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The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past

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Two classics of historiography, The Historian's Craft by Marc Bloch (1953) and What Is History? by E. H. Carr (1961), have prompted notable cold war historian Gaddis to offer his own abstract of what historians do. Does the methodology of historians captivate readers of popular history? Those sensitive to a historian's attitudes might be intrigued by this disquisition into the "ductwork" installed in every piece of historical writing. In discussing ductwork, the concepts by which a historian selects facts, comprehends time and space, and ultimately presents the past, Gaddis hews to two central tenets: that there is, somewhere, an objective truth in history, and that history is a science. Those ideas have been severely challenged, especially by social scientists enamored of quantitative methods. Gaddis dismisses quantification alone as unworkable and inappropriate and says historians must combine the techniques of many disciplines. A technical but provocative inquiry for sophisticated history readers. Gilbert TaylorCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"A masterful statement on the historical method by a distinguished Cold War historian.... Gaddis' most provocative claim is a powerful irony: Social science, with its independent variables and deductive theories, would appear to have more scientific pretensions than does history. But the historical method, which relies on thought experiments and the interplay of inductive and deductive reasoning, more fully shares the methodical logic of such fields as astronomy, paleontology, and evolutionary biology. Gaddis' characterization of the social sciences will surely spark debate even as it illuminates important intellectual connections between the disciplines. Delightfully readable, the book is a grand celebration of the pursuit of knowledge."--Foreign Affairs"A bold and challenging book, unafraid of inviting controversy. It provides a strong statement for our time of both the limits and the value of the historical enterprise."--Alan Brinkley, New York Times Book Review"Never before have I come across a book that so illuminated the craft of the historian.... Gaddis has a delightful command of language--and a delight in it. He draws on Gertrude Stein, Mark Twain, contemporary movies, Thucydides, Tom Stoppard, Woody Allen and lots more.... He is a distinguished scholar who writes with a clarity and a lack of pedantry that is quite marvelous. Equally impressive, he's not afraid of a rip-roaring fight with his fellow academics."--Michael Pakenham, The Baltimore Sun"An urbane and eloquent little volume.... Gaddis's learned and graceful reflections on all of these questions are deeply humane, propelled by the conviction that only by sustaining a historical consciousness can we know where we should want to go. They will also never allow either the reader of history or the writer of it to think about the past in quite the same way as before."--Richard Bernstein, New York Times"Rewarding and readable, with unusual thinking and delightful comparisons that range from art to music to contemporary films such as 'Shakespeare in Love' and 'Being John Malkovich....' Thought-provoking and even funny, challenging but also accessible to amateurs who read history but are ready to think more seriously about its methodology."--Associated Press (in The Chicago Tribune)"This is another of those books that rewards the effort it requires. Besides providing invaluable insights into how the historian goes about his business, it teaches--like all really good books--of life beyond its boundaries."--Colin Walters, Washington Times"Entertaining, masterful disquisition on the aims, limitations, design, and methods of historiography.... Employing a wide range of metaphors (from Cleopatra's nose to Napoleon's underwear), displaying an extensive knowledge of current thinking in mathematics, physics, and evolutionary biology, alluding frequently to figures as disparate as Lee Harvey Oswald, Gwyneth Paltrow, John Lennon, and John Malkovich, Gaddis guides us on a genial trip into the historical method and the imagination that informs it.... Provocative, polymathic, and pleasurable."--Kirkus Reviews"The Landscape of History explores recent, surprising convergences of natural science and human history and does so with clarity, charm and easy erudition. Gaddis's book is a real tour de force: a delight to read, and a light-hearted celebration of the odd, 'fractal' patterns that intellectual and other forms of human and natural history exhibit."--William H. McNeill"In this landmark study Gaddis brilliantly distills many of his previous analyses of the relationship of historical thinking to the social sciences and the hard sciences as well."--Alexander George, Professor Emeritus, Stanford University

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Product details

Series: INAUGURAL LECTURES

Hardcover: 208 pages

Publisher: Oxford University Press; 1st US Edition 1st Printing edition (September 2002)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0195066529

ISBN-13: 978-0195066524

Product Dimensions:

8.6 x 0.8 x 5.6 inches

Shipping Weight: 13.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review:

