I recently read two books by Charles Maier, the venerable Harvard historian on the nature of the modern state. They were, to be frank, rather disappointing; but they reminded me that he had written a perceptive piece twenty-five years ago, as his inaugural lecture when he became President of the American Historical Association. It was called “Consigning the Twentieth-Century to History,” and it raised a range of questions about how historians work and what to do with the era that had just ended, including periodization, documentation, ideologies, and various frameworks that could be used to examine the preceding hundred years.
Beyond these particularities, however, the premise of Maier’s essay was that he staked a claim on the 20C as now (when he wrote in the year 2000) being fair game for historians; it had moved from the domain of current events to that of the past. It’s a perennial question for those of us who work in “modern” or “contemporary” history: what is in our bailiwick and what is not yet ripe? The risk with applying historical analysis to events that happened a year or a decade or half-a-century earlier is that “it’s too early to tell.” The events in question are still ramifying, the archives of are still under seal, and we’re not quite sure whether the questions we ask are really the important ones. We certainly don’t want to be accused of “journalism” (gasp!). We need some distance to gain some useful perspective on the past.
A different, if parallel, problem arises at the earlier end of this historical period. There is a commonplace phrase: “That’s ancient history” which we use to, in effect, consign (relatively) recent events to a murky and ignorable past. It’s a call to forget what actually happened, let “bygones be bygones,” and concentrate on more (apparently) relevant topics. In other words, this “ancient history” is worthy of study only by specialists (e.g., Mughal India, the spread of gunpowder, stories from the Roman Senate, domestication of chickens in prehistoric Anatolia), but for the rest of us, we just want a high-level summary; usually, textbook-type coverage will suffice.
I recently faced this problem in preparing an upcoming set of lectures for next year that I call “A World History Overview.” My challenge is to cover the history of the world—everything from the Big Bang onwards—in twelve class hours. As someone who has specialized in the last 250 years, I am naturally biased toward the more recent end of the total 14.5 billion year period, so even if we had better archival documentation for the first 14,499,995,000 years, I wouldn’t spend too much time on the really, really early stuff. Fortunately for me, there are plenty of folks who have written insightful and fun discussions of the next 4,500 years that I can digest and present in the course and I’ve got a decent handle on the last little bit.
No, the real problem arises in figuring out how to take the “modern” era (i.e., since 1500 or so) and present a coherent package of themes and stories across six class hours. In other words, can I (and, if so, how do I) take a bunch of “modern” stuff, including the Scientific “Revolution,” the Industrial “Revolution,” and the American and French Revolutions and turn them into “ancient” history? Do I do the same for the American Civil War and the Russian Revolution? The global emergence of nationalism? What about the transformation of weaving technology into the basis for modern computing or the many influences of global empires on their European metropolitan (cosmopolitan?) cultures?
Good history not only needs to tie the period and themes under discussion to their broader context and their “before-and-after,” it needs to show how individuals and particularities add up to and connect with the broad developments, trends, and events—up to the present day. When stuff moves to the “ancient” history category, it seems like a lot of this detail/local color/human connection gets lost. Part of this is due to the inherent pressures of editing and compression. Even if History could produce the “truth,” there’s no way for us to produce the “whole truth,” and certainly not in just a few hours.
On the other hand, as I have noted elsewhere, we need to be wary of facile parallelism with historical events. The earlier we go, the more difference there is between our world and theirs. Sometimes the differences are tangible (the authors of the 2d Amendment sought to protect the right to bear “arms,” but they didn’t have ICBMs, so how far does that constitutional right go these days); sometimes the differences are more ephemeral (the nature of work, gender, and health are all radically different now than 200/800/2,000 years ago).
By “consigning” any period to ancient history, we are doing three things. First, we are emphasizing the limited nature of historical analogy, second, we are recognizing the practical limitations on the bandwidth available for study and consideration by contemporary readers/students, and finally, as a result of both, we are taking a philosophical stand on whether contemporary society should spend its time on such matters. The loss of this “ancient” past not only frees us of false analogies, but also propels us forward; insisting that there is more to learn from the present than dwelling on the past. Recently (062824), I cited the 19C French thinker Ernst Renan for the proposition that an implicit shared act of forgetting is an essential part of building a modern nation. However, his point goes beyond that particular frame; whether at a personal or societal level we put our present and our future at risk by fantasizing about the past and trying to rectify whatever errors and insults occurred. In 1914, the Serbians marked their national day—from 525 years earlier—by assassinating the Austrian Archduke. As if….
