"History does not exist in a vacuum"

“History does not exist in a vacuum.”

These insightful words were spoken to me just this past weekend. I felt that they applied to our discussion from class very well. I am going to take a personal moment for a second at the risk of annoying the reader and the general audience of our small class. This past weekend I went to a Civil War Conference. During one of the lectures he was speaking about JEB Stuart, a personal favorite of mine, he was speaking about how so much of what we know of him is skewed because of what was written after the war. To elaborate his point he said, “history is not what is told by the people who lived it, but what we write it to be.” For me this was a light bulb moment for everything we have discussed in class.

Now to actually discuss the reading from last week. The basis that the three authors begin their book with is the replacement of a scientific outlook of history from a religious. They emphasize how before the eighteenth century religion dominated the shaping of history. Through historians using a scientific outlook and shedding this closer minded idea of history they were able to shed the first layer of objectivity.

Through the gaining of strength of these scientists they became heroes. The last part of this is the rise of nationalism. It cannot be exactly described the change from kingdoms to nations. How this had an effect on how people not just saw their nations but also their individual selves. All of these innovations were considered in the author’s banner of Historical Absolutism. This term although very tricky really does sum up this way of history that existed.

The way America shaped this history is even deeper. “At the center, then, of American history was an under socialized, individualistic, concept of human nature set in an over determined story of progress (125).” America’s deepest struggles were only understood on the surface level. This reminded me of a concept that was developed relatively recently by the Southern Historical Scholar Edward Ayers, concerning the Civil War. To counteract the idea that individual people do not play a role in struggles he came up with the idea of Deep Contingency. Deep contingency is that large and individual people’s arguments play a larger role in the eventual conflict; plural and singular events play in and effect everyday people’s lives.

This book by Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob were very effective in placing the study of history in a larger context. It connected many of the dots previously not connected. Our history will always be colored by where and when we are. But, the goal is not to give up our of frustration but to keep searching for the truth.

Till next week,

matteavs