4.0 out of 5 stars

52 customer reviews

Amazon Best Sellers Rank:

#58,761 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

This book is packed! Being a beginner to this type of historical investigative methodology, I found it a little difficult to grasp at first (a little dry, as science details can sometimes be), yet ultimately leading toward a hope of historical consciousness. Gaddis lists I think 6 examples with a detailed description of various ways and comparisons, and examples of historical hard science methods of investigation and its seeming evidence gathering (he calls general particularization through "continuities" of which the "new science" takes general ideas, findings of phenomenon that do not form patterns of history and manipulates them as evidence to a particular conclusion to historical methods. Historians attempt, as best they can, to connect through contingencies (and other methods) that is, through investigation and actual evidence (s) finding patterns that extend over time, though sometimes both are needed). I enjoyed in his last chapter his brief summary of these methods, using the cover of the book, a man, from his back, facing fog covered mountains and a camera pulling away from a deserted island of a vast continent to point to: simultaneous significance/insignificance, detachment/engagement, adventure and danger (historical landscaping) as polarities of what historical consciousness is and how it all points to an understanding of our future.

The Landscape of History is based on the series of lectures presented by John Lewis Gaddis during his Eastman Visiting Professorship at Oxford University. In them, he presents his thoughts on how and why historians pursue their profession.ScopeThe historian is a traveler in time and space with the freedom to (1) select the specific times and places, (2) simultaneously examine events that were originally separated in time and/or space, and (3) adjust the scale of his research from the micro to the macro in time, space, and events.History as Cartography?The historian creates a map, a representation of history, much as a cartographer creates a map that represents a portion of the earth's surface. Neither representation can capture all the detail of the original. Each must focus on a subset of the original chosen to illustrate specific features.History as Science?History can be thought of as a form of remote sensing. It employs thought experiments similar to those in such non-experimental sciences as geology, astronomy and evolutionary biology. These sciences, like history, are not replicable. Perhaps they are a form of history.History as Social Science?The social sciences (economics, sociology, some might include psychology) are intently focused these days on developing predictive models and identifying independent variables. Physics-envy, Gaddis calls it. The trouble is that there really are no independent variables. The Fed can change interest rates, but they do that in response to inflation. Inflation depends on the growth of the money supply which, in turn, responds to changes in interest rates. So, where is the independent variable? Rather than taking the reductionist approach of the social sciences, historians take an ecological approach, viewing events as part of an interacting system. Their goal is to understand what happened in the past, why and how it was significant, but not to predict the future.Narrative versus ModelsHistorians present their results in the form of narratives rather than models, and, as a result, their work is accessible to a much wider audience.Biography is a particularly difficult form of history. To be successful, the biographer must see the world and history through the eyes and mind of his subject and chronicle not only what the subject did but why. But then, having mind-melded with the subject, the biographer must break the bond in order to provide an objective assessment of the subject.The historian develops a representation of history, with the passage of time, may become the perceived historical reality. This creates a special responsibility. Moral judgments are an integral part of writing history. There is a currently popular "post-modern" urge among some academics to write purely factually, non-judgmentally, but how can one not judge Hitler, Lenin and Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, or bin Laden? The difficulty is to judge in a manner that convinces both professional historians and non-professionals.As a leading historian of the Cold War, Gaddis confronted one problem most historians experience only in their nightmares: The subjects of his research (many of whom were or are still alive) could and did confront him and challenge his narratives. Perhaps he envies the medievalists who are only confronted by Banquo's ghost.ConclusionsGaddis ends on an optimistic note: The sources of oppression are lodged in time and are not independent of time. We can escape then. But that is not to say that new sources will not arise.Historians' purpose is to help define the optimal balance within ourselves and within society between oppression and liberation. Here oppression and liberation are not limited to the conflict between the individual and society or government. They include conflicts within ourselves. Gaddis makes the interesting point that we need balance between oppression and liberation, not the elimination of oppression and maximization of liberation. Some (mild) forms of oppression are essential to stimulate growth, to interact constructively with society, to cope with life. The goal is to achieve an optimal balance in order to grow, to mature, to understand ourselves in relation to society.Reviewer's CommentsThe Landscape of History was both interesting and fun to read. Gaddis has retained much of the flavor of his original lecture series: The conversational tone and injections of subtle humor. I've read and reviewed several of his other books. I think this one gave me some insights into his methodology and work that I didn't get from his major works. I particularly enjoyed his comments on biography and will keep them in mind as I read his biography of George Kennan and contrast it with Kennan's autobiography.

