From Psychohistory to New Global History: A Conversation with Bruce Mazlish

Historically Speaking July/August 2004 From Psychohistory to New Global History: A Conversation with Bruce Mazlish M.LT. INTELLECTUAL HISTORIAN Bruce Mazlish began his careerwith a splash. Soon afier receiving his Ph.D. from Columbia University, he was co-author withJacob Bronowski ofthe widely acclaimed The Western Intellectual Tradition (I960). Since then, he has been identified with several seemingly disparate intellectualpursuits :psychohistory, thehistory ofthesocial sciences, and most recently global history. Along the way, Mazlish published several important books includinghis editedvolume, Psychoanalysis and History (1971), James andJohn Stuart Mill: Father and Son in the Nineteenth Century (1975), A New Science: The Breakdown of Connections and the Birth of Sociology (1989), The Fourth Discontinuity: The Co-Evolution ofHumans and Machines (1993), andThe Uncertain Sciences (1998). He helpedfound thepremierejournal ofhistoricalphilosophy , History and Theory. Now his efforts arefocusedon organizing thefieldof"new global history. " He is a Fellow ofthe American Academy ofArts and Sciences, and in 1986 he was awardedthe Toynbee Prize, an international award in social science. Historically Speaking editorDonaldA. Yerxa satdown with Mazlish in his Cambridge, Massachusetts home on March 10, 2004 and asked him to comment about his career leading up to his present involvement with new global history. Mazlish reveals that throughout hisprofessional life he has been exploring a relatedseries ofquestions , which has requiredfrequent andsustained disciplinary border crossing. Donald A. Yerxa: You have had a long and distinguished career as an intellectual historian . Would you provide ourreaders with a briefsketch ofyour professional career? Bruce Mazlish: I came into history almost by accident and became fascinated with it. I started in modern European intellectual history and discovered that a lot ofthe problems that interested me didn't stay within my discipline, or even the geographical areas and time periods in which I had specialized. So early on I faced a major question: Do I renounce the problems? Draw boundaries around them and do the expected thing? I decided to take my chances and explore the problems. Yerxa: What were the problems that intrigued you back then? Mazlish: One ofmy prime concerns has been the evolution ofthehuman species. And how we go about looking at this—the question ofwhat lenses we use to look at thepast—has run through all my work. One ofthe lenses is psychological. Historians deal with human motivation. How can you not try to use the most insightful tools ofpsychology toget at this? I should say, parenthetically, that my mentor,Jacques Barzun, disagreed with me on this. At any rate, my doctoral thesis was on the history of conservatism, a foolish undertaking. It was much too large a topic, but eventually I got the thesis down to under 500 pages. In doing that study, I became acquainted with the work ofKarl Mannheim, and I also incorporated some ofhis thinking on the sociology ofknowledge into my thesis . Barzun grilled me on this and said, "Now, Bruce, you just can't have this stuffin there. Look how badly it is written." I replied, "It's my translation, but it'spretty bad in the original , too. But he has so much worthwhile to say." To which he responded, "But he is a sociologist." At that point I became very aware ofhow disciplines can get in the way, rather than helping inquiry. Yerxa: What about your early career? Mazlish: I taught intellectual history and wrote my first book, The Western Intellectual Tradition (I960), with Jacob Bronowski. Although it was not something I should have done so early in my career, the book was a tremendous success, and I benefited greatly from it. The book established my credentials as a "standard historian." It gave me a certain amount ofsafety. After having taught history for a time in Maine and a year July/August 2004 · Historically Speaking at Columbia, I ended up at M.I.T., which is a very nontraditional place for people in history and the social sciences. At M.I.T. one is almost forced to be interdisciplinary, and I was able to teach a course in the philosophy of history, as well as introduce a course on "Marx, Darwin, and Freud." And so I became curious about Freud. One uses economic theory when writing economic history; why not use psychological theory...