The History of History

The book of the Week is Ian Tyrell’s Historians in Public: The Practice of American History 1890-1920. It is essentially a book about the history of the subject of History, and how it relates to the public—or didn’t. Tyrell claims that essentially American historians have had a blind spot when looking at the history of History—frequently claiming that the discipline of History is dying when all they need to do is look back and notice that it isn’t dead or dying, but constantly changing. I find it interesting how Tyrell does this; he uses a fairly rigid periodization of history, roughly analogous to periods used by other historians. His approach is also mostly that of “Great Men” style of history. The book can also serve as an institutional history of the American Historical Society because Tyrell focuses mainly on the policies of the AHA and how it affected and was changed by society.
Despite the fact that the project seems to be centered on the AHA and several leaders—and opponents—of the organization, it explains several problems with history through the years. I found it extremely interesting how Historians were involved in the World War II effort—often at the expense of other research—and how they fed into the propaganda machine. But was perhaps more interesting to me was the entrance of historians into government service as advisors. Today that field seems somewhat moribund, perhaps because of the problems experienced in earlier years (too much red tape, low salaries, etc.)
I find it interesting that many of our own worries about history (glut of historians, public disconnect, conflicts with politics), has been part of the profession for several periods during the last 100 years. The author of the book is also interesting. Tyrell is not from the United States; his major block of time here was probably part of his PhD as a Fulbright Scholar (http://iantyrrell.wordpress.com/). Perhaps this story is only one that can be told by someone disaffected from it, whose livelihood does not rely upon pleasing other American historians.

In what seems to be a prelude to this work—perhaps some if its inspiration—is a speech by Carl Becker, entitled “Everyman his own Historian”. It shows how the regular person “does” history, by using mundane daily events and putting them in a historical context. Becker says that “History is the memory of things said and done”. For the average person this is true, but for a historian there is often an added context, that of interpretation—linking disparate memories together, and finding a common theme, or a reason for a lack of one. There is a weird example of the historian’s craft that I developed on the fly in an English paper of all places.

Jane has gained 10 pounds over the last week.
Jane’s candy jar has been emptied in the last week.
Conclusion: Jane has gained 10 pounds from eating a lot of candy last week.

This is an example of how someone’s memory functions, the simple story of how Jane gained 10 pounds. However Jane claims she didn’t eat all the candy, and so another explanation must be found. Lets add a few facts:

Jane’s brother Michael also gained 10 pounds.
Jane is sexually active.
New conclusion: Michael ate all the candy and Jane is pregnant.

This is a simple explanation of what can be the historians craft—especially revisionist history, or even the “memory of things said and done”. If someone close to Jane was willing to believe her and investigate the claim further, they would be doing the work of the historian, but in a much more limited and immediate sense.

The job of the historian is to take this immediate history and place it in the context of larger events, such as an example in a history of unnoticed pregnancy, or a history of obesity. I know this is a humorous approach to the situation, but I feel it can be appropriate.