For most of my life, I've learned history as an account of events. Some of
the facts I've learned in this way have helped me to get a sense of
whether
some statements about history and peoples are true or false. I've tended
to
avoid what might be termed "a priori" approaches to history, based on
theories
of how the world works, since I lack the factual background to evaluate
most
of them and I'd rather know facts than not.
In a recent thread on soc.atheism, I commented about the neat
classifications
that one tends to find in historical surveys of different kinds. I wrote,
thinking I knew what I was talking about:
"writers of historical surveys need to put things into neat packages
[snip]
This makes it easier to organize the material but it shouldn't ever be
taken
to be more than that. In particular, it can't be used retroactively to
decide
what was really going on. The same applies to the facile connections they
often make between what is going on in one sphere of activity and what is
going on in another: it makes the book more readable and makes it sound as
though it makes some kind of logical sense, but basically they are just
making it up. Facts are facts and some will be found in a historical
survey.
The challenge of reading one is to emerge from it knowing what are the
facts
and what are the authors' literary inventions. I saw a historical survey
of
music (McKinnan?) that decided at the outset that western civilization
began
with Amos (if I remember right), even though the book wasn't particularly
religious. No one thought it shouldn't be used in a college course because
of such bull****. "
Recently, I've started reading Peter Blickle's book, "The Revolution of
1525.
The German Peasant's War from a new perspective", translated by Brady and
Midelfort, Johns Hopkins U. Pr., 1977. Today I read pages 13ff which tried
to evaluate the newer theoretical approaches to studying the German
Peasant's
War, informed by ideas from other disciplines such as sociology. He
describes
very clearly the general idea for a theoretical model and the kinds of
tinkering that has been done with the general idea. He considers such an
attempt as a valuable source of questions for traditional historical
approaches and also criticizes the results. What he says seems quite
clear and convincing and shows a healthy role for theoretical approaches
to history.
So, my first question is: how can one study history in a way that is
informed about theoretical approaches but is not subsumed under any
of them?
These pages also suggest to me that I might have been wrong about what
I have perceived to be inventions on the part of authors of surveys when
they try to make it all seem logical. Specifically, they might not be
making it up. Instead, they might be relying on one or more theoretical
writings that they don't bother to cite and which they are in too much
of a hurry to do justice to. I doubt that the attribution to Amos falls
under that category, but it might be the exception in survey writing.
So, my second question is: which of the two views I've expressed about
historical surveys is the correct one?
On p.13 of Blickle, lines 15ff, he writes about the more recent research:
"Moreover, the thoroughness and quality of the new research is too
varied."
Here, he is referring to the detailed empirical work that looks at army
lists, land registers, legal settlements, etc.
My last question is this: how does one evaluate empirical work of this
kind?
When he talks about the quality of the new research as being too varied,
what standards does he have in mind?
--
Ignorantly,
Allan Adler <ara@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
* Disclaimer: I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT CSAIL. My actions
and
* comments do not reflect in any way on MIT. Also, I am nowhere near
Boston.
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