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"A fascinating historiographical essay. . . . An unusually lucid and inclusive explication of what it ultimately at stake in the culture wars over the nature, goals, and efficacy of history as a discipline."―Booklist
- Sales Rank: #343469 in Books
- Published on: 1995-04-17
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.30" h x 1.00" w x 5.50" l, .77 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 336 pages
Features
- History
- Telling the Truth About History
- Joyce Appleby
- Lynn Hunt
- Margaret Jacob
From Publishers Weekly
Three historians here team up for a worthy, demanding foray into the battle over the academy, taking on "both the relativists on the left and the defenders of the status quo ante on the right." The authors argue that skepticism and relativism about truth, in science, history and politics, stems from the democratization of American society and higher education. They survey the "heroic model" of science produced in the Enlightenment, the roots of relativism in Hegel, and the influence of Marx, Durkheim and Weber on latter-day historical schools. They tackle the virtuous mythologies of American history, and critiques by progressives like Charles Beard and post-WW II social historians. They also cite 1960s historians of science who launched politicized critiques and postmodernists who attacked claims of objectivity. The authors urge historians to have a "stronger, more self-reflexive and interactive sense of objectivity." In a final chapter addressing "political correctness" and multiculturalism, the authors sensibly call for a middle ground, but diminish their message with a paucity of models. Appleby teaches at UCLA, Hunt at the University of Pennsylvania and Jacob at Manhattan's New School for Social Research.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
In a tightly reasoned narrative full of -isms and -ists, the authors, all academic historians, relate how religion and science legitimized the writing of history as a vehicle for the revelation of truth, progress, and nationalism rather than as a medium for the examination of collective individuals. They critically dissect various schools of historiographic thought and make a plea for a multicultural democratization of history in America. We are reminded of the authors' championship of women, minorities, and workers at every opportunity. The prose bounces along more than it flows, and the dashes of irony are welcome. Footnotes conclude each chapter. Rather than aggressively screaming for reform in the writing of American history, this book describes how we arrived where we are and suggests we begin the journey anew, only this time allowing everyone to participate. This is an enlightening overview of American historiography for public and academic libraries.
- James Moffet, Baldwin P.L., Birmingham, Mich.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
What is the role of history--what is the point of history--in a postmodern world of "absolutisms dethroned," in a technological society that has become deeply skeptical of the Enlightenment's heroic model of science? Telling the Truth is a fascinating historiographical essay that traces the scientific and political ideas and ideals of the Enlightenment through American history from the Revolutionary War to the present. It is the "insistent democratization of American society," the authors argue, that has produced our "skepticism and relativism about truth, not only in science but also in history and politics," yet they maintain "that truths about the past are possible, even if they are not absolute, and hence are worth struggling for." Appleby and her coauthors have produced an unusually lucid and inclusive explication of what is ultimately at stake in the culture wars over the nature, goals, and efficacy of history as a discipline. Mary Carroll
Most helpful customer reviews
7 of 14 people found the following review helpful.
Historical joy ride
By Brett Williams
Well written with ample empirical examples and insights most of us would never consider. This book is for anyone interested in tracing Western perspectives from the emergence of reason under the thumb of ignorance and dogma, through the advent of science, to muddlings of our present era returning to ignorance and dogma under the confines of censorship and totalitarian Political Correctness.
Driving forces that made America and the West what it became are surveyed - forces including the birth of reason, influence of science and our Western notion of progress. Focused on their topic, our authors properly consider what matters most to America and the West, excluding a vast array of other cultures because those cultures (Mayan, Hutu, Chilean, Eskimo - a virtually endless list) have little or absolutely nothing to do with Western development. Thus we are saved from useless inclusion of irrelevance. Nor do they waste trees on a cacophony of "voices" with something opposing to say about the facts of history as though their intent is to produce committee minutes. Noted, repeatedly, are oversights and outright suppression of females as bared from the men's club, but it is treated as a fact of history, not a call to arms.
