Becoming Historians

I.

How does one become a historian? Three academic historians who have recently published their autobiographies—George Mosse, Gerda Lerner, Eric Hobsbawm—are eager to describe their paths taken and to reflect on their lives and careers. All of them seem to have found fulfillment in their profession, whether they have sought it out or have discovered it more or less by accident. None of them would seriously consider another field of inquiry. But while Mosse, Lerner, and Hobsbawm understand themselves as historians unproblematically, they regard their roles as autobiographers with less certainty.

All three write about their autobiographical undertaking, and voice hesitation and even skepticism. "Why write an autobiography?" asks Mosse at the very beginning of his book, and follows up with a second question: "Is it because having spent a lifetime in encounters with other people's histories, I finally want to encounter my own?" (p. 3). As such a possible project of self-encounter, Mosse's book claims to be nothing else but "personal" (p. 4), and much like Rousseau in his Confessions, he does not claim "to be truly typical for anyone but myself" (p. 4). Still, the reader may draw a lesson for him/herself from Mosse's example. An "encounter with my own history might be instructive to myself as to others," he writes, "illuminating a very personal corner of recent times" (p. 4). For Mosse, autobiography may be a private undertaking that discusses an individual's life and this life's events, but even that is of importance. Indeed, Mosse often does not seem to be the person who makes particular choices on his own. Whether it is his family or political events, life choices are made for him, things happen, and he can then find his purpose in new situations, and flourish and grow.

When Lerner was asked in a recent interview whether writing her autobiography had provided her with a particular, instructive experience, she rejected the thought. "I could not have written about it if I had not had the insights before writing. Some people write for what they call a catharsis. I'm not that kind of a writer. The act of catharsis has to be worked out before you attempt to create a work of art. You have to have distance from it."¹ While it is unclear whether Mosse had sought any catharsis through writing, it is clear that Lerner's book attempts to be a very different account. While Mosse describes himself as an unsystematic political thinker (p. 4), Lerner is eager to date her political education already in her early youth and view her autobiography as a "political" one. She views her life as driven by actions, and more often than not her own. These do not just concern her own career or well-being but focus on the well-being of others as well. Lerner views herself, first and foremost, as a social being, not just an individual, even a "type." She is a homo politicus who is defined by her actions, who likes to be in charge, and who views herself as the proper product of the Enlightenment.

We are asked not to expect too many personal disclosures concerning other people in her book, or even concerning herself, although they do occur. Events are worth telling only if they illuminate the right interpretation or some proper "meaning." Lerner also changes the names of acquaintances in her account to protect their privacy. She views her writing as a conscious arrangement that leads toward a specific goal: "To write one's life, simply to sort out the clutter, to discern enough design to make a pattern—is it to find meaning? A meaning beyond the event that extends to others, something that says not only, this happened to me, but this is the meaning of...