Anthony Grafton History’s postmodern fates Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/135/2/54/1829123/daed.2006.135.2.54.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 As the twenty-½rst century begins, his- in the mid-1980s to almost one thousand tory occupies a unique, but not an envi- now. But the vision of a rise in the num- able, position among the humanistic dis- ber of tenure-track jobs that William ciplines in the United States. Every time Bowen and others evoked, and that lured Clio examines her reflection in the mag- many young men and women into grad- ic mirror of public opinion, more voices uate school in the 1990s, has never mate- ring out, shouting that she is the ugliest rialized in history. The market, accord- Muse of all. High school students rate ingly, seems out of joint–almost as bad- history their most boring subject. Un- ly so as in the years around 1970, when dergraduates have fled the ½eld with production of Ph.D.s ½rst reached one the enthusiasm of rats leaving a sinking thousand or more per year just as univer- ship. Thirty years ago, some 5 percent sities and colleges went into economic of all undergraduates majored in histo- crisis. Many unemployed holders of doc- ry. Nowadays, around 2 percent do so. torates in history hold their teachers and Numbers of new Ph.D.s have risen, from universities responsible for years of op- a low of just under ½ve hundred per year pression, misery, and wasted effort that cannot be usefully reapplied in other careers.1 Anthony Grafton, a Fellow of the American Acad- Those who succeed in obtaining ten- emy since 2002, is Henry Putnam University Pro- ure-track positions, moreover, may still fessor of History at Princeton University and ½nd themselves walking a stony path. chair of the Council of the Humanities. He is the Historians’ salaries, like most of those author of eleven books, including “Defenders of in the humanities, are low. So, more sur- the Text” (1991), “Commerce with the Classics” prisingly, are history book sales–except (1997), and “Bring Out Your Dead” (2001). in some favored ½elds, like Holocaust Grafton has received numerous honors, among studies. Some university presses have cut them the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the back in ½elds of history vital not only to Balzan Prize for History of Humanities, and the scholarship but also to American nation- Mellon Foundation’s Distinguished Achievement 1 Thomas Bender, Philip Katz, and Colin Palm- Award. er, The Education of Historians for the Twenty- First Century (Urbana and Chicago: Published © 2006 by the American Academy of Arts for the American Historical Association by the & Sciences University of Illinois Press, 2004). 54 Dædalus Spring 2006 al interests–the history of Latin Ameri- times, and they have elaborated a set History’s ca, for example–because even the best of narratives that more or less explains postmodern fates monographs sell barely a hundred copies the general conditions I have described. and thus fail to cover their costs. Very Professional history in America, they strong books, it seems, still ½nd publish- say, came into being in the late nine- ers even when sales will be low. But the teenth century under the zodiacal sign general picture is dark. of Leopold von Ranke, as historians like Even our annual convention is cele- Herbert Baxter Adams and Frederick brated only for its dullness. At an Amer- Jackson Turner appropriated his meth- ican Historical Association opening ses- ods of archival scholarship and source sion in January 2004 devoted to “War criticism in order to situate the United Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/135/2/54/1829123/daed.2006.135.2.54.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 in a Democratic Age,” renowned histori- States in world history. They established ans rose in Washington to discuss “may- seminars: not classes, originally, but hem, mass destruction, and total anni- special classrooms equipped with cata- hilation.” These subjects of undoubted logs, collections of primary sources, and contemporary relevance have played a journals. Here students could learn to central role in the historical tradition wield the tools of their trade–to estab- in the West from the days of Herodotus lish bibliographies, work through pri- and Thucydides to those of the History mary and secondary sources, and com- Channel. Yet neither the big questions pose reports, which they read aloud to nor the deep thinkers who addressed their teachers and colleagues. At the them proved capable of touching off same time, the Masters of this new dis- intense discussions. Instead, the audi- ciplinary universe devised elaborate, ence “evaporated” as speaker after powerful courses, organized around speaker offered “a classic academic clear theses. History excavated the ori- combination of insight and obscurity, gins of American freedom–depending thoughtful analysis