Thinking about History by Sarah Maza (review)

Among the many virtues of Maza’s book is her recognition that history is defined by practice, not by theories or methods—by what historians do rather than what they have to say about how or why they do it. The basis of Thinking about History, therefore, is Maza’s careful reading and astute summary of important historical works. Her first three chapters address history’s subject matter—the kinds of people that historians study (“The History of Whom?”), definitions of historical space (“The History of Where?”), and the objects and activities that attract scholarly attention (“The History of What?”). Maza shows how the range of the discipline’s interest has expanded, including more groups (women, the disadvantaged, and ethnic and sexual minorities), different ways of organizing space (regions, borderlands, and transnational and global connections), and new topics (popular culture, material objects, and environmental issues). This expansion of subject matter has encouraged scholars to reformulate their questions about the past, deploy different methods of analysis, and forge new ties with other disciplines.

The second half of Thinking about History deals with methodological and conceptual issues, although in this context, too, Maza focuses on what historians have written, not on the many polemics and exhortations that have been produced by the advocates and enemies of disciplinary innovation. Chapter 4 (“How Is History Produced?”) discusses the discipline’s institutional setting and has interesting things to say about the structural significance of historiographical debates and the necessary tension between academic and popular history. Chapter 5 (“Causes or Meaning?”) will be of particular interest to readers of this journal, since it raises questions about the relationship of history to the social sciences (including an analysis of the influence of Geertz and Foucault on historical research).¹ The final chapter (“Facts or Fictions?”) considers the impact of postmodernism on the discipline, a subject that has encouraged a great many extravagant claims and condemnations. On this subject, as always, Maza is a reliably sensible guide to what is at stake.

Since the publication of her first book Servants and Masters in Eighteenth-Century France: The Uses of Loyalty (Princeton, 1983), Maza has done distinguished work in French social and cultural history—a field that has produced a number of important commentators on broader disciplinary issues, including Scott, Sewell, and Hunt.² Inevitably, her selection of historical examples reflects her own area of expertise, just as it is shaped by the generation in which she began her scholarly career. Nevertheless, Maza has read widely and well, not only in the history of modern Europe but also in American history and in carefully selected works about Asia, Africa, and Middle East.

Thinking about History is a wonderful book, clearly written, consistently thoughtful, and unostentatiously erudite. Maza clearly has her own preferences and opinions, but although she is sympathetic to innovation, she is never dismissive of more traditional approaches and subjects. She realizes, as Veyne once remarked, that historiographical progress consists “in being able to ask oneself more and more questions, but not in knowing how to answer them.”³ Both those who are just beginning to think about history and those who have thought about it for longer than they would like to admit will benefit from reading this informative and entertaining introduction to historical practice.