Whiggism Today

June 2003 · Historically Speaking tdon" with America that has prompted, as Bender predicted, "a new and more inquiringcuriosityabout the American past."6 That these experiences have strengthened, not weakened, mysense ofAmerican exceptionalism is important to me, but largely irrelevant to my final point. Let me draw on one ofmy "internationalizing " experiences in Southeast Asia, one from Singapore more specifically. In mylast fewtrips to the city-state, I've found that Singaporeans like tojoke about theirnotoriously "nanny-state" (and humorless) government's relentless efforts in recentyears to transform the nation's economy from one based on manufacturing to one based on "knowledge." In one of these jokes—at least I think it is a joke—Singaporeans claim that the government 's efforts include running articles periodically in the semi-official newspaper, The Straits Times, with titles such as "Be Creative: Here's How." In reading RethinkingAmerican History in a GlobalAge and the La Pietra Report, I couldn't help but be reminded of this "joke," forboth texts canbe seenas radier humorless, nanny-ish, semi-official efforts to remake a field, ifnot a world. You know: "Be International and Cosmopolitan: Here's How." Follow us, for we are wise. PeterA. Codants isAlbert R. Newsome Professorandchairman ofthe history departmentat the University ofNorth Carolina at ChapelHill. He is co-author, with DavidL. Carlton, o/The South, the Nation, and the World: Perspectives on Southern Economic Development (University of Virginia Press, 2003). 1 ThomasBender, ed.,RethinkingAmericanHistoryin a GlobalAge(UniversityofCaliforniaPress, 2002). 2 "The La Pietra Report: A Report to the Profession ." The Organization ofAmerican Historians /NewYorkUniversityProjectonInternationalizing the Study ofAmerican History. (Thomas Bender, Director) 3 Inasense, twospecial issuesoftheJournalofAmericanHistory , both commissionedunderDavidThelen 's editorship, should also be considered in the contextofthis "internationalizing"project. See the Journal ofAmerican History 86 (September 1999) and 86 (December 1999). The former is entided . "RethinkingHistoryandtheNation-State: Mexico and the United States as a Case Study," while the latterisentided "TheNationandBeyond: Transnational Perspectives on United States History." 4 David A. Hollinger, "The Historian's Use ofthe United States and Vice Versa," in Bender, ed., RethinkingAmerican History, 381-395. 5 Marilyn B. Young, "The Age ofGlobal Power," in Bender, ed., Rethinking American History, 274-294. 6 "The La Pietra Report," 5. Whiggism Today Annabel Patterson Where there's a lot of smoke, there may or may not be a fire, but diere's almost certainlya story. And there was certainly a great deal of smoke in the lead review ofthe TimesLiterary Supplement for March 14 of this year, when Jonathan Clark (usually known as J.C.D.) filled two full pages with a tirade against my NobodysPerfect:A New WhigInterpretation of History. Why, one might well ask, would a relativelysmall bookwith a serio-comic title, focusing on the later 18th centuryin Britain, have raised such a fuss? I suggest the following answers, in ascending order of significance : first, the predilections ofthe reviewer; second, the challenge to received historiographical notions, especially but not exclusively about the 18th century; and third, the deeperissues aboutwhat constitutes freedom ofthe press and fairpolitical and legal process, issues that both American and British readers must have somewhere in mind or on their consciences in the early months of2003. First, the reviewer:J.C.D. Clarkhas made his reputation ("the most controversial historian ofhis generation," "the history profession 's leadingiconoclast") bypublishinga series ofbooks on the 18th-century political scene in Britain and, in The Language ofLiberty , 1660-1832, on the roots ofAmerican political culture. Itis probablyfair to saythat what makes him an iconoclast is his conservatism . One of his favorite figures is Dr. SamuelJohnson, who makes brief appearances , not greatly to his credit, both in Nobodys Perfect and my earlier Early Modern Liberalism, whose title Clark also deplores. Another is Edmund Burke—the later Burke, thatis, the Burke oftheReflectionson theRevolution in France, not the Burke who for a while supported the American Revolution. Clark is skeptical about the American Revolution , whose cultural myths he sets himself to demolish. Oddly, the phrase "American pulpit" occurs twice in this review in relation to myself. I have apparently mounted it by virtue ofholdinga chair "atYale,"while Clark himselfoccupies a chair at Kansas. In fact, we are both expatriates from Britain. The real argument between us, however, has...