Blackwell is publishing A Companion to the Philosophy of History and Historiography next month. The volume, edited by Aviezer Tucker of Queen's University, Belfast, promises to make an indispensable guide to the discipline (although it will require one to dispense with nearly $200). Here is the table of contents:
1. Introduction: Aviezer Tucker (Prague)
Part I Major Fields:
2. Philosophy of Historiography: Peter Kosso (Northern Arizona University)
3. Philosophy of History: Zdeněk Vašíček (Institute for Contemporary History, Prague)
4. Philosophical Issues in Natural History and Its Historiography: Carol E. Cleland (University of Colorado, Boulder)
5. Historians and Philosophy of Historiography: John Zammito (Rice University)
Part II: Basic Problems:
6. Historiographic Evidence and Confirmation: Mark Day (Nottingham-Trent University) and Gregory Radick (University of Leeds)
7. Causation in Historiography: Aviezer Tucker (Prague)
8. Historiographic Counterfactuals: Elazar Weinryb (Open University of Israel)
9. Historical Necessity and Contingency: Yemima Ben-Menahem (Hebrew University)
10. Explanation in Historiography: Graham Macdonald (University of Canterbury, New Zealand) and Cynthia Macdonald (Queen's University, Belfast)
11. Historiographic Understanding: Guiseppina D'Oro (Keele University)
12. Colligation: C. Behan McCullagh (La Trobe University)
13. The Laws of History: Stephan Berry (Berlin)
14. Historiographic Objectivity: Paul Newall (British Royal Navy)
15. Realism about the Past: Murray Murphey (University of Pennsylvania)
16. Anti-realism about the Past: Fabrice Pataut (Institut de l'Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques, Paris)
17. Narrative and Interpretation: F. R. Ankersmit (University of Groningen)
18. The Ontology of the Objects of Historiography: Lars Udehn (Stockholm University)
19. Origins: Common Causes in Historiographic Reasoning: Aviezer Tucker (Prague)
20. Phylogenetic Inference: Matt Haber (University of Utah)
21. Historicism: Robert D'Amico (University of Florida)
22. Ethics and the Writing of Historiography: Jonathan Gorman (Queen's University, Belfast)
23. Logical Fallacies of Historians: Paul Newall (British Royal Navy)
24. Historical Fallacies of Historians: Carlos Spoerhase (Humboldt University of Berlin) and Colin G. King (Humboldt University of Berlin)Part III: Philosophy and Sub-fields of Historiography:
25. Philosophy of History of Science: Nicholas Jardine (University of Cambridge)
26. Philosophies of Historiography and the Social Sciences: Harold Kincaid (University of Alabama, Birmingham)
27. The Philosophy of Evolutionary Theory: Michael Ruse (Florida State University)
28. The Philosophy of Geology: Rob Inkpen (University of Portsmouth)
29. Philosophy of Archaeology: Ben Jeffares (Australia National University)
30. Reductionism: Historiography and Psychology: Cynthia Macdonald (Queen's University, Belfast) and Graham Macdonald (University of Canterbury, New Zealand)
31. Historiography and Myth: Mary Lefkowitz (Wellesley College)
32. Historiography and Memory: Marie-Claire Lavabre (CNRS, France)
33. Historiographic Schools: Christopher Lloyd (University of New England)
Part IV: Classical Schools and Philosophers of Historiography and History:
34. Leopold Ranke: Thomas Gil (Technical University of Berlin)
35. Scientific Historiography: Chris Lorenz (VU University of Amsterdam)
36. Darwin: John S. Wilkins (University of Queensland)
37. Logical Empiricism and Logical Positivism: Krzysztof Brzechczyn (Adam Mickiewitz University/Institute of National Remembrance, Poland)
38. Jewish and Christian Philosophy of History: Samuel Moyn (Columbia University)
39. Muslim Philosophy of History: Zaid Ahmad (Universiti Putra, Malaysia)
40. Vico: Joseph Mali (Tel Aviv University)
41. Kant and Herder: Sharon Anderson-Gold (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
42. Hegel: Tom Rockmore (Duquesne University)
43. Neo-Kantianism: Charles Bambach (University of Dallas)
44. Marx: Tom Rockmore (Duquesne University)
45. Collingwood and Croce: Stein Helgeby (Melbourne)
46. Phenomenology: David Weberman (Central European University, Hungary)
47. Jan Patočka: Ivan Chvatik (Czech Academy of Science)
48. Hermeneutics: Rudolf A. Makkreel (Emory University)
49. Postmodernism: Beverley Southgate (University of Hertfordshire)
50. Philosophy of History at the End of the Cold War: Krishnan Kumar (University of Virginia)Index
Showing posts with label historiography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label historiography. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Friday, September 26, 2008
Bentley on modern historiography
This piece is obviously dated - indeed, the first half feels almost redundant from a post-9/11 perspective - but Bentley proves prescient. He provides a very insightful introduction to the shape of 21st-century historiography as it stands thus far.
