Historiography and Historical Methods
Week IX discussion questions
Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob, Telling the Truth About History (New York: Norton, 1995).
Pages 1-159 (Intro, chapters 1-4).
Introduction:
What is the topic of this book?
What is the authors' main argument?
In what ways do the authors think the democratization of education has changed the writing of history?
What do the authors mean when they use the term "old intellectual absolutisms" that have been "overthrown" since 1945? What do they see as the impact of this "overthrow"?
Are the authors "relativists"? Explain.
What evidence do they present to show that history is still relevant and controversial?
What kinds of questions about the purposes of history do the authors raise?
What do the authors mean by "skepticism"? Do they see skepticism as the same as relativism? Explain their point.
What do the authors mean by "post-modernism"? Do they seem to agree entirely with the perspective of "post-modernists"? Explain.
What is the purpose of this book?
Do the authors believe that there is one true history? Do they reject the idea that history can be objective? Explain.
Part One of this book is called "Intellectual Absolutisms"--why?
Chapter 1
The authors tell us at the start of this chapter that they are going to "put heroic science into a historical context and assess the way that it has molded Western thinking." Based upon your having read the ENTIRE CHAPTER,
a) What is the model of "heroic science"?
b) What main elements of its historical context do the authors consider most important and why?
c) What are the authors' main conclusions about its impact on western thinking?
Chapter 2
The second chapter of the book examines the development of "scientific" approaches to history (a topic we have already discussed when reading Breisach). Answer these questions AFTER you read the chapter!
a) Why do the authors link together the idea of "scientific history" and the concept of modernity?
b) What does this have to do with the idea of "mastering time"?
c) What do the authors see as the major turning points in the effort to (intellectually) "master time" and why?
d) What are the authors' main points in the subsection on "mastering facts"?
e) Why do the authors refer to scientific history in the West as "imperialist"?
Chapter 3
The title of this chapter is "History makes a Nation"--The big question for this chapter is-- why this title? What does it mean?
After reading the chapter, answer these questions from the perspective of the authors:
a) What are "nations" (in the modern sense), and why was it necessary to "make" a nation in the US after the American Revolution?
b) What role did historians play in the creation of national identity in ante-bellum America and why?
c) In what sense did historians in the post-Civil War era help transform the concept of natural rights into the basis for American "ideology," and how were their histories shaped by this ideological perspective?
d) How did F. J. Turner use the concept of the Frontier to demonstrate the history of American Progress?
e) Before the coming of the Progressives, how did historians understand the relationship between natural rights and capitalism and how did this understanding shape their reading of the Constitution and of American identity?
Part Two of this book is called "Absolutisms Dethroned"--why?
Chapter 4
The title of the chapter is "Competing Histories of America"--The big question for this chapter is-- why this title? What does it mean?
After reading the chapter, answer these questions from the perspective of the authors:
a) By the early 1900s, what events and developments were undermining faith in the American ideology of natural rights and the American identity as "heroic champions of democracy"?
b) Did the Progressives, for all of their myth-shattering, really challenge the idea that the US had a historical mission to champion democracy and natural rights?
c) Why was Perry Miller's reinterpretation of Puritanism such an important challenge to the idea that American history was the story of the progress towards the ideals of democracy and natural rights?
d) In what sense were the social historians of the 1960s-1980s emphasizing "anti-celebratory values," and was the new social history really nothing more than an attack against the "consensus" view of American history?
e) The last part of this chapter is called "The Implications of Social History for Multiculturalism"--what are these implications?
What is the main point (thesis) of this chapter?