John Lewis Gaddis' The Landscape of History is a scholarly yet very approachable work that successfully attempts to pick up the mantel of the famous scholars of historiography, specifically Marc Bloch and E. H. Carr. Gaddis' purpose is to encourage students and historians not only to reexamine the theories of Bloch and Carr in a more modern light, but also scrutinize the methodology that historians use, and more often than not, recoil from making explicit. Gaddis, in a veiled manner does refute some of the assumptions of postmodernism, primarily the extremist view that historians are unable to make conclusions about the past. Gaddis is content with inundating his work with metaphors, some of which span chapters to relate and clarify complex ideas and arguments to the reader since he claims that "we need all the help we can get" (pg 128). Gaddis, masterfully using this powerful tool, arrives at a concept of historical consciousness which he argues helps to establish human identity. In the course of this argument Gaddis explains how historians "achieve [this] state" (pg 129) through their manipulations of time and space, the mechanisms of structure and progress, and causation, contingency, and counterfactuals. He claims that the methodology that emerges, although long since said to be closer to the realm of the social science, actually uses methods and techniques more similar to paleontology, geology, and evolutionary biology since both require thought experiments.One of Gaddis' achievements is his ability to convey complicated ideas in a crisp, persuasive, and well-supported fashion. His primary tool is the use of extended metaphors, the most important being the painting The Wanderer above a Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich, comparisons to sciences such as paleontology, and the length of Britain's coastline. Gaddis' exploration of metaphor of The Wanderer above a Sea of Fog spans his carefully unfolding arguments from beginning to end and each subsequent interpretation is added to by the next, providing a vast framework. These metaphors provide a point of reference for the reader and a visual embodiment of Gaddis' arguments. It encourages active participation by the reader in the argument and the layered interpretation exemplifies the complexity of his arguments and the complexities the historian faces in general.Gaddis argues that people cannot apply the `scientific method' to history, since historical events have already happened the causes cannot be proven with a physical experiment. But not all sciences use physical experimentation either. Paleography examines the remains and postulates from fossils that are millions of years ago. History and many sciences "start [s] with surviving structures;" the geologist studies an ancient formation, the historian his sources (pg 41). The conclusions are proven by thought experiments; however, the deductions made must be "tethered to and disciplined by their sources." Gaddis does not clearly state if history is a science, but declares that the "distinction would lie along the line separating actual replicability... from the virtual replicability that's associated with thought experiments" (pg 43). He is not skirting the issue for much it to be gained "by comparing what they do to what happens in other fields," namely, to illustrate facets of the historian's own methodology. This answer relates back to Gaddis' purpose, to argue that historians need to make their methodological approaches clear for "methodological innocence leads to methodological vulnerability" especially from the extremist critiques of the postmodernist (pg 51). Just as metaphors cannot convey the complexity in its entirety yet yield important benefits, comparisons to science allows the historian to examine their methodological methods.A critic of The Landscape of History probably would argue that the well-read student or historian already puts into practice, sometimes without knowing it, most of Gaddis' conclusions about methodology. However, Gaddis' purpose is not to belabor the obvious but rather to argue that historians need to make "their methods more explicit" (pg XI). This book rather, makes a point to examine these unconscious workings that once pointed out to us are often obvious. Like many historians and students Gaddis' admits that he also has questioned the benefit of history, a study that he has devoted his life to, and partially because of his unease he decided to write this book to reestablish in his own mind the importance of history (pg x). He concludes with the following powerful statements of the purpose of history which his metaphors slowly revealed: "by breathing life into whatever remains from another time... we thereby assure it a kind of permanence" (pg 140), the study "helps establish human identity" (pg 147), and by "learning about the past liberates the learner from oppressions earlier constructions of the past have imposed upon them" (pg 146). The most remarkable part of the book, and unfortunately the briefest, occurs on the last few pages where Gaddis argues that the "single most important thing any historian has to do.... is to teach" (pg 149). Gaddis' The Landscape of History is a fascinating and illuminating read for both the student and the historian.

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