Historiography

[donbosco]

Historiography is the study of how history has been written. It is a part of the discipline that is, at least to me, pretty misunderstood and under-appreciated. The historical character Columbus serves as a good example for my point. The Genoese sailor, who worked for the Spanish, was written into school books and celebrated as a hero throughout my years of public schooling. A good deal of that mythology was based on ‘A History of the Life & Voyages of Christopher Columbus,’ a mainly fictional account written by Washington Irving in 1828. Yes. THAT Washington Irving — the ‘Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ Washington Irving.



Irving created of Columbus the increasingly popular frontier caricature of the famous ‘Self-Made Man’ who overcame all odds to realize his dream of fame, fortune, and a better ‘Christian’ world for all. Well, Columbus became (in)famous to be sure. In Irving’s time writers played particularly fast and loose with facts. Plenty still do, but historians, proper, trained historians who offer up their attributions (footnotes, bibliographies) in depth for all readers to easily access, do not.



The story of Columbus’ across time is a good example of the worth of historiography. Plenty of other topics like The Life of Lincoln, The Decision to Use Atomic Weapons, and Slavery in the Americas are good examples as well of exactly why historical topics need constant attention and revision by people who both research and teach professionally.



No one reading this here is any longer blinded by the hagiography of Washington Irving’s biography of Columbus but we’ve still got so many more stories in need of revisiting. Right now the process has begun in this country of digging deeper into the full narrative of enslavement in our larger national saga. That pursuit, aided by a deeper understanding of historiography, has caused a great fear of the truth to rise up among modern conservatives. They seem to believe that past reality is an enemy of the nation, that those who seek to hew closer and closer to how things really were are ‘America-Haters.’ They really couldn’t be more wrong about real historians and teachers. Full cognizance, understanding, and acknowledgment of how events transpired in the past are key to moving forward — to improving life for one and all. Now if that does not sound like the proper course then maybe mythology is your refuge — fear your best friend — and constitutional Democratic-Republicanism the bane of your existence.



#OTD in 1492 Columbus sailed from Palos bound west — nigh all believed the world round — Columbus believed it smaller than most, thus Asia closer than it was. His voyage launched invasion, conquest, and colonization. Today in History - August 3

 

[donbosco]

I’ll add that while historiography has always been political the consequences of being honest are today quite loaded.

 

[05C40]

In re Columbus: I get your point and I agree with you. But in different way I disagree with you. My disagreement with you is primarily based on the book, "The Discovers" by Daniel J. Boorstin. In part, Boorstin agrees with everything you say about Columbus. But Boorstin goes on to say that it is right that we celebrate Columbus, but not for the myth of Columbus, but for what Columbus actually did. Needless to say, because I have proved it over and over for years, I'm no Boorstin. But my take-away from Boorstin is that what Columbus did was two-fold. First, Columbus discovered the counterclockwise trade winds that could reliably carry ships from the Azores to the Western Hemisphere and even more importantly, return them to Europe. Second, Columbus wrote down what he did so precisely and completely, that people in the 20th Century could pick-up his logs and retrace every step he took, every mile he sailed during his four trips to America. And could establish satisfactorily where Columbus first made landfall in the Western Hemisphere during his first voyage.

Boorstin was careful to distinguish that Columbus didn't "discover" America in the sense that he was the first European to either get here or preserve the knowledge of how to get here. Columbus discovered America in the sense that he wrote down how to get here in sufficient detail that others could read his descriptions and get both to and from America. As far as Europeans are concerned, Boorstin thought it beyond doubt that the Vikings and Basque fisherman long preceded Columbus in their repeated trips to America. What Columbus did that Boorstin celebrated was that Columbus both wrote down how to find the trade winds that would carry ships to and from America, but he also published those writing in sufficient detail and sufficiently widely distributed those writings that 500 years later, they were still readily available and could be read and understood by persons with only a modest understanding of navigation. This last part was what Boorstin believed was monumental and what made Columbus praiseworthy. However, Boorstin also acknowledged that Columbus also loosed a holocaust on the then existing inhabitants of the Americas from which they have never recovered.

