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A Conversation with Bernard Bailyn

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EDITOR'S NOTE B ernard B ailyn By Bernard Bailyn's definition, the study of history is never a science, always a craft—and sometimes an art. Winner of two Pulitzer prizes in history, Bailyn is this year's Jefferson Lecturer in the Humanities, the highest honor the federal government bestows. He has been practicing the art and teaching the craft to Harvard students for forty-five years. One of them, Jack Rakove, now a Stanford professor and a Pulitzer Prize-winner himself, writes about "the heady experience" of being in a graduate seminar with Bailyn. "For the first half of the course," he writes, Bernard Bailyn, 1998 Jefferson Lecturer "we were never quite sure what the subject was." The sessions would start off in the Humanities. predictably enough with what had been discussed in the previous class, but then "it would be off to the races, as a whole new topic was introduced and Humanities brilliantly sketched, opening up interpretive vistas more rapidly than anyone A bimonthly review published by the could imagine." Bailyn's style was to leave them "to puzzle things out for National Endowment for the Humanities. ourselves, goaded only by his critical eye and his alarming propensity to call Chairman: William R. Ferris us up short with the most famous of all his questions: 'So what?"' Director of Communications Policy: Gary L. Krull The measure of the man shows clearly in his books, Rakove writes. Bailyn's Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, in Rakove's assessment, Editor: Mary Lou Beatty Writer-Editors: Amy Lifson, "transformed the writing of American history." Meredith Hindley, Bailyn won the Pulitzer Prize in history and the Bancroft Prize for Robin Herbst Editorial Assistant: Steven Snodgrass Ideological Origins; he won another Pulitzer in 1986 for Voyagers to the West. Editorial Intern: Erin Erickson Still another, The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson, won the National Book Award. Bailyn did his undergraduate work at Williams College and earned his Editorial Board: George F. Farr Jr., James Herbert, Edythe R. Manza, master's and doctorate from Harvard University. He has been teaching Nancy Rogers, Stephen M. Ross colonial history and the American Revolution at Harvard since 1953 and Marketing Director: Joy Evans is Adams University Professor Emeritus. He is a former president of the American Historical Association, and a member of the American Academy Design: Crabtree + Company of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Historical Society, the Mexican Academy of The opinions expressed in Humanities are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect History and Geography, and the Russian Academy of Sciences. Endowment policy. Material appearing in this History's role, he says, is to establish "in a realistic sense, as far as that's pos­ publication, except for that already copyrighted, maybe reproduced. Please notify the editor sible, what's happened and where we've come from, what experiences we've in advance so that appropriate credit can be given. Humanities (ISSN 0018-7526) is published had." The alternative is the model offered in the nadir of the Soviet regime bimonthly by the National Endowment for the Humanities, 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, when "the past had to be twisted and turned" to fit the policy of the time. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20506. Telephone: 202/606-8435; fax: 202/606-8451; e-mail: These days Bailyn directs the International Seminar on Atlantic History, [email protected]; http://www.neh.gov which brings together young historians from many countries to discuss Second-class postage (USPS #531-230) paid at Washington, D.C., and additional mailing questions in the history of Atlantic civilization. These young historians, it is offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to United States Government Printing Office, hoped, will become old historians with a common ground. There is always a Superintendent of Documents, Washington, need, Bailyn said in a 1995 lecture, for "the establishment, in some significant D.C. 20402. New subscriptions and renewals: U.S. Government Printing Office, Superinten­ degree, of a realistic understanding of the past, free of myths, wish-fulfillments, dent of Documents, P.O. Box 371954, Pittsburgh, PA 15250-7954. Annual subscription rate: $16.00 and partisan delusions... domestic, $20.00 foreign. Two years: $32.00, $40.00. For new orders, 202/512-1800; for current When asked what history offers us, Bailyn replies: "Sanity. Social sanity." □ subscriber questions, 202/512-1806. —Mary Lou Beatty 2 MARCH/APRIL 1998 HUMANITIES The Magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities March/April 1998 THE 1 9 9 8 JEFFERSON AROUND THE LECTURE NATION 4 The Past Is Unpredictable Historian 33 State by State Bernard Bailyn discusses the ways in Exhibitions, lectures, which our past is closer than we think. films, and conferences throughout the country. 