"Postmodernism as an intellectual form is already provoking a backlash. The consequences for the writing of history of the crash of communism in 1989 have not yet begun to work themselves out, though we can certainly remain sceptical in face of arguments about the End of Ideology, the End of History and the Beginning of Post-History. The discipline has survived several political revolutions and two world wars: it ought to be able to cope with Mr Gorbachev. National identities still inform all versions of historiography, sometimes in indirect ways. Indeed we seem still to be using history as the early nineteenth century did, as a vehicle for locating groups and peoples and giving them a past that suits their present or encourages their sense of a future. All of these things may alter. But one development in the history of the present looks likely to be both permanent and valuable. Historians have never been so aware of what they are attempting as they have become over the past two decades. Always a reflective form of writing, history has become (as they say) 'reflexive': it is self-conscious to a degree and to a level of sophistication that no previous generation can match... Possibly historians will become morbid and self-destructive as a result. Not a few have already become self-important. Yet the move towards a deliberately constructed history gives critics of all persuasions the opportunity and the duty to keep their swords sharp against a moment when contingencies may threaten to destroy the discipline or subvert an interest in the past at all. We shall do well to remember that historiography forms the stone that whets the blade."
-Michael Bentley, "Introduction: Approaches to Modernity," Companion to Historiography (Routledge, 1997)
"Postmodernism as an intellectual form is already provoking a backlash. The consequences for the writing of history of the crash of communism in 1989 have not yet begun to work themselves out, though we can certainly remain sceptical in face of arguments about the End of Ideology, the End of History and the Beginning of Post-History. The discipline has survived several political revolutions and two world wars: it ought to be able to cope with Mr Gorbachev. National identities still inform all versions of historiography, sometimes in indirect ways. Indeed we seem still to be using history as the early nineteenth century did, as a vehicle for locating groups and peoples and giving them a past that suits their present or encourages their sense of a future. All of these things may alter. But one development in the history of the present looks likely to be both permanent and valuable. Historians have never been so aware of what they are attempting as they have become over the past two decades. Always a reflective form of writing, history has become (as they say) 'reflexive': it is self-conscious to a degree and to a level of sophistication that no previous generation can match... Possibly historians will become morbid and self-destructive as a result. Not a few have already become self-important. Yet the move towards a deliberately constructed history gives critics of all persuasions the opportunity and the duty to keep their swords sharp against a moment when contingencies may threaten to destroy the discipline or subvert an interest in the past at all. We shall do well to remember that historiography forms the stone that whets the blade."
-Michael Bentley, "Introduction: Approaches to Modernity," Companion to Historiography (Routledge, 1997)
Bentley on modern historiography
"Historians have never been so aware of what they are attempting as they have become over the past two decades. Always a reflective form of writing, history has become (as they say) 'reflexive': it is self-conscious to a degree and to a level of sophistication that no previous generation can match... Possibly historians will become morbid and self-destructive as a result. Not a few have already become self-important. Yet the move towards a deliberately constructed history gives critics of all persuasions the opportunity and the duty to keep their swords sharp against a moment when contingencies may threaten to destroy the discipline or subvert an interest in the past at all. We shall do well to remember that historiography forms the stone that whets the blade."