 

[superrific]

Did Irving Washington also make any contributions to Columbus studies?

 

[donbosco]

@05C40 - I have long loved those Boorstin books. I have my own mythological imagining of him literally sitting in a high tower periodically calling down to the reference librarians below with resource requests as he wrote Magnum Opus after Magnum Opus.

My ‘take’ is that, like most conquerors, Columbus was resourceful as all get-out. As a navigator he was a master as you point out - the time he spent in Spanish and Portuguese ports and at sea as well as alongside his brother Bartolomé the cartographer put him on the cutting edge of maritime knowledge.

But he was apparently both super greedy and Uber convinced that anything done in The Name of God as he defined Him was fine, even the type of pursuit that would place Heaven in his future and result in the blessing of wealth on earth.

We all owe a lot to good record-keepers and as a Latin Americanist I am particularly fortunate that the Spanish and their agents were obsessive “ass coverers” document-wise. Columbus, though Genoese fit right in.

The rest of the Conquistadors were pretty remarkable too - performing literal feats of almost unbelievable strength and prowess. I can celebrate a certain fortitude in these Christian Warriors with Dreams of Cashing In but their profound lack of ethics takes a lot of the shimmer off their deeds. And they knew what they were doing - the life and writings of Bartolome de Las Casas among others makes that clear. They were most often cruel even by the standards of the day but colonizing requires that and ultimately there was a Mercantilist ‘All Wealth is Limited’ philosophy driving their expeditions.

In general I think I try to stay away from celebration though and just try and lay it out there - I seek objectivity but am very aware that is but a pursuit essentially unobtainable.

 

[LeoBloom]

Wonderful, don

 

[05C40]

- . . .. - I seek objectivity but am very aware that is but a pursuit essentially unobtainable.

"For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name, He writes—not that you won or lost—but how you played the Game." - Grantland Rice.
How Columbus and the Conquistadors "played the game" is not to their credit, regardless of whether they won or lost.

 

[UNCatTech]

Historiography is the study of how history has been written. It is a part of the discipline that is, at least to me, pretty misunderstood and under-appreciated. The historical character Columbus serves as a good example for my point. The Genoese sailor, who worked for the Spanish, was written into school books and celebrated as a hero throughout my years of public schooling. A good deal of that mythology was based on ‘A History of the Life & Voyages of Christopher Columbus,’ a mainly fictional account written by Washington Irving in 1828. Yes. THAT Washington Irving — the ‘Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ Washington Irving.



Irving created of Columbus the increasingly popular frontier caricature of the famous ‘Self-Made Man’ who overcame all odds to realize his dream of fame, fortune, and a better ‘Christian’ world for all. Well, Columbus became (in)famous to be sure. In Irving’s time writers played particularly fast and loose with facts. Plenty still do, but historians, proper, trained historians who offer up their attributions (footnotes, bibliographies) in depth for all readers to easily access, do not.



The story of Columbus’ across time is a good example of the worth of historiography. Plenty of other topics like The Life of Lincoln, The Decision to Use Atomic Weapons, and Slavery in the Americas are good examples as well of exactly why historical topics need constant attention and revision by people who both research and teach professionally.



No one reading this here is any longer blinded by the hagiography of Washington Irving’s biography of Columbus but we’ve still got so many more stories in need of revisiting. Right now the process has begun in this country of digging deeper into the full narrative of enslavement in our larger national saga. That pursuit, aided by a deeper understanding of historiography, has caused a great fear of the truth to rise up among modern conservatives. They seem to believe that past reality is an enemy of the nation, that those who seek to hew closer and closer to how things really were are ‘America-Haters.’ They really couldn’t be more wrong about real historians and teachers. Full cognizance, understanding, and acknowledgment of how events transpired in the past are key to moving forward — to improving life for one and all. Now if that does not sound like the proper course then maybe mythology is your refuge — fear your best friend — and constitutional Democratic-Republicanism the bane of your existence.



