The accomplished historian
Oct 9th, 2008 by Anne-Marie
Squeezing the [historical?] juice
A front page headline from a recent edition of the The Australian: “Historians ‘neglecting role as storytellers ‘”.
This was the start to my day last Monday week, while I was on a field trip in central New South Wales. Historian Peter Cochrane was scheduled to give an address to the Brisbane conference of the History Teachers Association of Australia. The Australian had got out its bellows and was using Cochrane’s address to pump oxygen into the history vs fiction debate. Well, it’s good to see a story about historical practice making the front page of our national newspaper. I guess.
I was in the small town of Eugowra and had spent the previous two days visiting sites associated with bushranging in that area in the 1860s. Bushranging history is stuffed to repletion with stories; stories told over and over again: orally, in exhibitions, novels and popular histories. Many float completely free from original historical records. Anyone approaching the topic has to be adept at untelling these stories to separate myth from fact and to bring an understanding of broader context. So I was in a cynical mood as I wandered out of the Eugowra newsagency that morning, reading the paper.
“We spend a great deal of our time on the intricacies of analysis, evidence evaluation and argument while we tend to neglect the literary side of history writing,” Cochrane is quoted as saying. “We should be crossing boundaries and borrowing what we can from fiction, or at least from fiction writers … in terms of structuring and vivifying a story.”
Keith Windschuttle approaches history like a procedure in a law court, Cochrane claims (according to the newspaper report). But, Cochrane thinks - and he has a prize-winning book to demonstrate the success of his own approach - “History has to be vivid, creative, imaginative; it has to squeeze every ounce of historical juice out of the record and then leave it to the reader and other historians to say if you went too far.” Narrative movement, along with character and human drama, is essential to the historian’s duty to ensure the story’s not a bore, according to the report.
It’s hard to disagree and yet I’m uneasy somehow. Cochrane would probably acknowledge that historians do still have to evaluate and analyse evidence and to present complex arguments. In fact, it seems as if historians have to be able to do everything. They must spend hours hunched over archival records and be scrupulous and rigorous in their use. They must be comfortable with other evidence too: audio-visual records, museum collections, historic landscapes. They must understand all the tools of e-scholarship but must also be prepared to put on their boots and get out to see the places about which they write. They must be good oral historians. They must have a thorough grounding in relevant theory and, to avoid seeming narrow, they must be comfortable with cognate disciplines (sociology perhaps, or anthropology, or archeology, or whatever.)
Naturally they must be good teachers and administrators. They must be able to communicate with scholarly and popular audiences, and know how to deal with journalists and to look good on TV. And, as Cochrane says, they must be able to produce beautiful writing: know all about “narrative movement”, and how to structure and “vivify” a story. Fall down on any one of these and someone will be out to get you.
It reminds me of Miss Bingley’s ideas about what makes an “accomplished” woman. Do you remember the scene from Jane Austen’s Pride and prejudice? A truly accomplished woman is rarely met, according to Miss B. In addition to the usual skills of painting tables, covering screens and netting purses, she must:
… have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half-deserved.”
“All this she must possess,” added [Mr] Darcy, “and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.”
Elizabeth lacks accomplishments but she is never a bore
To this Elizabeth exclaims: “I am no longer surprised at your knowing ONLY six accomplished women. I rather wonder now at your knowing ANY.” Would she be so hard on her sex? she is asked. “I never saw such a woman,” she declares.
Well, I never saw a historian who possesses all the accomplishments in that wearisome list above. Or am I being too hard on members of my own profession?
6 Responses to “The accomplished historian”
Cochrane got his latest prize from Howard, another fan of “narrative”, although he preferred the movement to be “straight” with interpretations done for dessert, or so… And no politics, please!
I agree with Cochrane when what he asks for historians is to write well, rather than “to write up” (terrible concept, that). I also see historians as imaginative: in the ways they find, ask and tackle their questions. But to cross over freely into fiction (naughty aside: aren’t many Australian historians doing that already?) — and to leave to the reader to decide what’s true, half true and made up, that is, for me at least, not part of the contract which I enter into when I pick up, say, Cochrane’s book about SIMPSON, or Londey’s OTHER PEOPLE’S WARS.
And I also believe in analysis and evidence, and in history as a scholarly discipline. Boring me. And in theory. Has Cochrane read any Hayden White? No. Too much Howard, if you ask me.
Thanks, yes: according to Cochrane, history (or the historian) has ” … to squeeze every ounce of historical juice out of the record and leave it to the reader and other historians to say if you went too far.” How can people who have not read the same records, and who don’t have the same knowledge, possibly make that judgment? Seems an extraordinary claim to me. What are historians for? (Okay, don’t answer that … ). However, in my original post I was trying to make allowances for Cochrane’s words possibly having been mangled in translation, so I didn’t press it.