-Michael Bentley, "Introduction: Approaches to Modernity," Companion to Historiography (Routledge, 1997)
-Michael Bentley, "Introduction: Approaches to Modernity," Companion to Historiography (Routledge, 1997)
Friday, August 1, 2008
Historiographically speaking...
You may have noticed that I have foreshortened my Blogarium considerably. I've moved the history blog links to my new blog, Historiographically Speaking, where you can catch all the history action. For all things Alconbury (my high school alma mater), see the Alconbury Digital Archive. For everything else involving the world of Bill Clifton, you're right where you need to be.
Bibliography: "Historical Revolution Revisited"
I intend to revisit my revisitation and expand it into an article for publication within the year. In the meantime, here is a working bibliography:
Books
Baker, Herschel. The Race of Time: Three Lectures on Renaissance Historiography. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967.
Bentley, Michael, ed. Companion to Historiography. London: Routledge, 1997.
Butterfield, Herbert. The Whig Interpretation of History. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1965.
Ferguson, Arthur B. The Articulate Citizen and the English Renaissance. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1965.
Ferguson, Arthur B. Clio Unbound: Perception of the social and cultural past in Renaissance England. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1979.
Fussner, F. Smith. The Historical Revolution: English Historical Writing and Thought 1580-1640. New York: Columbia University Press, 1962.
Fussner, F. Smith. Tudor History and the Historians. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1970.
Gransden, Antonia. Historical Writing in England, c. 1307 to the Early Sixteenth Century. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982.
Hay, Denys. Annalists and Historians: Western Historiography from the Eighth to the Eighteenth Centuries. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1977.
Herendeen, Wyman H. William Camden: A Life in Context. Woodbridge, UK: The Boydell Press, 2007.
Hill, Christopher. Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965.
Kelley, Donald R. Foundations of Modern Historical Scholarship: Language, Law, and History in the French Renaissance. New York: Columbia University Press, 1970.
Kelley, Donald R. Versions of History from Antiquity to the Enlightenment. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991.
Levine, Joseph M. Humanism and History: Origins of Modern English Historiography. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987.
Levy F. J. Tudor Historical Thought. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004.
McKisack, May. Medieval History in the Tudor Age. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.
Patterson, Annabel. Nobody’s Perfect: A New Whig Interpretation of History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.
Pocock, J. G. A. The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law: English Historical Thought in the Seventeenth Century. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1967.
Woolf, D. R. The Idea of History in Early Stuart England: Erudition, Ideology, and ‘The Light of Truth’ from the Accession of James I to the Civil War. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990.
Woolf, D. R. Reading History in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Articles
Clark, Stuart, “Bacon’s Henry VII: A Case-Study in the Science of Man.” History and Theory (May 1974).
Colie, R. L., “Review of The Historical Revolution by F. Smith Fussner.” Political Science Quarterly (June 1963).
Douglas, David, “Review of The Historical Revolution by F. Smith Fussner.” The English Historical Review (April 1964).
Eisenstein, Elizabeth L., “The Advent of Printing and the Problem of the Renaissance.” Past and Present (November 1969).
Elton, G. R., “Review of Tudor History and the Historians by F. Smith Fussner.” History and Theory (1971).
Elton, G. R., “Review of Clio Unbound by Arthur B. Ferguson.” History and Theory (1981).
Farnell, James E., “The Social and Intellectual Basis of London’s Role in the English Civil Wars.” The Journal of Modern History (December 1977).
Ferguson, Arthur B., “Review of Tudor History and the Historians by F. Smith Fussner.” Renaissance Quarterly (Winter 1971).
Finlayson, Michael, “Clarendon, Providence and the Historical Revolution.” Albion (Winter 1990).
Fussner, F. Smith, “Review of Tudor Historical Thought by F. J. Levy.” History and Theory, Vol. 8, No. 3 (1969), pp. 371-387.
Kelley, Donald R., “History, English Law and the Renaissance.” Past and Present (November 1974).
