"In the end, however, it is neither as a writer of history nor a onetime editor of a particular historical journal that the debate on the Murdered Muse leaves me most perplexed--but as a reader."

The Ends of History
Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom

Part I | II | III

From my (admittedly biased) perspective as a participant in the editorial process, it seems that what the AHR has actually been doing lately has simply been publishing work that ranges very widely in terms of subject matter and methodology. There has also been a good deal of variation when it comes to the ideological content of the articles and presidential addresses it has run. It is hard to imagine, for example, how Robert Darnton's 2000 presidential address on the circulation of news in France around the time of the French Revolution could be construed as a Marxist interpretation of the past. Even harder to interpret as radical would be a 1997 AHR article by William Roger Louis, a specialist in the history of the British Empire who would several years later be elected AHA president. This essay explored (in a fashion A. J. P. Taylor would have found very familiar) the diplomatic status of Hong Kong in the wake of World War II.

There is no question that, due to its eclecticism, the AHR has often showcased work on topics that Himmelfarb might consider marginal and that have nothing to say about the Great Men of such concern to C. Bradley Thompson. It has not, though, ignored diplomacy (as the Louis article just mentioned indicates), American religion (a 1999 essay by Susan Juster on evangelical activities in the early Republic comes to mind), or the dynamics of citizenship (a 2000 essay by Mary Ryan on U.S. city halls addressed this). It is not even the case that the AHR has had nothing to say lately about the Founding Fathers: a review essay by Peter Onuf and Jan Lewis appeared in 1997 that assessed the strengths and weaknesses of various works on Jefferson.

Finally, Judt's arguments notwithstanding, the AHR has gone to considerable lengths to make sure it regularly publishes work by people who care about the quality of their prose--something that is also true of the Journal of American History. One indication of the AHR's concern with this (and with exploring issues associated with narrative) was the commissioning of a 1998 forum on historical fiction. The lead piece was by novelist Margaret Atwood (who had recently published Alias Grace, a work based on an actual trial) and responses to it came from three professional historians: Jonathan Spence, Lynn Hunt, and John Demos. All of the respondents were asked to write in part because of their reputations as stylists, something that they had earned in part by writing essays or books intended for popular as opposed to specialist audiences.

In the end, however, it is neither as a writer of history nor a onetime editor of a particular historical journal that the debate on the Murdered Muse leaves me most perplexed--but as a reader. It would be easy, but wrong, to assume that someone like me must admire works on the past very different from those that impress scholars such as Marwick, Himmelfarb, and Judt. After all, my work has appeared in venues with such (to them) suspicious sounding titles as Theory and Society and the New Left Review. And yet, if I were to compile a list of the books on the past that I have read and appreciated in the last half dozen years, I suspect that more than a few works on it would be ones that historians of the Clio-is-dead-or-endangered school would also deem admirable.

Some books on my list might not please them. Gail Hershatter's Dangerous Pleasures, a study of prostitution in Old Shanghai, would probably be too focused on discourse for Marwick's taste. And the emphasis on imperialist exploitation in Kenneth Pomeranz's The Great Divergence, a book comparing economic trends in China and the West between the 1600s and 1800s, might rub Himmelfarb the wrong way. Other works on my list, though, would be likely to strike a more positive chord with these two critics and with Judt. Surely, for example, Marwick would like, as I do, Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century--after all, it is by Mark Mazower, one of the new generation of historians he credits with helping to defeat postmodern threats to Clio. Himmelfarb could not object to the inclusion on my list of Mary Ann Glendon's A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. After all, this fluidly written study pays close attention to religion, politics, a big idea, and a famous person. And wouldn't Judt admire, as I do, Stephen Aron's How the West Was Lost: The Transformation of Kentucky from Daniel Boone to Henry Clay? The prose is clear and forceful, the main protagonists Christian men.

Finally, I would like to think that, if they came across Keith Schoppa's Blood Road, one of the most interesting recent works on the part of the world I happen to study, they would all join me in admiring it. This is a carefully researched biography of Shen Dingyi, a Chinese politician, poet, and educator who died in mysterious circumstances. And in addition to all it has to tell us about the life, times, and ideas of an intriguing historical figure, it has the attraction of reading in parts like a good whodunit. The fondness that many historians have for this genre is well known, and I am definitely among those whose favorite works to take to the beach tend to be mysteries. I do have certain strong preferences though: one is that, when I read a tale of detection, I like the victim to be a person, not a muse.

Further Reading:

Assessments of the State of the Discipline
The following essays and books critical of recent trends have been cited above: Gertrude Himmelfarb, untitled review of the Journal of the History Society, in the "Learned Journals" section, Times Literary Supplement (London), November 10, 2000: 30-31; Arthur Marwick, "All Quiet on the Postmodern Front," Times Literary Supplement (London), February 23, 2001: 13-14; Tony Judt, "The End of History," The New Republic, May 14, 2001: 36-42; C. Bradley Thompson, "The Return of the Great Men," Times Literary Supplement (London), August 10, 2001: 26-27; "Notes and Comments," The New Criterion, April 2001: no pagination (accessed online at www.criterion.com); Bryan D. Palmer, Descent into Discourse: The Reification of Language and the Writing of Social History (Philadelphia, 1990); and Keith Windschuttle, The Killing of History: How Literary Critics and Social Theorists are Murdering Our Past (reprint edition, New York, 2000). For an extended discussion of the state of history writing today that is much more optimistic in tone, though cognizant of challenges facing professional historians, see Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob, Telling the Truth about History (New York, 1995).

Other works cited above
William Roger Louis, "Hong Kong: The Critical Phase, 1945-1949," American Historical Review, vol. 102, no. 4 (October 1997): 1052-85; "Histories and Historical Fictions: An AHR Forum," American Historical Review, vol. 103, no. 5 (December 1998): 1502-29; Susan Juster, "Demagogues or Mystagogues? Gender and the Language of Prophecy in the Age of Democratic Revolutions," American Historical Review, vol. 104, no. 5 (December 1999): 1560-81; Robert Darnton, "An Early Information Society: News and Media in Eighteenth-Century Paris," American Historical Review, vol. 105, no. 1 (February 2000): 1-35; Mary P. Ryan, "'A Laudable Pride in the Whole of Us': City Halls and Civic Materialism," American Historical Review, vol. 105, no. 4 (October 2000): 1131-70; Eric Foner, "American Freedom in a Global Age," American Historical Review, vol. 106, no. 1 (February 2001): 1-16; Gail Hershatter, Dangerous Pleasures : Prostitution and Modernity in Twentieth-century Shanghai (Berkeley, 1997); Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe's Twentieth Century (London, 1999); R. Keith Schoppa, Blood Road : The Mystery of Shen Dingyi in Revolutionary China (Berkeley, 1995); Stephen Aron, How the West was Lost: The Transformation of Kentucky from Daniel Boone to Henry Clay (Baltimore, 1996); Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy (Princeton, 2000); and Mary Ann Glendon, A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (New York, 2001).