History's Past and Present

24Historically Speaking · July/August 2004 History's Past and Present Ellen Fitzpatrick The impassioned debates about the proper focus and content ofAmerican history, sovigorouslywaged during the 1980s and 1990s, appear to have largelyreceded from public discussion in our post-9/1 1 world. Is this because historyitself has been stunned into silence by events for which there have been no precedence in American history and by terrors newly visited upon American soil? Perhaps. But it is worth recalling thatMarc Bloch found himself drawn to reflect on the nature of history —its worth and its practice, its meaning for the present, its relevance to a world at war—amid the horrors endured by another generation who had reason to ask whether "historyhas betrayed us." Work on The Historians Craftwas, Bloch confessed, "begun as a simple antidote bywhich, amid sorrows and anxieties both personal and collective, I seek a little peace ofmind.''1 Bloch's purpose in writing about history's practice was also didactic. He wrote: I should like professional historians and, above all, the younger ones to reflect upon these hesitancies, these incessant soul searchings, ofour craft. It will be the surest way they can prepare themselves, by a deliberate choice, to direct their efforts reasonably. I should desire above all to see ever increasing numbers ofthem arrive at that broadened and deepened history which some of us—more every day—have begun to conceive .... But I do not write exclusively, or even chiefly, for the private use of the guild. The uncertainties of our science must not, I think, be hidden from the curiosity ofthe world. They are our excuse for being. They bring freshness to our studies. The efforts of Bloch and his contemporaries to create "a wider and more human history " had been, theFrenchhistorianadmitted, "vanquished, for a moment byan unjust destiny ." But he voiced confidence in 1941 that such workwould go on, and he saw his writing on the nature ofhistory as a way to keep alive the values he and Lucien Febvre shared.2 The example ofBloch, always poignant in remembrance and evocative again in this uncertain time, reminds us that in the modern era professional historians have often struggledwith articulatingforthemselves and others the meaning ofhistorythrough times ofextraordinarychange. In the 20th century alone, world wars, harsh depressions, periods ofgreat optimism, and years ofdeep despair have profoundly shaped the focus and content of historical scholarship. And that has been so despite an equallypersistent conviction on the partofthe discipline's practitioners that they were living through times that history could neither predict nor relieve. That sense ofuniqueness, ofstanding on the precipice of an entirely new age, led at least three generations ofAmerican historians to redrawthe boundaries oftheirdiscipline in the 20th century. Each believed that their efforts constituted the creation ofa "new history ." Itis, indeed, a central irony ofthe "new history" paradigm that its emphasis on discontinuity has tended to recess critical elements ofthe discipline's past. Todaythe bestknown and appreciated of the new histories is, of course, the most recent—the scholarlyinitiatives that emerged with such force and vigor in the 1960s and 1970s. Contemporary historiography properly traces a self-conscious effort to broaden the domain of history, as well as a preoccupation with issues ofclass, race, gender, and social and economic inequality. Critics and enthusiasts ofthe "new history" both appear to agree that the civil rights movement, the rise of feminism, renewed attention to economic inequality, the scandals ofpolitical corruption , and penetrating criticism ofAmerican foreign policyprompted manyhistorians to challenge a long tradition inAmerican history thatviewed the past primarily as a story centered on politics and elites. The "newhistory" thatemergedwithsuch force andvigorduringthe lastthirtyyearswell deserves recognition for its freshness and extraordinary vitality. Its innovations have been remarkable and clear; its scholarly achievements more than apparentin the efflorescence ofworkemphasizingthe centralityof previouslyignored groups to the narrative of American history. In seeking to restore "ordinary " men and women to the drama ofthe past, thenewhistorylikewise advanced innovative methodologies, most notably quantitative techniques borrowed from the social sciences thatoffered extraordinaryopportunities to deepen historical understanding of social and economic realities. Finally, the new history underscored the importance ofconflict to the dynamics of the American past, thereby challenging arguments advanced by post-World War II "consensus...