"Historians Disagree About Everything, or So It Seems" Topic

"Today they sound antique. But for most of our history Ben Franklin and Washington Irving stated the obvious—what pedagogues, parents, and students believed—that the study of history promoted love of country and built character. This belief permeated Webster's Spellers, McGuffey's Readers, and Longfellow's "Paul Revere's Ride." It was enshrined in inscriptions carved on our public buildings. Etched along the top of the National Archives is "THE GLORY AND ROMANCE OF OUR HISTORY ARE HERE PRESERVED."

Today we are wary of virtue and skeptical of glory, content to make history teachers "fix in the minds of youth" historical habits of mind: context, contingency, multiple causation, differing interpretations. History, many have concluded, is not a moral tale with inspirational value. If history is not a moral tale, what is it? How is the presentation of our colonial past and our American Revolution different? Why are there battles over the founding of America in the first place? How, since the 1960s, has the nature of history changed?…"

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Armand

Well the winners write the history, until countries re-write it to their own needs.

Also in terms of Ancient History what is used for primary sources are often quite distant in time from when things actually happened!

History, please recall, is a literary art form. Like the other arts, it has its own muse, Clio. It is NOT the past, though it aspires to tell the truth about the past, and occasionally does.

"History is what the Present finds useful to remember about the Past."

Thanks!

Armand

Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. Those who prevent the teaching of history WANT to repeat it.

Otoh the main thing we learn from history is that people never learn from history.

(smile)

Armand

I have a degree in History and I am very much with doc mcb on these points:

"History is what the Present finds useful to remember about the Past."

the main thing we learn from history is that people never learn from history.

To which I might add a comment from one of my history professors (who was quoting someone else): historians are the professional rememberers of society, and they have a duty to remember accurately.

I found the questi8on "Most importantly, how do we offer a realistic portrait of America's past without extinguishing idealism?" interesting. Why must history encourage idealism, my study of the subject shows me that idealists are very dangerous people, they are usually intolerant in so many ways and when they start to fail they tend to fall back on blaming others and throwing their toys out of the pram. Give me a pragmatist every time. I fail to see what is idealistic about a power and money grab by a small number of white men unless your ideal is entirely selfish.

Mark J Wilson+1

Armand

Mark, would you prefer a power grab by a small number of black women? Race and sex are not really the issues here--though shared assumptions and experience might be.

I found it telling--and a little depressing--that when the women of MI-5 first first organized to demand equal pay and rank with men, women without university degrees weren't even notified of the meeting.

Well the winners write the history, until countries re-write it to their own needs.

You mean losers like Napoleonic France and ACW South didn't?
Winners write history as well as the losers. So?

History, many have concluded, is not a moral tale with inspirational value. If history is not a moral tale, what is it?

It is the memory of the nation, of the human race. It certainly contains lessons, moral and otherwise. The problem is when it is glorified or used to justify certain beliefs. [i.e. history is always ignored or changed to do so.]

A good example is the current insistence of many that the major cause of the ACW wasn't slavery when every southern states' declaration of independence in 1861 says different.

McL, I don't know anyone who questions that slavery was the major cause, although it was the EXPANSION of slavery into the west. (Otherwise why did Lincoln offer to accept the Corwin Amendment?)

The argument has been with fools who insist it was the SOLE cause.

" I fail to see what is idealistic about a power and money grab by a small number of white men unless your ideal is entirely selfish."

And how many of those men ended up destitute. Other countries, many other countries, have had revolutions that ended up with the leaders ensconced in power and wealth until they died. That didn't happen here and is something to be grateful for, admired, and emulated.

"Mark, would you prefer a power grab by a small number of black women? Race and sex are not really the issues here--though shared assumptions and experience might be".

My ancestry is almost exclusively of people who did not have power. I'm not sure it really made much difference to them and it certainly wouldn't to me who the selfish dictators were.
I's also suggest the power grabbers thought both race and sex were significant issues, slavery was justified on racist grounds and denying the women the vote for years on equally specious sexist tropes.

+1 MJW

McL, I don't know anyone who questions that slavery was the major cause…

Dn Jackson:

Well, there were at least three threads on taking down the CSA federal monuments where many were voicing that opinion. That isn't counting the public debates on the issue at the time. Any number of folks defend that 'not slavery' view.

"Historians Disagree About Everything, or So It Seems"

When I hear or see this opinion, it is generally stated by folks who 1. Haven't read much history, and 2. Don't want to because 'historians disagree about everything.'

Even the shallowest dive into history and historiography would know that isn't true about most history. Just particular points do they disagree. It is often around questions of quality [who was the best or worst general?] or where there is scant evidence or a judgement call. [X lost the battle.]

If you can find two historians arguing over whether there was an American Civil War or Lincoln being elected president, and then we might be have a discussion about historians 'seemingly disagreeing about everything.

Until then, it is a blatantly ignorant question.

Mc Laddie + 1

Armand