I’m all for good writing and historical imagination but I think it is simply not given to all of us to be able to do everything. And narrative is good for explaining what happened, but not why it happened. That’s where theoretical and analytical work comes in. Some historians will only ever be specialists in relatively narrow fields and their best work might be done in scholarly journals which will never be read by the general public. The aforementioned Londey once pointed out to me that their work will eventually be taken up and applied by other, more general and popular historians and that’s good. That is how things work.
Today I had a brief chance to look a review by Joan Beaumont of Les Carlyon’s The Great War (the review is in the Sept 08 edition of Australian historical studies). She praises the quality of the writing, especially its avoidance of military terminology, perplexing to lay readers. But, she says: “Although he makes regular forays into the wider context of grand strategy and multinational politics, Carlyon’s treatment of these issues is usually partial and superficial; his tone, almost chatty.” And towards the end of her review: “Carlyon’s dearth of critical analysis and explanation ultimately gives The Great War a rather monotonal, monotonous quality. No matter how adroit the writing, or how arresting the detail, something like reader fatigue sets in as we are taken through battle after battle, and death after death of soldiers whose life stories we have been tracing through the preceding pages.”
Still, the author won many prizes and shared with Peter Cochrane the PM’s prize for Australian history. Enough said.
Well, a point that I was trying to make when I referred to Howard was the naive belief that narrative is innocent and exciting, while analysis (especially in the combination with evidence!) is boring: I think that narrative is never innocent, and that it goes WITH — rather than WITHOUT — analysis (even when that analysis seems to be muted and in the background). Narratives script history along plotlines with beginnings, middles and ends, they never come without perspective, and they’re not told in an unpolitical limbo either.
And Carlyon’s staying away from the contexts that Joan Beaumont would have liked to have is a conscious decision, not an incapacity. When it comes to the First World War, history with the dialogue and the complexity left out seems to be what the publishers order, and what has worked so well especially since Patsy Adam-Smith’s ANZACS, which Carlyon so adored…
Question: if a professionally-trained historian in Australia did have ALL the accomplishments and skills in the exhaustive list, would they even actually be one…or maybe they would emigrate from Oz and mutate into the better-paid role as CEO of the History Channel?
OK, some of that is meant to be glib, but not all of it. I won’t say which part is which. I do seriously think there is a difficult career equation to work out, on an individual basis, for each professional historian in an era that demands so much but also throws up so many contradictions and sudden drastic changes in audience/viewer preferences, while at the same time offering so little stability of employment or reliable tangible return for developing so many skills and expert knowledge. The variables for each historian will vary a lot, so there’s no one ‘correct’ answer anyway. Oh, and if the aspiring/peak-of-career historian doesn’t have the Charisma Factor X, then bad news: there’s no way of just racking up credits to get it.
Dammit, where’s that Elizabeth B. when a guy could do with a good chat and a long walk? The Jennifer Ehle incarnation, please.
Thanks Christina. There are no innocent narratives and, has also been said, “no innocent deposits” in archives either. You won’t enjoy today’s editorial in The Australian: “Factual narrative is basis of history”. (Why do I read that paper … ?).
Thanks Tim. You are right about the “tangible return”. Name a wealthy Australian historian. Even if it’s not wealth you are after, you will struggle just trying to gather a deposit on a house if you are a casual lecturer, or if you are forced into contract-hopping among the cultural institutions. Worse if you are carrying a HECS debt. Is owning the roof over your own head so much to ask?
Jennifer Ehle is the best, especially with those “fine eyes”. That other woman, what’s-her-name? - can’t remember - is nowhere. What’s-her-name was pretty good in Chanel’s “Coco Mademoiselle” ad. tho’. (What is her name?)
Reading ‘that’ paper - maybe you’re just extremely generous in giving benefit of the doubt it will change in a positive way.
I usually only get around to reading the travel supplement, some movie reviews, food-related stories, football/soccer news and book sections in ‘that’ paper on an occasional weekend, so am spared disappointments of the sort you describe.
Tangible returns -shouldn’t be too much to ask, I agree, and if the govt leaders are even slightly serious about preventing another expensive brain drain, it’s in their interests too that professional historians don’t end up leaving in disgust and telling another country’s story…or following advice in career guides by applying their skills to another profession. As a comparison, look (not too closely though - that would be worse than reading op-eds in The Australian!) at what game show hosts, popular news anchors on commercial channels and breakfast-time chat show hosts earn each week, thanks to being ‘loved by the camera’.
I think Keira Knightley is the name you’re fishing for re: the most recent Elizabeth B. ; though haven’t seen the ad you mention.