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Canadian Review of American Studies/Revue canadzenned'etudes americame.s Volume26, Number 2, Spring 1996, pp. 163-183 Beyond Synthesis: The Problem of Coherence in American History BruceTucker 163 During the past several years, cultural commentators, critics, and scholars, both black and white, have sought to link the teaching and interpretation of American history with arguments about what it means to be an American in the present. Lamenting the emergence of multicultural forms and ideologies in the United States and the perceived lack of a common culture, literary scholar E. D. Hirsch (1987) proposed a list of facts that every American should know about American history and literature. Similarly, philosopher Alan Bloom (1987) has promoted the study of the "great books" of Western civilization as the way to bring ethnic groups that have resisted the "melting pot" more fully into the national American fold. Educator Molefi Kete Asante has taken an Afrocentrist position, favouring an educational strategy that "centers African-American students inside history, culture, [and] science" to stimulate a "new sense of purpose and vision in their own lives" (1991, 72, 77). Philosopher Cornel West calls for a history of the United States that stresses racial inequality, declaring the central proposition that "black people are neither additions to nor defections from American life, but rather constituent elerne11tsolthat life"(1994, 6, original emphasis). And, writer Toni Morrison (1992) has interrogated the very concept of "American-ness," in the forging of a national identity, arguing that the term has been synonymous with "white." Although these writers are pursuing quite different arguments 164 Canadian Review of Amencan Srud1es Revue canad1emie d'etudes amhtcames about citizenship, each refers to the need for a particular undersrnnding ot the American past. It is tempting to react protectively to the politicization of historical interpretation and pedagogy; however, these concerns are not far removed tram contemporary professional debates. No issue stimulates more vigorous discussion among contemporary American historians than the problem of how to generalize about American history. Indeed, a recent survey of the readership of the .formwl alAmerict111 History revealed that while many scholars have welcomed the diversity of method, focus, and findings in the profession today, they are perplexed about the implications for synthesis-making. When asked "what is the greatest strength of the practice of American history in your country?,, 23.8 percent (the largest category) of American respondents said "diversity of topic, method, and practitioners." When asked "what is the greatest weakness of the practice of American history in your country?" 28 percent (the largest category) of the American respondents said "narrowness and overspecialization." Many respondents, noted the editor of the .fournal a/American History, David Thelen, suggested that diversity and the openness of the profession to new approaches cut two ways. "Individuals embraced the freedom to choose topics and perspectives, but the resulting mushrooming in volume and fragmentation of specialties propelled the literature beyond reach of any individual and left the content of the past beyond recognition or comprehension" (1994, esp. 937). Many historians, moreover, hold strong convictions about this issue. At the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians (OAH), in Anaheim, California, in April 1993, Gordon S. Wood's Pulitzer pnze winning book, The &idicalism o/ the American Revolutio11, was the subject of a vigorous debate that engaged deeply held convictions about synthesis and specialization. Wood intended this book as a work of synthesis, declaring in his introduction that although current research made it difficult to hazard "any generalizations about Americans as a whole, ... there is a time for understanding the particular and a time for understanding the whole." In this book, he contends that to focus as some critics do on what the Revolution did not accomplish-the liberation of black slaves or the enfranchisement of women-is to lose sight of the "differentness" of the early American Bi-uceTucker I 165 past and of the radicalism of the ensuing social transformation (1992, 6-8). The session was lively, bordering perhaps on the uncivil at times, but it was dear that critics in the audience resented the argument that there was one beginning to the political culture of the United States, and they resisted the notion that the...

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