Lewin, Joan, “Review of The Historical Revolution by F. Smith Fussner.” British Journal of Educational Studies (May 1963).
MacCaffrey, Wallace T., “Review of Medieval History in the Tudor Age by May McKisack.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History (1972).
MacCaffrey, Wallace T., “Review of Tudor History and the Historians by F. Smith Fussner, Political History: Principles and Practices by G. R. Elton.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History (Winter 1972).
Mendyk, Stan, “Early British Chorography.” Sixteenth Century Journal (Winter 1986).
Nadel, George H. “Review of The Historical Revolution by F. Smith Fussner.” History and Thought (1963).
Preston, Joseph H., “Was there an Historical Revolution?” Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 38, No. 2, (April – June, 1977): pp. 353-364.
Schiffman, Zachary Sayre, “An Anatomy of the Historical Revolution in Renaissance France.” Renaissance Quarterly (Autumn 1989).
Southgate, W. M., “Review of Tudor Historical Thought by F. J. Levy.” The Journal of Modern History (March 1964).
Stearns, Raymond P., “Review of The Historical Revolution by F. Smith Fussner.” History and Theory (1963).
Sypher, G. Wylie, “Similarities between the Scientific and the Historical Revolutions at the end of the Renaissance.” Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 26, No. 3 (July – September, 1965), pp. 353-368.
Thomas, Keith, “Review of Tudor Historical Thought by F. J. Levy.” The Review of English Studies (February 1969).
Tinkler, John F., “The Rhetorical Method of Francis Bacon’s History of the Reign of King Henry VII.” History and Theory (February 1987).
Trevor-Roper, H. R., “Review of Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution by Christopher Hill.” History and Theory (1966).
Woolf, Daniel R., “Speech, Text, and Time: The Sense of Hearing and the Sense of the Past in Renaissance England.” Albion (Summer 1986).
Woolf, Daniel R., “Erudition and the Idea of History in Renaissance England.” Renaissance Quarterly (Spring 1987).
Woolf, Daniel R., “Review of Humanism and History by Joseph M. Levine.” Albion (Autumn 1987).
Woolf, Daniel R., “The ‘Common Voice:’ History, Folklore and Oral Tradition in Early Modern England.” Past and Present (August 1988).
Woolf, Daniel R., “Review of Utter Antiquity by Arthur B. Ferguson.” Albion (Winter 1993).
Woolf, Daniel R., “The Writing of Early Modern European Intellectual History, 1945-1995.” Companion to Historiography. London: Routledge, 1997.
Books
Baker, Herschel. The Race of Time: Three Lectures on Renaissance Historiography. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967.
Bentley, Michael, ed. Companion to Historiography. London: Routledge, 1997.
Butterfield, Herbert. The Whig Interpretation of History. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1965.
Ferguson, Arthur B. The Articulate Citizen and the English Renaissance. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1965.
Ferguson, Arthur B. Clio Unbound: Perception of the social and cultural past in Renaissance England. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1979.
Fussner, F. Smith. The Historical Revolution: English Historical Writing and Thought 1580-1640. New York: Columbia University Press, 1962.
Fussner, F. Smith. Tudor History and the Historians. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1970.
Gransden, Antonia. Historical Writing in England, c. 1307 to the Early Sixteenth Century. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982.
Hay, Denys. Annalists and Historians: Western Historiography from the Eighth to the Eighteenth Centuries. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1977.
Herendeen, Wyman H. William Camden: A Life in Context. Woodbridge, UK: The Boydell Press, 2007.
Hill, Christopher. Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965.
Kelley, Donald R. Foundations of Modern Historical Scholarship: Language, Law, and History in the French Renaissance. New York: Columbia University Press, 1970.
Kelley, Donald R. Versions of History from Antiquity to the Enlightenment. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991.
Levine, Joseph M. Humanism and History: Origins of Modern English Historiography. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987.
Levy F. J. Tudor Historical Thought. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004.
McKisack, May. Medieval History in the Tudor Age. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.
Patterson, Annabel. Nobody’s Perfect: A New Whig Interpretation of History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.
