Summary of 'The Pursuit of History' by John Tosh chapters 1-7 and 9-11. The summary is in English, but at the end of each chapter I added important terms from that chapter with Dutch definitions.
H1
Historical awareness = a universal psychological attribute, arising from the fact that we are all, in a
sense, historians.
All societies have a collective memory, a storehouse of experience that is drawn on for a sense of
identity and a sense of direction. Some knowledge of the past is almost universal, without it one is
effectively excluded from social and political debate.
History as a disciplined enquiry aims to sustain the widest possible definition of memory, and to make
the process of recall as accurate as possible, so that our knowledge of the past is not confined to
what is immediately relevant.
1.1
For any social group to have a collective identity there has to be a shared interpretation of the events
and experiences that have formed the group over time. Social groups need a record of prior
experience, but they also require a picture of the past that serves to explain or justify the present,
often at the cost of historical accuracy. The operation of social memory is clearest in those societies
where no appeal can be made to the documentary record as a corrective higher authority. But it would
be a mistake to suppose that social memory is the preserve of small-scale, pre-literate societies. All
societies look to their collective memories for consolation or inspiration, and literate societies are no
different. The success of social memory is based on consensus and inclusion, and this is often the
function of explicitly national narratives.
Social memory of past oppression
Social memory can also serve to sustain a sense of oppression, exclusion or adversity, and these
elements account for some of the most powerful expressions of social memory. Social movements
entering the political arena for the first time are particularly conscious of the absolute requirement of a
past. For socially deprived or ‘invisible’ groups effective political mobilization depends on a
consciousness of common experience in the past.
1.2
In the first half of the 19th century all the elements of historical awareness were brought together in a
historical practice. This was the achievement of historicism. From the 19th century the fundamental
premise of the historicists was that the autonomy of the past must be respected. Historians must
strive to understand each age on its own terms and to take on its own values and priorities instead of
imposing ours.
Historicism was a facet of Romanticism. It represented the academic wing of the Romantic obsession
with the past. What was new about the historicists’ approach was their realization that the atmosphere
and mentality of past ages had to be reconstructed, if the formal record of events was to have any
meaning. The main task of the historian became to find out why people acted as they did by stepping
into their shoes.
Historical awareness in the sense understood by the historicists rests on 3 principles
● Difference - a recognition of the gulf that separates our own age from all previous ages. The
worst sin is anachronism (= historical inaccuracy in which elements from one historical period
are inserted into an earlier one). Earlier generations had a different mentality from our own.
Historical empathy is the effort of imagination needed to penetrate mentalities held in the
past, which are irremediably removed from anything in our experience. One way in which we
measure our distance from the past is by periodization. Significant are the labels devised by
historians, since these express a view about the characteristics of the period concerned.
‘Modern’ is the most controversial label. It is identified with industrialization and the coming of
mass society during the 19th century. These terms are indispensable to historians, but they
are paradoxical. They signal historical difference, but they also impose on the people of the
past labels that had no meaning for them.
● Context - historians’ purpose is not only to uncover the strangeness of the past but to explain
it, and that means placing it in its historical setting.
● The recognition of historical process - the relationship between events over time which
endows them with more significance than if they were viewed in isolation. Historical
processes have sometimes been marked by abrupt transitions when history speeded up. At
the other extreme history may almost stand still.
,Three recurrent features of social memory have particularly significant distorting effects on historical
awareness
● Respect for tradition - belief and behaviour are governed by the weight of precedent: an
assumption that what was done in the past is an authoritative guide to what should be done in
the present. This is sometimes confused with a sense of history because it involves an
affection for the past and a desire to keep faith with it. In a society with a dynamic of
social/cultural change an uncritical respect for tradition is counterproductive. It suppresses the
historical changes that have occured in the intervening period.
The consequences of respect for tradition are particularly disturbing in the case of
nationalism. Nations are of course the product of history, and the same national designation
has usually meant different things at different times. Nineteenth-century historicists found it
hard to resist the demand for one-dimensional, nation building history. Celebratory histories of
this kind lend themselves to regular rituals of commemoration, when the national self-image
can be reinforced in the popular mind. Essentialism (= relating to the basic nature of people or
nations) or immermorialism of this kind produces a powerful sense of exclusive identity but it
makes bad history.
○ Everything in the past that contradicts the self-image is suppressed
○ The interval between now and then is telescoped by the assertion of an unchanging
identity, impervious to the play of historical circumstance.
The process of tradition-making is particularly clear in newly autonomous nations, where the
need for a legitimizing past is strongly felt.
● Nostalgia - the interpretation of history as change for the worse. Nostalgia works most
strongly as a reaction to a sense of loss in the recent past, and it is therefore particularly
characteristic of societies undergoing rapid change. It is when the past appears to be slipping
away before our eyes that we seek to recreate it in the imagination. The problem with
nostalgia is that it is a very lopsided view of history. If the past is redesigned as a comfortable
refuge, all its negative features must be removed. Whereas historical awareness should
enhance our insight into the present, nostalgia indulges a desire to escape from it.
