirical/Ironic (expected does not occur, the inverse does). Historians emplot these stories whether they intend to or not. These emplottments employ tropes. Hayden is trying to move history back to literature and away from social science.

Hans Kellner on lenses

Facts are created by historians using lenses such as ideologies, emplottments, schools of thoughts. These lenses are different for different people and change for each person over time. There IS a past that for sure happened, and we as historians are using lenses to see it. We analyze each other's lenses and view points to come to the best conclusions possible.

Vann Woodward on jim crow

First 1955 edition revised history by saying that Jim Crow was new in 1890, not integral to Southern living. Second 1965 revision takes into account new documents, AND his perspective changes because he includes the 1950s/60s. Third 1975 is pessimistic about integration.

Jules Michelet on History (Romantic)

France is/was an incredibly diverse area until kings forced us to all be the same. Studying documents from bottom up will illuminate these changes. Then each people will understand their own regional love.

Frederick Jackson Turner - Frontier

Frontier shapes American identity and democracy. Still taught in schools. Several waves of frontiersman shaped the country. Turner is dead wrong.

Fernand Braudel on annales school

Long Duree (long-term); we should do history over long time periods rather than short term blips

Thomas Babington Macaulay on History (Romantic)

Historian should write interesting, provoking, educational histories that are based in fact and imagination. They are artists. We know there is truth, but we don't know if we find it. Don't include all acts because it can distract from the truth. Facts are the mere dross of history; only include the facts needed to get to the truth. Modern historians are too focused on all the facts rather than truth. They focus on debating truth in articles rather than the art of narration. Also must include the many organizations from below (social history). History captures the zeitgeist. Good historians are exceedingly rare.

Adam Ferguson (Encyclopedia Britannica) on Historians (Enlightenment)

Historians must be free of bias and prejudice. They must be imaginative and loyal to facts. They are very rare as a result.

Carl Becker on Facts/Truth

Historians must know that facts do not speak for themselves but carry meaning through interpretation. Setting forth facts is like building a building with bricks - we can all use the same bricks to come to different conclusions. However some conclusions are off the table (you won't make a boat out of bricks).

John Stuart Mill - 1843

History - actions of peoples & the masses scientific masses. Can predict general trends of history. History is progress.

Giambattista Vico on History (Englightenment)

History began as poetic/moral symbols and myths. This is because of poor language skills and limited understanding of the world. History is now (as of the enlightenment) scientific. History is bound by natural laws which govern all people. History should study the history of ideas. All history is birth, growth, maturity, decline and fall. Also, Homer is a bad, barbaric historian who spreads unethical teachings.

Leopold von Ranke

History has been given the task of studying the past for future profit, but von Ranke instead will merely tell what happened. In order to do this von Ranke used classical history writing (without footnotes) to make the author seem omniscient.

William Godwin on History (Enlightenment/Romantic)

History is either general or great man. People love individuals and particular histories not generalities. History is about the natural laws that create progress. Contemplating great men is how men become great; spending time with average men is how you become average. Great man history inspires us to innovate while general history leads us to mimic. Always look for more particulars. Follow Great men to their closets. Ancient men were real men with discipline and purpose. History should teach. Romance history takes all data, makes a generalization and then selects the relevant data to make great stories of great men to teach us. You need lots of facts, but facts are decorated by historians.

Adam Ferguson (Encyclopedia Britannica) on History (Enlightenment)

History is the account of remarkable facts arranged in order as well as its cause/effect. History is civil or ecclesiastical. All causes are either relations between states or characters of peoples pushing them to action (i.e. nationalistic). Good histories do not include falsities and do not omit any important truths. They also only include important information. Three kinds of histories: biography, particular, general. Historical natural laws can be used to improve life and predict the future.

Herbert Butterfield

History requires us to enter the minds of men we do not understand; therefore history should present the facts in the context of their day rather than the historian's day. Reaction to whig history. This leads to oversimplification. History is too complicated to trace a single cause to effect today. History is about complexity and the somewhat unpredictable effects of causes. Progress is crooked an perverse not linear.

Romanticism

History should be interesting and inspiring. Historian should know facts, and save the reader the trouble from reading all the facts. Instead give reader select sexy stories that prove abstract truth. Truth is not merely traced on the mind but branded on it. Romance is nationalistic. It is presentist.

David Cannadine on race in the empire

History should study both the social functions and imagined identity of nations and peoples. He concludes that the British empire was essentially classist and not racist. Europeans understand the world according to the home view rather than understanding the home from the foreign othering.

Elizabeth Foyster on wife beating in tutor England

Men could beat wives in order to maintain honor and control; however, men were supposed to use reason and limited force.

Carl Becker on Historians

Mr. Everyman is a historian of sorts, but he believes facts to be True. He holds little interest in verifying some information. Historians, like bards, harmonize actual history with ideal history in order to enlarge and enrich the specious present. Historians must balance between the needs/wants of Mr. Everyman and facts.

Foucault on power

Power is dispersed and flows both ways between the powerful and the many. We police each other in ways that construct we are. Our identities are rooted in society not despite it.

George Fredrickson on racism in history

Race is when ethnicity is essential and hierarchical.

Giorgious Antoniou on revisionism

Revisionists appear when new methods, new evidence or a change in time appear. However Revisionists often turn to the media which Antoniou finds distracting.

Enlightenment History

Societies progress across time according to Natural Laws. There is a Truth. We will through reason find what really happened historically. We apply this truth to improve our own society. Everyone before enlightenment is irrational idiots (maybe not antiquity). Some histories (great man, political, ecclesiastical) matter and some don't. They are presentists.

Hester Chapone on history (Enlightenment)

Talk to a knowledgeable friend after reading it so they can verify you understood it. Only study Greek and Romans from ancient history. These teach us about politics, people, religion etc. You become more interesting, attractive and a better parent by studying history. History is boring to read.

Wilhelm von Humboldt on writing History

The historian should present what actually happened via simple presentation. Historians are receptive and reproductive not active or creative. However, many facts are lost. Therefore historians should find the truth connecting different points. Historians connect dots with intuitive faculty rather than imagination. First impartially investigate events; second explore the connection of events. Historians should test historical conclusions to come to truth. History is the union of mankind with an ideal until further integration is impossible. Historians tell the struggle of the idea integrating.

R. G. Collingwood

The study of spring, summer, fall and winter among nations.

Oswald Spenger on cycles

The study of the youth, rise, fall and death of civilizations

Edward Hallett Carr on society and the individual

There are two meanings of history: the narrative we are studying and the study itself. Both are confused as all social or all individual. There is not and would never be an individual outside of society. The teacher must first be taught. There is no Bismark without late 19th century Prussia; there is no Butterfield without the mid-20th century crisis.

Carl Becker on History

Two histories: actual events & ideal series. Ideal is relative. History is the memory of things said and done. Mr. Everyman story - we all use artificial extensions of memory. This is the specious present. We can therefore anticipate (not predict) future events. Doing relies on memory; memory exists only as it relates to doing. History therefore lives or is non-existent. Living history is always contemporary and limited by the society it exists within. History is convenient blend of truth and fiction, but it's always imagined to be True.

Voltaire on Age of Louis XIV

Voltaire said we are 7 generations away from perfection. Organizes history by nations, and makes a point of saying who is right/wrong. Learn form past and become enlightened (i.e. Netherlands Republic).

Cornelius Holtorf on potshards

We construct facts and imbue it with meaning.

Raymond Williams on keywords

Words like history, society, culture have changed in meaning over time.