Having just completed the first essay for this transnational history course, I want to briefly reflect on some thought that have lingered with me recently. Several weeks ago I was struck by a quote by Roger Chartier in the French compendium Annales (May 2000):
“To think the world… but who thinks it? Men of the past or historians of the present?”
Ghobrial, John-Paul, ‘Seeing the World like a Microhistorian’, Past and Present, issue14 (2019)
This exact semantic formed the end of my most recent essay’s conclusions on Modernization Theory, I suggested that one way for historians and intellectuals to advance global history is to treat it as a holistic approach to the history of today, encompassing as many professions and interests as possible. But several questions are posited by this: What is the limit to this ‘global history’?; Is History defined by the hope for the future, or the implications of the past?
Popular access to historical discourse is often governed by the global events of the contemporary world. If you doubt this then time will be the adjudicator. Regardless, I worry about the popularity of historical journals and databases – Jstor and Oxford Scholarship to name the least – which often are the best resources for quick access to academic work. Certainly, before I came to St Andrews I had never accessed no less heard of any of the resources hubs I am so naturally used to using today. This is a problem for demographics far wider than university students. There is extant a large divide between ‘reading’ and ‘understanding’ history. The former implies the breadth and necessity, the latter implies endeavour and discernment. Unlike every natural urge that should govern a history student, I am not adverse to Wikipedia, I believe that it is a holy necessary tool, though I am weary of its application because I consider it to be a ‘non’-academic source. And here is the problem: ‘academic’ can come across as an alienating word.
Without being contumelious, I worry how those outwith of the university-complex perceive the discourse those within produce. The reach and power social media has today is unprecedented, and often has a distorting impact on how we view the physical world. It is with that distortion that digital archives have an enormous task: innovating how scholars record and respond to their work, as well as presenting it in an accessible and relevant manner – comprehensibility is vital, but who for?. ‘Accessibility’ is what must be addressed further, though relevance is also a major issue. By relevance, there is a general acceptance of learning and reading history to ascertain the ‘bigger picture’: how and why was this person/event/period important? – that question is the most rudimentary of any historian’s work, though it is not the most important aspect. In trying to build a truly global history, we have to look beyond the ‘importance’ of something, but rather its cause, and its impact. From there, our inquiry becomes deeper and more meaningful, we provide a continuous weave to history.
My argument may be rather weak in places here, but my concerns manifest from my own experiences with history as a subject both at university and high-school. There is a charge for the historian to set their own boundaries in endeavour, there seems to be a need for justification. This can manifest in numerable ways or reasons, but it is undeniable that there is always a ‘need’ for the historian. Understanding history is an intricate but vital profession, today, it’s intricacy is often off-putting and it’s indispensability confusing. I take solace in that at St Andrews, I know I am surrounded by a world of people dedicated to not just learning but advancing academia, that is all our ultimate creed. Though we may interpret our being here either as chance, or necessity, or as a passion, every ounce we care towards our studies and subject, we are spurring it’s advancement one small step at a time.
I look again to Chartier for some final thoughts, and the delicate balance Chartier seeks to strike between ‘cultural and other realities’ in his On the Edge. Jonathan Dewald provides the interesting commentary:
‘Much of our life may be a text or something like one, he [Chartier] says, but we must not step completely off the solid ground from which textual and cultural life develop, the ground of social practices. Those who forget these facts risk going over the cliff into a void where words lose touch with reality.’
Although this metaphor is arguably a binary totality – either you stand on solid ground or not – it is grounded in what Chartier calls “discourse” and “practice” – interactions are classified as one “utterances”, the other “action and behaviour” as well as “objective social positions” – it is a fundamental distinction. It is best summarised as:
“There is a radical difference… between the lettered, logocentric, and hermeneutic rationality that organises the production of discourses and the rationality informing all other regimes of practice.”
Chartier, On the Edge, 1, 20, 59, 69, 77, (in Jonathan Dewald, ‘Roger Chartier and the Fate of Cultural History’), p224
If we regard words and language as the fundamental expression of our external reality, then my assertion is that the current reality we live in is that which ‘the men of the past’ have built the ground that we stand on, the historian is the one charged with maintaining that ground. However, it is not a raised platform, there is no existential risk of falling as Chartier implies, if there is then it is from a standing position to our knees. I think what I am trying to reach in this post is a simple rationale for why I think history is a profession to be guarded at all costs from the very world it seeks to better represent and understand. This pessimism may be uncalled for, but after studying Modernization Theory and other interesting issues of how history changed during the twentieth century, there is still discussion to be had about how ‘history’ as a subject/profession influences society and how society influences ‘it’.
*Reference this text:
- Roger Chartier and the Fate of Cultural History Author(s): Jonathan Dewald Source: French Historical Studies, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Spring, 1998), pp. 221-240 Published by: Duke University Press
- Ghobrial, John-Paul, ‘Seeing the World like a Microhistorian’, Past and Present, issue14 (2019)
I very much agree with the points you lay out, and am also very concerned with the importance of justifying the historical profession in today’s times. It’s the driving reason why I’m such a proponent of public history and am perpetually concerned with academia’s ability to reach a general audience. There’s certainly reason to fear history’s inability to connect to the general public, and there’s been quite a lot of writing on the general doom and gloom of where academia may be headed. For instance, Guldi and Armitage’s The History Manifesto was written entirely out of concern of a perceived decline of the humanities; this interview with American historian Jill Lepore and this article on War on the Rocks here also sum up concerns nicely.
While such takes may be a bit exaggerated, the concerns they present are real concerns akin to the ones you and I share. That being said, I find that history has always been a profession that warrants defense, as has been the case behind the publications of E.H. Carr’s What is History?, Richard Evans’ In Defence of History. Fears of history’s inability to connect to a general audience have also been expressed in the past. I particularly love Carl Becker’s famous address to the American Historical Association: “The history that lies inert in unread books does no work in the world. The history that does work in the world, the history that influences the course of history, is living history, that pattern of remembered events, whether true or false, that enlarges and enriches the collective specious present, the specious present of Mr. Everyman.”
Still, in my belief there is a silver lining. With the digital age has come brand new ways for historians to make their work accessible to general publics and engage with the non-academic world. Take for instance, open access publishing, a new trend in academia that emphasizes free online access to academic content. The previously-mentioned The History Manifesto was published via open access and is therefore accessible to anyone with an internet connection; you can download it as a pdf file for free! This podcast episode from the AskHistorians subreddit also provides some good takes and insights on the current state of open access.
Social media, for all of the false news and misleading content it spreads, is also a new means for historians to engage with the public in an accessible format. I am a frequent visitor of the AskHistorians subreddit, a social media forum moderated by verified historians and graduate students that serves to provide answers of academic quality to the general public (in this instance, your average internet user). On Reddit as a whole, the subreddit has a reputation for consistently hosting great postings, and its active moderation ensures answers of insufficient quality (whether for lack of academic rigor, lack of citation, etc.) are removed. As linked earlier, the forum also runs a podcast, allowing academic historians to engage with the public in a format growing in popularity with the general public.
Twitter is also gaining popularity with academic historians, and their contributions are catching notice. The speed on which Twitter operates, a speed that has aided the dissemination of fake news, has also allowed historians to have real-time discussions and conversations with the public. Historians who use Twitter have the potential to dispel inaccuracy and misinformation at its source, and as soon as its posted.
I’m sure you’re aware of most, if not all of these trends. This is just a topic I’m particularly passionate about! I hope this provides a bit of relief to your historical concerns, as I really do share them.