#OTD in 1492 Columbus sailed from Palos bound west — nigh all believed the world round — Columbus believed it smaller than most, thus Asia closer than it was. His voyage launched invasion, conquest, and colonization. Today in History - August 3

What a very interesting and though provoking post.

History was not my subject, I pasted what was required in college and that was it. I believe I've learned more as an adult than I did throughout school.

I enjoy reading these stories now, oh if I had only enjoyed them as a child...

 

[donbosco]

What a very interesting and though provoking post.

History was not my subject, I pasted what was required in college and that was it. I believe I've learned more as an adult than I did throughout school.

I enjoy reading these stories now, oh if I had only enjoyed them as a child...

Appreciate the ‘like.’ I never had any good history teachers growing up but when I got to Carolina there were quite a few. Sometimes I teach freshmen or entry level surveys. It is a challenge to make them interesting and break from the high school mindset that students bring with them. I've got a US History to 1865 coming up this semester. I'm using THE AMERICAN YAWP: A Massively Collaborative Open U.S. History Textbook for the course because 1) It is FREE (and textbook cost a pretty penny these days) and 2) it has a lot of capabilities for maps and images to be closely examined and I think that should help take things into new places. Here is the link to the source: The American Yawp

We're also reading The Unknown American Revolution (https://www.amazon.com/American-Rev...401702499-014303720X-&hvexpln=73&gad_source=1), which I think brings to the readers exactly what the title suggests -- the stories that they've not learned and should have.

In Amazon's totally innocuous synopsis they say: "In this audacious recasting of the American Revolution, distinguished historian Gary Nash offers a profound new way of thinking about the struggle to create this country, introducing readers to a coalition of patriots from all classes and races of American society. From millennialist preachers to enslaved Africans, disgruntled women to aggrieved Indians, the people so vividly portrayed in this book did not all agree or succeed, but during the exhilarating and messy years of this country's birth, they laid down ideas that have become part of our inheritance and ideals toward which we still strive today."

I'm kind of psyched about doing this...I haven't taught a full-on freshman history class in ten years (though I did teach freshman humanities -- which was kind of a Readings in Ancient History course) last Fall. These Pandemic young adults are different than previous generations in regard to how they view deadlines, completing assignments, and attendance. Throw ChatGPT into the mix and this is a whole new ball game and will be for quite some time.

 

[TarSpiel]

I'm using THE AMERICAN YAWP: A Massively Collaborative Open U.S. History Textbook for the course The American Yawp

innocuous synopsis they say: "In this audacious recasting of the American Revolution, distinguished historian Gary Nash offers a profound new way of thinking about the struggle to create this country, introducing readers to a coalition of patriots from all classes and races of American society. From millennialist preachers to enslaved Africans, disgruntled women to aggrieved Indians, the people so vividly portrayed in this book did not all agree or succeed, but during the exhilarating and messy years of this country's birth, they laid down ideas that have become part of our inheritance and ideals toward which we still strive today."

I'm kind of psyched about doing this...I haven't taught a full-on freshman history class in ten years (though I did teach freshman humanities -- which was kind of a Readings in Ancient History course) last Fall. These Pandemic young adults are different than previous generations in regard to how they view deadlines, completing assignments, and attendance. Throw ChatGPT into the mix and this is a whole new ball game and will be for quite some time.