Pocock, J. G. A. The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law: English Historical Thought in the Seventeenth Century. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1967.
Woolf, D. R. The Idea of History in Early Stuart England: Erudition, Ideology, and ‘The Light of Truth’ from the Accession of James I to the Civil War. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990.
Woolf, D. R. Reading History in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Articles
Clark, Stuart, “Bacon’s Henry VII: A Case-Study in the Science of Man.” History and Theory (May 1974).
Colie, R. L., “Review of The Historical Revolution by F. Smith Fussner.” Political Science Quarterly (June 1963).
Douglas, David, “Review of The Historical Revolution by F. Smith Fussner.” The English Historical Review (April 1964).
Eisenstein, Elizabeth L., “The Advent of Printing and the Problem of the Renaissance.” Past and Present (November 1969).
Elton, G. R., “Review of Tudor History and the Historians by F. Smith Fussner.” History and Theory (1971).
Elton, G. R., “Review of Clio Unbound by Arthur B. Ferguson.” History and Theory (1981).
Farnell, James E., “The Social and Intellectual Basis of London’s Role in the English Civil Wars.” The Journal of Modern History (December 1977).
Ferguson, Arthur B., “Review of Tudor History and the Historians by F. Smith Fussner.” Renaissance Quarterly (Winter 1971).
Finlayson, Michael, “Clarendon, Providence and the Historical Revolution.” Albion (Winter 1990).
Fussner, F. Smith, “Review of Tudor Historical Thought by F. J. Levy.” History and Theory, Vol. 8, No. 3 (1969), pp. 371-387.
Kelley, Donald R., “History, English Law and the Renaissance.” Past and Present (November 1974).
Lewin, Joan, “Review of The Historical Revolution by F. Smith Fussner.” British Journal of Educational Studies (May 1963).
MacCaffrey, Wallace T., “Review of Medieval History in the Tudor Age by May McKisack.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History (1972).
MacCaffrey, Wallace T., “Review of Tudor History and the Historians by F. Smith Fussner, Political History: Principles and Practices by G. R. Elton.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History (Winter 1972).
Mendyk, Stan, “Early British Chorography.” Sixteenth Century Journal (Winter 1986).
Nadel, George H. “Review of The Historical Revolution by F. Smith Fussner.” History and Thought (1963).
Preston, Joseph H., “Was there an Historical Revolution?” Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 38, No. 2, (April – June, 1977): pp. 353-364.
Schiffman, Zachary Sayre, “An Anatomy of the Historical Revolution in Renaissance France.” Renaissance Quarterly (Autumn 1989).
Southgate, W. M., “Review of Tudor Historical Thought by F. J. Levy.” The Journal of Modern History (March 1964).
Stearns, Raymond P., “Review of The Historical Revolution by F. Smith Fussner.” History and Theory (1963).
Sypher, G. Wylie, “Similarities between the Scientific and the Historical Revolutions at the end of the Renaissance.” Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 26, No. 3 (July – September, 1965), pp. 353-368.
Thomas, Keith, “Review of Tudor Historical Thought by F. J. Levy.” The Review of English Studies (February 1969).
Tinkler, John F., “The Rhetorical Method of Francis Bacon’s History of the Reign of King Henry VII.” History and Theory (February 1987).
Trevor-Roper, H. R., “Review of Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution by Christopher Hill.” History and Theory (1966).
Woolf, Daniel R., “Speech, Text, and Time: The Sense of Hearing and the Sense of the Past in Renaissance England.” Albion (Summer 1986).
Woolf, Daniel R., “Erudition and the Idea of History in Renaissance England.” Renaissance Quarterly (Spring 1987).
Woolf, Daniel R., “Review of Humanism and History by Joseph M. Levine.” Albion (Autumn 1987).
Woolf, Daniel R., “The ‘Common Voice:’ History, Folklore and Oral Tradition in Early Modern England.” Past and Present (August 1988).
Woolf, Daniel R., “Review of Utter Antiquity by Arthur B. Ferguson.” Albion (Winter 1993).