and mind-numbing on whether one listened to Adams or delivery, and by the time the question Turner–in the traditions of self-govern- period ½nally rolled around, even the ment nourished deep in the Germanic aha’s president, James McPherson, forests or in the geographical openness was ready to head for the door.” “I can and rich resources of the North Ameri- see,” cracked Charles Maier of Harvard, can continent. Students often found it “we’ve conducted a war of attrition.” dif½cult to see the connection between It all seems very sad: Clio’s grand disci- the narrowly de½ned exercises they car- pline, for millennia the school of poli- ried out and the grand syntheses that tics, has transformed itself into a science their teachers presented in their lectures so dismal that even its practitioners do and textbooks. But the new professional not want to hear about it.2 history proved attractive to many young men and the smaller number of young Historians share the obsession with women who gained access to it. Its prod- navel gazing that has infected a number ucts ½lled the history departments that of the humanistic disciplines in recent took shape at the end of the nineteenth century, as an elective system replaced the uniform curriculum of the old col- 2 Bob Thompson, “Lessons We May Be Doomed To Repeat: American Historians Talk leges and a historical narrative of the About War, But Is Anyone Listening?” Wash- winning of freedoms, rooted in the ington Post, January 11, 2004, D01. Magna Carta and the rise of the British Dædalus Spring 2006 55 Anthony House of Commons, became a central veau fresco of the Masque of History– Grafton curriculum subject.3 one in which clothed and digni½ed Eu- on the humanities By the early decades of the twentieth ropeans brought sweetness, light, and century, however, professional histori- civilization to the nude and grateful ans inhabited more than one mansion. inhabitants of the Americas and oth- The New History that James Harvey er peripheral continents–was slowly Robinson, Carl Becker, and others de- whitewashed and replaced by a mod- veloped after World War I challenged ernist panorama with more varied par- the founders’ emphasis on politics and ticipants. Even the most technically dif- institutions, and insisted on the central ½cult ½elds, like Chinese history, began importance of ideas. The revisionism of to attract a few young scholars, some of Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/135/2/54/1829123/daed.2006.135.2.54.pdf by guest on 26 September 2021 Charles Beard, who deconstructed ideal- them the children of missionaries. istic accounts of the Founding Fathers Diversi½cation led to struggle. Ugly and World War I, also attracted some flowers of discord began to pop up, here younger scholars. The great regional and there, as historians sharply debated and historical diversity of the American the theses of skeptics and revisionists universities encouraged the emergence and even more sharply debated which of new sub½elds–½elds that the found- pieces of historical turf deserved more ing generation, for whom Europe was intensive cultivation by students and still the biggest thing in America, saw faculty. On the whole, however, histo- as lying outside true history. When the rians–so the usual story goes–retained young Elizabeth Wallace asked the re- a considerable degree of comity. All cently arrived head professor of histo- agreed that those who occupied the pin- ry at Chicago, Hermann von Holst, for nacle of the ½eld were the great political guidance in Latin American history, he historians, especially those at Harvard– exploded: “Vy did you come to me? I the department that, until World War know notings von tose countries. For II, boasted an unmatched array of star me tey do not exist. Tey are tead!” Yet historians, from Turner and Roger Mer- William Rainey Harper, the university’s riman, author of a massive study of the president, encouraged Wallace to devel- Spanish Empire, to Arthur Schlesinger, op a course of her own in the ½eld.4 At the great historian of the Age of Jackson. Wisconsin and Berkeley in the same All agreed that Harvard and a few oth- years, the history of Latin America and er schools–Johns Hopkins, Columbia, the American borderlands became popu- Cornell, Chicago, and Wisconsin–of- lar subjects for courses and for research. fered the best graduate programs. Al- The great, Politically Incorrect art nou- most all agreed, ½nally, that historians everywhere had two primary tasks: car- rying out their own research and offer- 3 John Higham, History: Professional Scholarship ing civic education for young men and in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univer- sity Press, 1983); and, above all, Peter Novick, women, especially in the form of sur- That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and veys of Western civilization and Amer- the American Historical Profession (Cambridge: ican history.