● The belief in progress - progress asserts not only that change in the past has been for the
better, but that improvement will continue in the future. Progress is about change over time
with a positive value placed on the change, endowing it with moral content. ‘Progress’ is by
definition evaluative and partial; since it is premised on the superiority of the present over the
past, it inevitably takes on whatever values happen to be prevalent today, with the
consequence that the past seems less admirable and more ‘primitive’ the further back in time
we go. Condescension and incomprehension are the result.
If social need so easily leads to distorted images of the past, it is hardly surprising that historians have
kept their distance from it. It follows that one important task of historians is to challenge socially
motivated misrepresentations of the past.
It is not always possible to distinguish completely between history and social memory, because
historians perform some of the tasks of social memory. Perhaps most important of all, social memory
itself is an important topic of historical enquiry. It is central to popular consciousness in all its forms
and no comprehensive social history can afford to ignore it. In all these ways history and social
memory feed on each other. Social memory’s value and its prospects of survival are entirely
dependent on its functional effectiveness: the content of the memory will change according to context
and priorities. Historical scholarship is not immune from calculations of practical utility.
● Historians cannot completely detach themselves from their own time
● The richness of history is positively enhanced by responding to topical agendas
H2
2.1
Metahistory = the belief that our destiny is disclosed in the grand trajectory of human history, which
reveals the world today as it really is, and the future course of events. (history tells us most of what we
need to know about the future)
● De geschiedenis vatten in een schema
● De geschiedenis heeft een richting
, Medieval thinkers believed that the past revealed something of God’s purposes and concentrated the
mind on the reckoning to come. With the gradual secularization of European culture from the 18th
century and onwards, new forms of metahistory developed, which attributed the forward dynamic of
history to human rather than divine action (Enlightenment belief in moral progress).
The most influential metahistory of modern times has been Marxism. Marx interpreted human history
as a progression from lower to higher forms of production; the highest being industrial capitalism
being destined to give way to socialism, at which point human needs would be satisfied abundantly
and equitably.
On the other side of metahistory is the view that nothing can be learned from history.
● A defence against totalitarianism - during the Cold War the practical consequences of
invoking the past to legitimize communist ideology was so appalling that any idea that history
might hold clues for the present became completely discredited.
● A commitment to modernity - if one is committed to the new, why bother with the past? This
point of view has a much longer pedigree.
○ French Revolution - everything the revolutionaries did was done in the name of
reason, untrammelled by precedent or tradition.
○ In the early 20th century in avant-garde thinking, human creativity was seen as
opposed to the achievement of the past, rather than growing out of them.
The most convincing claims of history to offer relevant insights lie somewhere between these two
extremes. And they hinge on taking seriously the principles of historical awareness established by the
19th century founders of the discipline.
2.2
Historical difference (wat herken je en wat is anders)
● History reminds us that there is usually more than one way of interpreting a predicament or
responding to a situation, and that the choices open to us are often more varied than we
might have supposed. The point is not to find a precedent but to be alert to possibilities.
History is an inventory of alternatives
● Our reaction to a particular moment in the past is likely to be a mixture of estrangement and
familiarity. Alongside features that have changed out of all recognition, we may encounter
patterns of thinking or behaviour that are immediately accessible to us. The juxtaposition of
these two is an important aspect of historical perspective. The first step to understanding the
familiar is to compare across time to see what is enduring and what is transient.
● Historical difference has one other application: as a means of grappling with aspects of the
very recent past that we might prefer to forget. A nation that cannot face up to its past will be
gravely handicapped in the future.
Historical difference provides an indispensable perspective on the present, whether as an inventory of
experience, as evidence of the transience of our own time or as a reminder of the deeply alien
elements in our past.
Historical context (nodig voor het verklaren)
● A sense of the whole just always inform our understanding of the parts.
● Context is also the principle that historians invoke against the belief that history repeats itself.
For a precedent to be valid, the same conditions would have to prevail, but the effect of the
passage of time is that what looks like an old problem or a familiar opportunity requires a
different analysis because the attendant circumstances have changed. History never repeats
itself. Only in the case of the recent past have historians seriously attempted to draw on
historical analogies, on the grounds that much of the context may remain essentially the same
over a short period and that the changes which have occurred are comparatively well
documented.
Historical process (hoe zijn we van a naar b gekomen)
● Identifying a process may help to explain our world. Situating ourselves in a trajectory that is
still unfolding gives us some purchase on the future and allows a measure of forward
planning. If conclusions about historical process are based on careful research, they can yield
modest but useful predictions (sequential predictions). Sometimes identifying the valid and
appropriate historical process is complicated by the presence of more than one possible
trajectory.
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