Woolf, Daniel R., “The Writing of Early Modern European Intellectual History, 1945-1995.” Companion to Historiography. London: Routledge, 1997.
Historical Revolution Revisited
A summary of a recent seminar paper, "Historical Revolution Revisited: The Waning Influence of F. Smith Fussner in Tudor-Stuart Historiography":
We moderns view history, the past, notions of continuity and change in time, etc., very differently from, well, people in the past. The medieval understanding in particular stood in opposition (and was in some ways superior) to our modern notions of time. (Medievals overemphasized permanence, we overemphasize change.) The Renaissance/Reformation was an imporant transitional period for the understanding and writing of history. The many intellectual, social, and material innovations that occurred during the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries (especially the 16th, in my opinion) caused a shift in our understanding of the past and our relationship to it, and they paved the way for the creation of the modern discipline of historical studies.
Where does my paper fit into this? The big debate is whether the shifts in ideas and practices in history (and in the Renaissance in general) were gradual or punctuated, evolutionary or revolutionary, political or intellectual or social or material, etc. How should we define this shift in historical understanding? F. Smith Fussner, professor of history at Reed College (at the time), published his book The Historical Revolution: English Historical Writing and Thought 1580-1640 in 1962, arguing that nothing short of a "historical revolution" analogous to the widely-acknowledged "scientific revolution" occurred in England between 1580 and 1640 (or 1660, as he sometimes suggests - F. Smith, will you make up your mind!).
Fussner's thesis proved very influential among early modern historians. This is not to say that everyone agreed with him. Some scholars bought his argument in its entirety, and some completely rejected it, arguing that shifts in historical understanding in this time were mere extensions of medieval thought. Most, however, disagreed with specifics of his thesis, yet agreed that significant changes (often amounting to a "revolution" of some sort) definitely occurred in historical understanding and practices during this period. My paper basically tracks these arguments among 20th-century historians from Fussner's 1962 book to Wyman H. Herendeen's 2007 book William Camden.
Basically, my paper is a historiographical survey (a history of historians) of 20th-century historians on 16th-century historians (a history of histories of historians). Bracing stuff, indeed.
We moderns view history, the past, notions of continuity and change in time, etc., very differently from, well, people in the past. The medieval understanding in particular stood in opposition (and was in some ways superior) to our modern notions of time. (Medievals overemphasized permanence, we overemphasize change.) The Renaissance/Reformation was an imporant transitional period for the understanding and writing of history. The many intellectual, social, and material innovations that occurred during the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries (especially the 16th, in my opinion) caused a shift in our understanding of the past and our relationship to it, and they paved the way for the creation of the modern discipline of historical studies.
Where does my paper fit into this? The big debate is whether the shifts in ideas and practices in history (and in the Renaissance in general) were gradual or punctuated, evolutionary or revolutionary, political or intellectual or social or material, etc. How should we define this shift in historical understanding? F. Smith Fussner, professor of history at Reed College (at the time), published his book The Historical Revolution: English Historical Writing and Thought 1580-1640 in 1962, arguing that nothing short of a "historical revolution" analogous to the widely-acknowledged "scientific revolution" occurred in England between 1580 and 1640 (or 1660, as he sometimes suggests - F. Smith, will you make up your mind!).
Fussner's thesis proved very influential among early modern historians. This is not to say that everyone agreed with him. Some scholars bought his argument in its entirety, and some completely rejected it, arguing that shifts in historical understanding in this time were mere extensions of medieval thought. Most, however, disagreed with specifics of his thesis, yet agreed that significant changes (often amounting to a "revolution" of some sort) definitely occurred in historical understanding and practices during this period. My paper basically tracks these arguments among 20th-century historians from Fussner's 1962 book to Wyman H. Herendeen's 2007 book William Camden.
Basically, my paper is a historiographical survey (a history of historians) of 20th-century historians on 16th-century historians (a history of histories of historians). Bracing stuff, indeed.
Revisiting the historical revolution revisited...
