CRISIS” Theodore K

Journal of Interdisciplinary History, xl:2 (Autumn, 2009), 145–150. THE PERSISTENCE OF THE “CRISIS” Theodore K. Rabb Introduction: The Persistence of the “Crisis” La- bels are always easy targets for the historian. It may seem conve- nient to speak of the “Dark Ages” or, later, the “Middle Ages,” but both terms have invited doubt, outright dismissal, and endless re-interpretation. “Renaissance” and “Enlightenment” have been equally fraught, and on a smaller scale, the French Revolution has been downplayed for leaving much of Ancien Regime France in- tact. Given such skeptical inclinations, it is little short of amazing that the idea of a “General Crisis” or just a “Crisis” of the seventeenth century, which was formulated by Eric Hobsbawm ªfty- ªve years ago, should still be going strong in the scholarly literature. The signs of continued vigor are abundant. The October 2008 issue of the American Historical Review hosted a forum on the “Crisis,” depicting on its cover a photograph of the book of essays that established the concept in 1965. Geoffrey Parker, one of the chief advocates of the idea in the intervening years, is about to publish with the Yale University Press a major new contribution, The Global Crisis. Taking the continuing interest as a point of de- parture, this special issue of the JIH brings to bear the collective wisdom of ªve established scholars in the ªeld, who assess the usefulness of the construct from the perspective of their particular specialties. Like other labels, crisis invites criticism on both semantic and substantive grounds. That most advocates speak of a decisive period that runs for a number of decades—as long as 1630 to 1680 or even 1620 to 1690, even though the 1640s and 1650s usually ªgure as the most intense “moment”—is enough, in some accounts, to disqualify the word. A crisis is supposed to be sharp and short. Furthermore, even if one focuses just on the two central decades, are there not plenty of other decades in this period that merit the designation—the 1550s/1560s, the 1590s, and the 1680s/1690s? Theodore K. Rabb is Emeritus Professor of History, Princeton University, and Co-Editor of The Journal of Interdisciplinary History. He is the author of The Last Days of the Renaissance: & the March to Modernity (New York, 2006); The Struggle for Stability in Early Modern Europe (New York, 1975). © 2009 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Inc. Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/jinh.2009.40.2.145 by guest on 02 October 2021 146 | THEODORE K. RABB Even more problematical is the absence of common usage or deªnition, the wide divergence in the subject matter through which the arguments are made, and the lack of uniformity in de- scribing either causes or effects. Above all, there seem no easy an- swers to certain fundamental questions: What does it all mean for an understanding of European history? Does it not put an unnec- essary strain on the historical record to include so many disparate developments under one umbrella? Why propose such large-scale periodization if individual narratives have no need for it and espe- cially if, as seems the case, the “crisis” functions more as a land- mark than an explanatory mechanism? Those who are inclined to be skeptical are unlikely to be per- suaded by the pages that follow. Preferences in semantics and modes of historical discourse tend to be matters of taste. Nor is there any point in trying to ªnd an all-embracing formula or uni- versal consensus on any major issue in historical research. Variety in this setting is indeed the spice of life. All that one can hope to achieve is usefulness. Just as in science there are phenomena that serve a purpose even though they cannot be described fully, so too in constructing narratives of the past there are terms and concepts that help to organize thinking and make for effective teaching. It may be that crisis is not an ideal word, but it does serve these pur- poses. Moreover, it has now been around long enough that, like Renaissance, it probably has earned the right to capitalization without quotation marks. That is the spirit in which it will be used hereafter in these pages. In the hope that a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives might il- luminate the subject from different angles, the JIH invited contributors from ªve distinct areas of research to prepare papers for this issue. They all met for an exchange of views in the autumn of 2008, and a few of them also wrote brief, general comments to bring some closure to this special issue; their comments follow the ªve main articles As a result, despite the spectrum of approaches that they adopt—including the application of insights from eco- nomics, demography, political theory, the history of art, anthro- pology, and sociology—there has been a common enterprise that has united their efforts. The opening essay, by Jan de Vries, is a comprehensive account of the central issues, seen from the perspective of an eco- Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/jinh.2009.40.2.145 by guest on 02 October 2021 THE PERSISTENCE OF THE “CRISIS” | 147 nomic historian. De Vries addresses both the scholarly literature and the data from the seventeenth century in order to separate the arguments that do not work from those that do. Though the Marxist vision is not his, and he suggests different grounds for speaking of a Crisis, it is remarkable that he still ªnds echoes of Hobsbawm’s original interpretation of the period. That said, the grounds on which he makes his claims have to do with recent research, including his own, from which he draws a distinctive set of reasons for identifying a “new economy” that emerged out of the changes of the mid-seventeenth century. Concentrating on one aspect of this larger picture, Anne McCants discusses the ªndings of historical demographers in order to pinpoint both the shortcomings and the possibilities of population research as a means of deªning the Crisis. In her ªeld, the great transformation lies far in the future, and it is by no means clear how the demographic downturn of the seventeenth century fed into, or was affected by, other aspects of the social changes of the time. Nevertheless, that it took place, and that the seventeenth century occupied a hiatus between two long periods of population growth, makes it clear that in demographic history, too, there is evidence of the changing fortunes that the Crisis represents. When one moves to politics, the story line resumes its clarity. In Jacob Soll’s account, the political upheavals of the mid-seventeenth century, which were one of the chief pillars of the Crisis thesis as it was developed in the 1950s and 1960s, had a profound effect on the way in which governments behaved. The case made by Hugh Trevor-Roper in the early historiography was that the Crisis witnessed the birth of centralized regimes, when they ªnally overcame local and regional autonomies. For Soll, the decisive shift is in the conduct of governmental business. Throughout Eu- rope, in response to disruption, the Dutch model took hold, bringing the quest for reliable information and accounting to the seat of power, and thus creating the model for modern govern- ment. In the world of the arts, connections, as Peter Burke empha- sizes, are inherently more elusive. Although Burke sees analogies for the structural shifts visible in other areas of life, such as politics and the economy, they are much harder to pin down in the arts. If the transformations represented by the Baroque are to serve this purpose, their appearance in painting, sculpture, architecture, and Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/jinh.2009.40.2.145 by guest on 02 October 2021 148 | THEODORE K. RABB music follow different paths, and arise earlier in the seventeenth century. If the response to upheaval is the key, different kinds of evidence come into play. Overall, however, Burke ªnds, both in the historiography and in a wide range of creativity, the quest for new directions that links the arts to the general transformations of the Crisis. The ªnal article, by Edward Bever, addresses an aspect of seventeenth-century history that takes us into the realm of mentali- ties. Through attitudes to witchcraft, one can enter a realm of feel- ing and gain access to a society-wide outlook that is not available through other forms of research. Bever’s conclusion—that a “Cri- sis of Conªdence” in mid-century affected demonology, the per- secution of witches, and the belief in magic—offers a powerful en- dorsement of the Crisis thesis. Drawing his evidence from a variety of settings across Europe, he is able to show that the pro- gression took place not only in theoretical discussions and the as- sumptions of the elite, but also in legal procedures and popular be- havior. In the ªnal section of this special issue, the contributors ex- plore brieºy some of the commonalities that transcend the inevita- ble disparities in the ªve different areas of research that they repre- sent. To broaden that discussion, the remainder of this introduction considers some of the topics which, though necessar- ily neglected in an exploration limited to ªve essays, help to estab- lish the usefulness of the Crisis thesis as a means of understanding the history of seventeenth-century Europe. The most straightforward evidence comes from the history of war and diplomacy.

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