"I sound my barbaric YAWP over the rooftops of the world"

Walt Whitman

*Also, your class sounds phenomenal

 

[farce©]

Appreciate the ‘like.’ I never had any good history teachers growing up but when I got to Carolina there were quite a few. Sometimes I teach freshmen or entry level surveys. It is a challenge to make them interesting and break from the high school mindset that students bring with them. I've got a US History to 1865 coming up this semester. I'm using THE AMERICAN YAWP: A Massively Collaborative Open U.S. History Textbook for the course because 1) It is FREE (and textbook cost a pretty penny these days) and 2) it has a lot of capabilities for maps and images to be closely examined and I think that should help take things into new places. Here is the link to the source: The American Yawp

I had one really good history teacher in high school and many good ones at ECU and UNCC. donbosco, do you know Dan Morrill at UNCC? I think he is still alive, he has to be in his mid-80s by now. He taught a Modern European history course (French Revolution to WWI) and every class was like a show. He came in with few or no notes and gave a masterful storytelling performance. I had other great history professors but he was the best. I was in college a long time ago (50+ years) but the only name I remember is Dan Morrill.

 

[zeuxis]

In re Columbus: I get your point and I agree with you. But in different way I disagree with you. My disagreement with you is primarily based on the book, "The Discovers" by Daniel J. Boorstin. In part, Boorstin agrees with everything you say about Columbus. But Boorstin goes on to say that it is right that we celebrate Columbus, but not for the myth of Columbus, but for what Columbus actually did. Needless to say, because I have proved it over and over for years, I'm no Boorstin. But my take-away from Boorstin is that what Columbus did was two-fold. First, Columbus discovered the counterclockwise trade winds that could reliably carry ships from the Azores to the Western Hemisphere and even more importantly, return them to Europe. Second, Columbus wrote down what he did so precisely and completely, that people in the 20th Century could pick-up his logs and retrace every step he took, every mile he sailed during his four trips to America. And could establish satisfactorily where Columbus first made landfall in the Western Hemisphere during his first voyage.

Boorstin was careful to distinguish that Columbus didn't "discover" America in the sense that he was the first European to either get here or preserve the knowledge of how to get here. Columbus discovered America in the sense that he wrote down how to get here in sufficient detail that others could read his descriptions and get both to and from America. As far as Europeans are concerned, Boorstin thought it beyond doubt that the Vikings and Basque fisherman long preceded Columbus in their repeated trips to America. What Columbus did that Boorstin celebrated was that Columbus both wrote down how to find the trade winds that would carry ships to and from America, but he also published those writing in sufficient detail and sufficiently widely distributed those writings that 500 years later, they were still readily available and could be read and understood by persons with only a modest understanding of navigation. This last part was what Boorstin believed was monumental and what made Columbus praiseworthy. However, Boorstin also acknowledged that Columbus also loosed a holocaust on the then existing inhabitants of the Americas from which they have never recovered.

Of course, the invention of the printing press and growth of the publishing industry in the later fifteenth century enabled Columbus to do what earlier travelers could not have done in terms of spreading his knowledge.

A bit off topic, but a colleague of mine once remarked that a learned person in the 15th and 16th century could conceivably read every book that published. We laud the idea of a Renaissance Man, but the breadth of available knowledge back then was finite. I like to tell my students that having a liberal arts education today is every bit the equivalent of a being a learned person in the Renaissance, and more.

 

[mpaer]

The first teacher I had that "made me look left" was in HS . It was a blue collar Union town-practically everyone was of German or Polish descent .This guy was the Wrasling Coach and Drivers ed teacher Think about a stereotype look for such and Mr Carl fit the bill
But he taught this one course -technically it might have been civics-and he was soft spoken and passionate and without a doubt threw in or two things a day that made us think about how our Standard books etc kind of just showed "one side" of American History I also remember him say his day worked his whole career in the Milwaukee sewers-and spent every lunch hour reading poetry

 

[05C40]

Of course, the invention of the printing press and growth of the publishing industry in the later fifteenth century enabled Columbus to do what earlier travelers could not have done in terms of spreading his knowledge.

