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The Uses of the European Past in American Historiography
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 January 2009
Extract
American historiography has always been preoccupied with American history. This is still the case in our present time. It is a natural phenomenon which applies in the same sense to other nations. Like other nations, too, America has always had historians who devoted themselves partly or exclusively to the study of the history of foreign lands. Within their guild they always were and still are a minority. Their position vis-à-vis the reading public and also vis-à-vis the subjects of their interest is more problematic than that of the historians who concentrate on the national past. For the American historian of foreign lands the question of a specific historical sense is not only inescapable but also more difficult to answer than for his colleague who writes on American history. As Leonard Krieger has pointed out a few years ago, this historical sense may be defined as the capacity to understand the temporally distant in its own terms together with the consciousness of its relations with the familiar. When the American historian of extra-American (i.e. in our case European) history finds the temporal distance extended by the geographical and cultural distance, he is quite naturally tempted to start out by asking of his subject: ‘What is it to me or I to it that I should aspire to study and understand it?’ This basic question can lead to interesting historiographical results, but it can also lead into the sterility of mere antiquarianism.
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References
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page 17 note 2 Another problem, which we cannot discuss here, is the question as to the reception and influence of the theories and methods of the ‘Ecole des Annales’ upon contemporary American historiography. That there is such an influence cannot be doubted, but it would not be an easy one to describe. It is astonishing to note how long it took for the works of Mare Bloch to be translated and published in the U.S.A. The writings of Lucien Febvre do not seem to have aroused much general interest among American historians. Braudel's, F.La méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l'époque de Philippe II (1949, 1966)Google Scholar has been very severely criticized by Baylin, Bernard, Journal of Economic History II (1951), pp. 277–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar. One can perhaps say that the ‘Ecole’ is not very influential as a block but some of its works, ideas and methods have been taken up with sympathy and interest. Cf. Strayer's, Joseph R. ‘Introduction’ to Bloch's The Historian's Craft (Manchester and New York, 1954).Google Scholar For information on this point I am indebted to Professor R. S. Lopez of Yale University.
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