Results of these forces included exaltation of history and "heroic science" as a means of positive reference for America (and Europe) that has since been attacked by factions wishing in part to make history's picture larger while reinventing history in ways that deny credit for anyone but their own group. It requires imagination, but the authors clarify how successful Postmodernist relatives have been in advancing the most ridiculous ideas, and, as noted, would not be given a second thought were they not becoming so dominant at our universities. Ideas such as; We invent theories in science, we do not discover them; What was not said or not written is more important than what was - as everyone in every period is said to have been political and fully so with no regard for truth. Thus whatever point was made was in fact a diversion hiding what they "really" meant. This brings to bear creative talents of our finest historians and "text interpreters" as they expend lifetimes inventing, out of thin air, what the truth "really" was. A boundless exercise as what was not spoken or written remains infinite, while what was is limited. And such conclusions from those who paradoxically preach "the truth is, there is no truth, and that's the truth".
Thankfully the authors state the obvious. "Relativism, a modern corollary of skepticism" not only reasonably questions but is now used to promote doubt in knowledge of any kind, while to the contrary our authors argue "truths about the past are possible, even if they are not absolute". For those who claim we can know nothing, and that even our theories of nature are pure, politicized imagination, we are reminded that artifacts exist - remains of civilizations, buildings, monuments, graveyards on battlegrounds, movements resulting from written words and speeches. As for inventing scientific theories as simply another false Western bias, one may wonder how all those atoms and galaxies know our political views well enough to behave precisely as predicted by theory.
The authors commit the error of confusing science with scientists - science being an ideal, while scientists remain human - and they wrongly promote a reference which claims the defense industry as dominated by scientists when it is rather dominated by engineers. This offering to reinforce a notion that science is political. (Indeed, scientists may be.) With an open mindedness bordering on mere "inclusivity" Postmodernists are given limited credit, stating they "deserve" to be heard on some matters - which left me wondering why serious historians would squander time on sophomoric reflections of declining education and trite exercises in sensitivity toward the absurd. We might consider the notion of a moon made of green cheese still holds promise if a certain vast system of conditions concerning our measurements and conceptions exist - say that we are in fact being manipulated by aliens. But any advancement in our understanding of the human condition is bound to be wasted. As a German engineer once said, "I have no time to waste on probable failures." So why waste it?
An assumption is made from the outset - common to anyone's era, which is not challenged - that the past was incorrect in their perspective. Perhaps we are wrong in refuting their positivism. Instead we assume without question the heroic models were flawed. Despite what we consider the past's delusions and narrow mindedness, we are never offered an option that their perspective, though incomplete, was superior to our own in which winners at the auction are those with the most terrible things to say about who we are. Perhaps the authors saw this as too "inclusive" and a probable failure.
34 of 38 people found the following review helpful.
Excellent!
By Coleman J. Goin
I found this book to be one of the most valuable and most hopeful books I have read in a long time. As a High School teacher of American history, I have long grappled with the question of historical truth and how best to teach it to students. I have also wondered if I could justify my own profession, since American history instruction so often seems to be simply political indoctrination in one form or another. This book gave me hope that my efforts are not in vain. The book traces the evolution of history from the enlightenment model of scientific history through postwar issues of postmodernism and relativism;. and the authors persuasively argue that historical truth is possible, even if not absolute. The book is not light reading - I was not able to race through the book, but had to wade through it, so to speak. However, I do feel the book is well worth reading. It is well written, balanced and fair-minded, and it transcends the simplistic conservative-liberal debate over the teaching of history. I feel the book should be read by everyone who is concerned with the teaching of history or the question of historical truth.
50 of 60 people found the following review helpful.
Well Intentioned But Flawed
By R. Albin
Written by three distinguished historians, this is a well intentioned but only partly successful effort to develop a systematic approach to historical truth. The authors open with a set of historiographic chapters covering the development of history as a discipline since the 18th century. This is a generally concise and nice precis of the importance of the natural sciences as a model of inquiry, the idea of history of a teleological and progressive model of modernity, the development of secular and nationalized professional history in the 19th century, and especially the emergence of a strong and rather distorted triumphalist historical narrative about the USA. This is followed by some good descriptions of how this tradition then began to run into problems. The somewhat "heroic" model of scientific history became its own form of dogma, and with the Progressive era, serious doubts aroase about the 19th century triumphalist model. The authors are also justly and conventionally critical of naive positivist views of historical explanation.