So, there is a role for “ancientizing” History. We have to and should let more and more of it slip away. We have to become ever more selective about the increasing amount of history that we have (it’s piling up day-by-day) and figuring out the parts that remain essential.
Beyond these particularities, however, the premise of Maier’s essay was that he staked a claim on the 20C as now (when he wrote in the year 2000) being fair game for historians; it had moved from the domain of current events to that of the past. It’s a perennial question for those of us who work in “modern” or “contemporary” history: what is in our bailiwick and what is not yet ripe? The risk with applying historical analysis to events that happened a year or a decade or half-a-century earlier is that “it’s too early to tell.” The events in question are still ramifying, the archives of are still under seal, and we’re not quite sure whether the questions we ask are really the important ones. We certainly don’t want to be accused of “journalism” (gasp!). We need some distance to gain some useful perspective on the past.
A different, if parallel, problem arises at the earlier end of this historical period. There is a commonplace phrase: “That’s ancient history” which we use to, in effect, consign (relatively) recent events to a murky and ignorable past. It’s a call to forget what actually happened, let “bygones be bygones,” and concentrate on more (apparently) relevant topics. In other words, this “ancient history” is worthy of study only by specialists (e.g., Mughal India, the spread of gunpowder, stories from the Roman Senate, domestication of chickens in prehistoric Anatolia), but for the rest of us, we just want a high-level summary; usually, textbook-type coverage will suffice.
I recently faced this problem in preparing an upcoming set of lectures for next year that I call “A World History Overview.” My challenge is to cover the history of the world—everything from the Big Bang onwards—in twelve class hours. As someone who has specialized in the last 250 years, I am naturally biased toward the more recent end of the total 14.5 billion year period, so even if we had better archival documentation for the first 14,499,995,000 years, I wouldn’t spend too much time on the really, really early stuff. Fortunately for me, there are plenty of folks who have written insightful and fun discussions of the next 4,500 years that I can digest and present in the course and I’ve got a decent handle on the last little bit.
No, the real problem arises in figuring out how to take the “modern” era (i.e., since 1500 or so) and present a coherent package of themes and stories across six class hours. In other words, can I (and, if so, how do I) take a bunch of “modern” stuff, including the Scientific “Revolution,” the Industrial “Revolution,” and the American and French Revolutions and turn them into “ancient” history? Do I do the same for the American Civil War and the Russian Revolution? The global emergence of nationalism? What about the transformation of weaving technology into the basis for modern computing or the many influences of global empires on their European metropolitan (cosmopolitan?) cultures?
Good history not only needs to tie the period and themes under discussion to their broader context and their “before-and-after,” it needs to show how individuals and particularities add up to and connect with the broad developments, trends, and events—up to the present day. When stuff moves to the “ancient” history category, it seems like a lot of this detail/local color/human connection gets lost. Part of this is due to the inherent pressures of editing and compression. Even if History could produce the “truth,” there’s no way for us to produce the “whole truth,” and certainly not in just a few hours.
On the other hand, as I have noted elsewhere, we need to be wary of facile parallelism with historical events. The earlier we go, the more difference there is between our world and theirs. Sometimes the differences are tangible (the authors of the 2d Amendment sought to protect the right to bear “arms,” but they didn’t have ICBMs, so how far does that constitutional right go these days); sometimes the differences are more ephemeral (the nature of work, gender, and health are all radically different now than 200/800/2,000 years ago).
By “consigning” any period to ancient history, we are doing three things. First, we are emphasizing the limited nature of historical analogy, second, we are recognizing the practical limitations on the bandwidth available for study and consideration by contemporary readers/students, and finally, as a result of both, we are taking a philosophical stand on whether contemporary society should spend its time on such matters. The loss of this “ancient” past not only frees us of false analogies, but also propels us forward; insisting that there is more to learn from the present than dwelling on the past. Recently (062824), I cited the 19C French thinker Ernst Renan for the proposition that an implicit shared act of forgetting is an essential part of building a modern nation. However, his point goes beyond that particular frame; whether at a personal or societal level we put our present and our future at risk by fantasizing about the past and trying to rectify whatever errors and insults occurred. In 1914, the Serbians marked their national day—from 525 years earlier—by assassinating the Austrian Archduke. As if….
So, there is a role for “ancientizing” History. We have to and should let more and more of it slip away. We have to become ever more selective about the increasing amount of history that we have (it’s piling up day-by-day) and figuring out the parts that remain essential.
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