8 Encountering Bernard Bailyn His unorthodox ways in the classroom 36 W om en in Com ba t changed the course of history for Soviet women who fought generations of Harvard students. in World War II tell their By Jack N. Rakove stories in an exhibition in Ohio. By Erin Erickson 14 The Rallying Cry How the word "Liberty" moved from a spiritual defini­ 39 Georgia Church tion to a revolutionary one. By Eric Foner Becomes Museum A civil rights center of 19 Excerpts: Bailyn in His Own Words the sixties finds a new Passages from his books and lectures purpose. By Erin Erickson offer insights into the historian's craft, the essence of loyalty, and the nature of defiance. DEPARTMENTS 41 Not the Man in the Gilbert Portrait An exhibition shows the lesser-known side 52 Calendar of a young, ambitious George Washington. By Meredith Hindley 54 Noteworthy 55 Deadlines MODERN STRUGGLES Page 14 24 Dissident in Indonesia Visiting the author of the Buru Quartet under city arrest in Jakarta. By David Paul Ragan 28 “When Rain Blackens the Sky” The poetry of Viet Nam connects a land and its people. By Fred Marchant Page 28 HUMANITIES 3 MARY LOU BEATTY: Congratulations on your being chosen for the Jefferson lectureship. You've had a singular A Conversation with career as a historian, a professor for nearly fifty years at Bernard Bailyn Harvard University, and the author of many highly regarded and influential books. Now, along with your series of books on the peopling of British North America, you've taken on a new project— something called the International Seminar on the History of the Atlantic World. What is that? BERNARD BAILYN: It's an effort to bring together young istorian Bernard Bailyn, historians from all over the Atlantic world to concentrate intensely for a short period of time— ten days or so— on who has been chosen common historical problems, on topics and problems they share. The purpose is to advance the first scholarly efforts as the 1998 Jefferson of young historians of many nations, and to help them form associations during the seminar that will persist, and LecturerH in the Humanities, spoke recently so build up an international cadre of young historians who with editor Mary Lou Beatty about then become not-so-young historians, and will carry on these connections into their later careers— and ultimately, American history— how it is taught, how it through cooperation among historians, to further in some small degree at least, international understanding. is written, and how it fits into a larger Also, it's a way of deepening historical understanding. We understand much more of our own national history by transatlantic context. Bailyn, who is the seeing it in the context of Atlantic civilization as a whole. This is not an entirely new idea, but because of recent research in Adams University Professor Emeritus at historical studies it has become much more important. Harvard University, has written eleven Q: The seminar concentrates on 1500 to 1800? books, two of them Pulitzer Prize winners, BAILYN: Yes— that is the formative period in which the contacts between the western European nations and the The Ideological Origins o f the American Western Hemisphere were established. In that period, you can see the connections between Western Europe and the Revolution and Voyagers to the West. The Western Hemisphere in their first, basic forms. Ordeal o f Thomas Hutchinson, based on his Q: Is there an effort to redress the subject of European relationships with Latin America as well? Trevelyan Lectures at Cambridge BAILYN: It's to see the whole of the Atlantic world and its University, won the National Book common characteristics. Slavery, for instance, developed in all of the regions of the Western Hemisphere as part of the Award. A former president of the economic development of Europe, but it took different forms in different places at different times, and those pecu­ American Historical Association, liarities can best, most fully, be seen in an Atlantic perspec­ tive. Similarly, imperial systems and colonial governments Bailyn was elected in 1994 to developed, and the differences and similarities are impor­ tant to notice. The seminar is not formally concentrated on the Russian Academy of the United States, although what became the United States obviously was involved, directly or indirectly, in all of this. Sciences, the first American historian Q: Is there new scholarship emerging? to be elected to that body since BAILYN: It's enormously expanding. One of the most George Bancroft in 1867. striking things about the current work of professional histo­ rians is the amount of technical research that's emerging on all of the great questions related to Western civilization, and in other regions as well. The problem is how to get the tech- bran. HUMANITIES 5 — Courtesy Bernard Bailyn nical work into a form that reaches a larger public.
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