This is generally well done, though the need for concision may have led the authors to some incomplete and inaccurate statements. For example, the authors' facile attribution of late 19th century racism as the inadvertant consequence of Darwin's theory ignores the substantial contribution of influential non-Darwinist thinkers like Gobineau and Agassiz. Similarly, the authors' discussion of 19th century historiography ignores the fact that the greatest 19th century American historian was the disenchanted Boston Brahmin Henry Adams. Adams' work is a sustained and brilliantly written presentation of history as irony.
The authors really go astray in the middle of the book with their chapter "Discovering the Clay Feet of Science." This is a description of the misleading nature of the "heroic" model of science and how this "discovery" provoked an intellectual crisis. I don't doubt the authors' assertion that this was a major issue in the community of historians, but the authors' implication that this was a general intellectual crisis is fairly silly. As the authors point out, one of the major features of academic life in the last 50 years is the enormous expansion of universities and the democratization of access to a university education. The authors seem to be unaware that the other great change in universities over that last 2 generations is the enormous expansion and investment in the natural sciences. At my large research university, a majority of the faculty are in the natural sciences or related fields like Medicine or Engineering. In terms of funding, the natural sciences are even more dominant. The discoveries the authors that authors see as uncovering the clay feet of science had no effect on natural scientists or the university administrators who hire them. The suggestion that the writings of a few historians of science or literary critics provoked a general intellectual crisis is hyperbole. THe authors make a similar series of inaccurate claims about the Cold War, which they see as producing "distortions" of science. While there were real problems with Cold War administration of science, the fact is that rivalry with the Soviet Union was one of the factors that turned the Federal government into the major patron of American science. The Cold War was partly responsible for the enormous progress made by American science in the last 50 years.
Because the authors exaggerate the effects of historical revision of scientific progression, they similarly exaggerate the importance of post-modernism/deconstructionism. The authors characterize this movement correctly as an intellectual deadend. But the amount of attention and number of pages devoted this is essentially inconsequential movement is wholly out of proportion to its actual importance.
The authors positive contribution is an attempt to define an approach to history they call "practical realism." The authors have a good discussion of the problems with establishing truthfulness and causal relationships in historical analysis. Their recommendation, epistemically based on Peirce's fallibalism, is a modestly realist approach based on careful accumulation of data, constant testing of defined hypotheses, skepticism about data, peer review, and a community of scholars open to alternative interpretations. If this sounds familiar, its because it is. Its essentially a version of the best practices of modern science. This is crashing through an open door with a vengeance. As an aside, the authors contrast their position with the "metaphysical realism" of Karl Popper and his logical positivist "associates." Popper would be surprised to find himself grouped with the Vienna Circle philosophers of whom he was so critical. In fact, Popper's work has a strong fallibalist orientation with strong kinship to Peirce's work.
The authors also get themselves into trouble with some fairly careless statements. For example, "the exclusive dominance of European cultural forms in the United States in now consignable to a specific period,..." This from authors whose recommended approach to historical analysis is a clear mimic of western scientific practices and based on a philosophical approach articulated by a 19th century American man. Fallibalist epistemology is based on the work of several imporant 17th and 18th century European philosophers and has roots in Hellenistic Greece. This is about as European as it gets. I don't see the authors recommending nor would they recommend authentic non-European approaches like Theravada Buddhism or Confucianism.
Finally, the authors would like a form of American national history suitable for a democratic society. What does this mean? The authors are appropriately critical of instrumental uses of history like the triumphalist version of 19th century America and they are cautious about the dangers of making the same types of error in things like 'Afrocentric' history. So what is their solution? They are not completely explicit but it appears they wish a systematic, accurate, unbiased account of the past that is fair to the historical experiences of all relevant actors, a kind of inclusionary multiculturalism. But how is this different from naive positivism?
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