A little historiography

Before we set out on a walk with Samuel R. Gardiner, I want to spend a few minutes discussing his views on how we should understand the landscape.

Take a look at Gardiner's Preface to Volume 1 of his revised history. It is an unusual preface, short and succinct. In it, he makes some important points about the writing of history. First, he acknowledges that his own interests drove the attention he paid to various subjects, and that, on the basis of experience and reflection, he found many things to correct and re-proportion. Would that we all had the chance to do so.

Second, he discusses the practical usefulness of studying a period that was, even in the 19th century, antique. In fact, he concludes, there is very little direct light that past events can cast on current problems. The value of studying the problems of the past lies not in the nature of the problems but in the way men and societies and governments and religions tried to solve them. Writing history from that perspective does have value. As Gardiner sums it up,

He ... who studies the society of the past will be of the greater service to the society of the present in proportion as he leaves it out of account. If the exceptional statesman can get on without much help from the historian, the historian can contribute much to the arousing of a statesmanlike temper in the happily increasing mass of educated persons without whose support the statesman is powerless. He can teach them to regard society as ever evolving new wants and new diseases, and therefore requiring new remedies. He can teach them that true tolerance of mistakes and follies which is perfectly consistent with an ardent love of truth and wisdom. He can teach them to be hopeful of the future, because the evil of the present evolves a demand for a remedy which sooner or later is discovered by the intelligence of mankind, though it may sometimes happen that the whole existing organisation of society is overthrown in the process. He can teach them also not to be too sanguine of the future, because each remedy brings with it fresh evils which have in their turn to be faced. These, it may be said, are old and commonplace lessons enough. It may be so, but the world has not yet become so wise as to be able to dispense with them.

I can't fully support Gardiner's disapproval of Thomas Babbington Macaulay, the author of the most popular history of 17th century Britain, and of John Forster, the biographer of John Eliot. It is certainly true, as Gardiner points out, that they saw history, at least in some ways, as a justification of the politics of their own time; and that view colored the story they told. But that view also added life and relevance to those stories. The high sales of Macaulay's multiple volumes were due at least as much to the topical relevance of the author's asides as to his lively and lucid writing. And in the long run, what impressions a student (or a tourist) retains of Buckingham's impeachment or Hambden's trial, has less to do with the author's politics than the student's.

But that's it from me on the subject of historiography. We have too many exciting things to see to spend time on meta-discussion.