I turned my paper in Tuesday morning. Huzzah! However, Dr. Daniel Miller, my supervising professor, still needs to read and approve it. He may suggest significant changes. This merry-go-round has not yet stopped.
What is this paper, you ask? I'll explain it briefly. We moderns view history, the past, notions of continuity and change in time, etc., very differently from, well, people in the past. The medieval understanding in particular stood in opposition (and was in some ways superior) to our modern notions of time. (Medievals overemphasized permanence, we overemphasize change.) The Renaissance/Reformation was an imporant transitional period for the understanding and writing of history. The many intellectual, social, and material innovations that occurred during the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries (especially the 16th, in my opinion) caused a shift in our understanding of the past and our relationship to it, and they paved the way for the creation of the modern discipline of historical studies.
Where does my paper, "Historical Revolution Revisited: The Waning Influence of F. Smith Fussner in Tudor-Stuart Historiography," fit into this? The big debate is whether the shifts in ideas and practices in history (and in the Renaissance in general) were gradual or punctuated, evolutionary or revolutionary, political or intellectual or social or material, etc. How to define this shift in historical understanding? F. Smith Fussner, professor of history at Reed College (at the time), published his book The Historical Revolution: English Historical Writing and Thought 1580-1640 in 1962, arguing that nothing short of a "historical revolution" analogous to the widely-acknowledged "scientific revolution" occurred in England between 1580 and 1640 (or 1660, as he sometimes suggests - F. Smith, will you make up your mind!).
Fussner's thesis proved very influential among early modern historians. This is not to say that everyone agreed with him. Some scholars bought his argument in its entirety, and some completely rejected it, arguing that shifts in historical understanding in this time were mere extensions of medieval thought. Most, however, disagreed with specifics of his thesis, yet agreed that significant changes (often amounting to a "revolution" of some sort) definitely occurred in historical understanding and practices during this period. My paper basically tracks these arguments among 20th-century historians from Fussner's 1962 book to Wyman H. Herendeen's 2007 book William Camden.
Basically, my paper is a historiographical survey (a history of historians) on 20th-century historians on 16th-century historians (a history of histories of historians). Bracing stuff, indeed.
What is this paper, you ask? I'll explain it briefly. We moderns view history, the past, notions of continuity and change in time, etc., very differently from, well, people in the past. The medieval understanding in particular stood in opposition (and was in some ways superior) to our modern notions of time. (Medievals overemphasized permanence, we overemphasize change.) The Renaissance/Reformation was an imporant transitional period for the understanding and writing of history. The many intellectual, social, and material innovations that occurred during the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries (especially the 16th, in my opinion) caused a shift in our understanding of the past and our relationship to it, and they paved the way for the creation of the modern discipline of historical studies.
Where does my paper, "Historical Revolution Revisited: The Waning Influence of F. Smith Fussner in Tudor-Stuart Historiography," fit into this? The big debate is whether the shifts in ideas and practices in history (and in the Renaissance in general) were gradual or punctuated, evolutionary or revolutionary, political or intellectual or social or material, etc. How to define this shift in historical understanding? F. Smith Fussner, professor of history at Reed College (at the time), published his book The Historical Revolution: English Historical Writing and Thought 1580-1640 in 1962, arguing that nothing short of a "historical revolution" analogous to the widely-acknowledged "scientific revolution" occurred in England between 1580 and 1640 (or 1660, as he sometimes suggests - F. Smith, will you make up your mind!).
Fussner's thesis proved very influential among early modern historians. This is not to say that everyone agreed with him. Some scholars bought his argument in its entirety, and some completely rejected it, arguing that shifts in historical understanding in this time were mere extensions of medieval thought. Most, however, disagreed with specifics of his thesis, yet agreed that significant changes (often amounting to a "revolution" of some sort) definitely occurred in historical understanding and practices during this period. My paper basically tracks these arguments among 20th-century historians from Fussner's 1962 book to Wyman H. Herendeen's 2007 book William Camden.
Basically, my paper is a historiographical survey (a history of historians) on 20th-century historians on 16th-century historians (a history of histories of historians). Bracing stuff, indeed.
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