A bit off topic, but a colleague of mine once remarked that a learned person in the 15th and 16th century could conceivably read every book that published. We laud the idea of a Renaissance Man, but the breadth of available knowledge back then was finite. I like to tell my students that having a liberal arts education today is every bit the equivalent of a being a learned person in the Renaissance, and more.

Purely idle curiosity on my part, but are you familiar with a pre-printing press concept known as the Cathedral of the Mind? As was explained to me, the Cathedral of the Mind was a pre-printing press menomic device. Because every educated person of the time knew the layout of a Cathedral and the layouts were so similar, the menomic device was to organize one's memory along the lines of the floor plan of a Cathedral. So, when you wanted to remember something, you just visualized the floor plan of a Cathedral, mentally walked over to that area that contained topic you wanted to remember, find what you wanted to remember and, VOILA!, you remembered it. And when the printing press made books cheap, some people condemned books because they believed the mental discipline involved with learning and using the "Cathedral of the Mind" menomic device was more important than the crass convenience of a book.

I first learned of the concept of the "Cathedral of the Mind" when calculators became so small and so cheap in the late 1970's that some were demeaning their existence and claimed that they would short-circuit the mental discipline that was part and parcel of pen and paper and/or mental arithmetic. Sidenote: I still laugh at memories of meeting in early 1980's when all the guys' watches would start beeping at the top of the hour and it would take a couple of seconds for it to pass. Those first digital watches had no way to turn off the top of the hour beep.

When I mentally survey the scientific and medical advances that have occurred in spite of the alleged handicaps of cheap calculators, I feel the calculator inspired fears of the late 1970's can be put into the same dust bin of history as the "Cathedral of the Mind."

 

[grimes70]

Not my major but took 2 classes from Dr. Powell. NC and History of the South. He was fantastic.

 

[05C40]

Not my major but took 2 classes from Dr. Powell. NC and History of the South. He was fantastic.

Still this last word on all things NC history in my home.

 

[farce©]

Still this last word on all things NC history in my home.

I own that as well.

 

[mpaer]

My Dad retired and decided he was a "writer"-Revolutionary war "fiction based on some fact" He spend about 5 years In the NC Collection in the Wilson library and he would tell me his latest Fun Fact every time I would see him.One I vaguley remember is that Troops moving around NC back then constantly encountered unmapped Beaver Damn caused lakes , flooded plains ,,,etc

 

[Paine]

What a very interesting and though provoking post.

History was not my subject, I got past what was required in college and that was about it. I believe I've learned more as an adult than I did throughout school.

I enjoy reading these stories now, oh if I had only enjoyed them as a child...

I truly believe my decision to study history at UNC changed my life. I sometimes wonder what it was in me that made me latch onto history at an early age. Haven’t been able to figure it out so far. Always enjoyed the subject as a kid but mostly through my own research and reading rather than school.

In my experience, high school teachers often struggled to teach history in any interesting or insightful way. I’d imagine that varies from teacher to teacher, but I’ve heard more people tell me the same thing about history than any other subject.

I didn’t truly enjoy history classes until college.

 

[donbosco]

I truly believe my decision to study history at UNC changed my life. I sometimes wonder what it was in me that made me latch onto history at an early age. Haven’t been able to figure it out so far. Always enjoyed the subject as a kid but mostly through my own research and reading rather than school.

In my experience, high school teachers often struggled to teach history in any interesting or insightful way. I’d imagine that varies from teacher to teacher, but I’ve heard more people tell me the same thing about history than any other subject.

I didn’t truly enjoy history classes until college.

Would love to know who some of your profs were...If I had any favorites they were Lou Perez, John Chasteen, and Colin Palmer (all Latin Americanists). Leon Fink was a good friend and we worked on a book together (I was research assistant, he the author). I greatly appreciated Miles Fletcher as well. James Leutze (US Military History) used to fill up Hamilton 100 for a two-semester survey on "The American Way of War" and I both took that class and TA'd it. His lectures were good. Stephen Baxter taught English History -- that was pretty good too.