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The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past (2002)

por John Lewis Gaddis

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John Lewis Gaddis bouwt voort op Marc Bloch en E.H. Carr, twee gerenommeerde historici die, de ene in de jaren 1940, de andere in de Jaren 1960, op een rijtje hebben gezet waar geschiedschrijving eigenlijk voor staat, wat de mogelijkheidsvoorwaarden ervan zijn (filosofisch, of zo je wil epistemologisch), en wat de eigen methodologie is. Gelukkig heeft hij – 50 jaar later – de ingrijpende veranderingen die intussen gebeurd zijn in de historiografie en de wetenschappen in het algemeen verwerkt.
Zo is er in de eerste plaats het postmodernisme en vooral de “cultural turn” van Hayden White en anderen. Gaddis benadrukt terecht dat geschiedschrijving maar een voorstelling (representatie) geeft van het verleden, in de vorm van een verhaal (narratief), en onmogelijk het verleden zelf. Tegelijk verdedigt hij fel de waarde van die voorstelling, op voorwaarde dat die zo nauw mogelijk aansluit bij de werkelijkheid (gestaafd wordt door bronnen dus) en ruimte laat voor bevraging zodat er een uiteindelijk een consensus kan groeien tussen professionele en niet-professionele beschouwers van het verleden. Gaddis stelt zich daarbij erg pragmatisch op, met voortdurend vergelijkingen tussen geschiedschrijving en het maken van een kaart (waarbij het verleden uiteraard het landschap is); meteen ook een afwijzing van relativisme, want er is wel degelijk een realiteit van het verleden die zich voortdurend door ons laat bevragen (telkens vanuit een ander heden).
Gaddis besteedt ook heel wat pagina’s aan de vraag of geschiedenis eigenlijk wel een wetenschap is, een vraag die historici en niet-historici al sinds het begin van de 20ste eeuw erg bezig houdt en verdeelt. Verrassend genoeg beweert Gaddis dat geschiedschrijving veel meer aanleunt bij sommige harde wetenschappen, dan bij de sociale wetenschappen. Hij onderbouwt dat door elementen uit de chaos- en complexiteitstheorie die de voorbije decennia opgang hebben gemaakt in de harde wetenschappen en die vooral rekening houden met het onzekerheidsprincipe in complexe systemen. Geschiedschrijving deed dat al veel langer, want uiteindelijk is ook het verleden een uitermate complex systeem. Dat is een verdienstelijke zienswijze, die ons eindelijk verlost van de frustratie van vele geschiedschrijvers, maar Gaddis drijft zijn these wat te ver, vooral in zijn provocatieve afrekening met de sociale wetenschappen. Die zijn volgens hem helemaal blijven steken in vroegere (positivistische) denkschema’s, en door hun obsessieve zoektocht naar onafhankelijke variabelen zijn ze alleen maar uitgekomen bij modellen die nauwelijks realiteit raken. Interessant en tot op zekere hoogte ook correct, zeker, maar naar mijn aanvoelen niet helemaal rechtvaardig voor de sociale wetenschappen.
Kortom, absoluut een interessant boekje, dat afgezien van een aantal provocatieve stellingen geschiedschrijving eindelijk weer op de “wetenschappelijke” kaart zet. ( )
  bookomaniac | Jan 19, 2017 |
In The Landscape of History, Gaddis discusses the historian’s process, as well as the significance of the study of history in the modern world. In doing this, he uses a plethora of metaphors, which are fairly effective, if not at times overdone, to discuss the tensions, such as between scope and depth or between the historian’s morality and that of their subject, that are always present in historical thinking. For me, this discussion of tensions proved fairly interesting. I also found his discussion, late in the book, on the appropriateness of passing moral judgments on history to be thought provoking.

The Landscape of History undoubtedly made obvious and put into words concepts that I had been vaguely aware of wrestling with before in my history classes. However, at times, I felt that Gaddis bogged himself down with a lot of vocabulary, which necessitated unnecessarily complex definitions. At other times, Gaddis seemed to pursue tangents that I do not believe advanced his argument, but instead, proved distracting.

In the final chapter, I was slightly put off by Gaddis’ lionizing of historians and their methods as the best way to ensure the health and continued vigor of societies, and I felt that he pushed his animosity against the social sciences too far for my liking. I do agree though with his belief that history can be an effective tool for helping individuals to examine and understand themselves more deeply.
  ac214 | Mar 1, 2013 |
John Gaddis’s The Landscape of History came together as a series of lectures Gaddis gave while at Oxford University’s Balliol College during his time as the George Eastman Visiting Professor. It evolved from a number of historiographies, principally the classics The Historian’s Craft by Marc Bloch and What is History? by Edward Carr. All three attempt to explain how historians think, what they do, and why. All three are excellent books but Landscape is outstanding for its clarity and Gaddis’ excellent choice of metaphors.
The use of metaphors allowed me to better understand the points he was making. Describing a thought process is no easy feat and his concrete examples made understanding his ideas easier than I found the other books.
Having read the other book might be part of the reason that Gaddis’ writing was so clear to me however The Historians’ Craft is nearly seventy years old and What is History? is fifty years old. Although I am accustomed to reading texts from other times not needing to worry about the changes in style and meaning that inevitably happens over time seems to make learning the subject easier.
I recommend all three books to anyone considering history as a profession but someone who simply enjoys reading history would enjoy Gaddis’ Landscape and the window it opens into historians’ minds. ( )
1 vota TLCrawford | Dec 11, 2010 |
What do historians think about the study of history? What is history? Is it science, pseudoscience, or none of the above? Through the years scholars have examined these questions and have provided us their answers. Historians such as Marc Bloch and E.H. Carr have examined these issues and helped focus generations of students' thinking about what it is that historians do. But, the classic works by these scholars were written more than fifty years ago.
John Lewis Gaddis's book seeks to not just update what those scholars had to say about historiography but also to clarify their (and his own) thinking about what it is that historians do and how they do it. Gaddis, a professor at Yale University, had several purposes in mind for this book: to honor Bloch and Carr, to update their work, to encourage other historians to be more explicit, and to facilitate teaching. He succeeds admirably in accomplishing most of these goals.
The book's successes begin with the opening sentences of the book when Gaddis compares the study of history with a painting depicting a windblown man gazing at a fog-covered landscape. Historians, according to Gaddis, "portray the past as a near or distant landscape;" they cannot know or see every feature of the landscape, but they can produce an account that seeks to allow us to better understand the past (3). As the past is not completely knowable, we must depend on such sources as exist to produce a narrative to make sense of the unknowable.
Gaddis really shines when he discusses the historian's craft. History, he says, is sort of like art: historians, like artists, are not hemmed in by constraints of time or space. Time or space can be expanded or shrank to fit the needs of the historical narrative, just as artists can take great liberties with reality when creating works of art (18). Gaddis wittily describes the freedom and constraints on the historian: time can be sped up or slowed down at will, but the historian cannot know everything—his knowledge is always incomplete. There are an unknowable number of facts or events filling every man's life, so a historian must glide over what he cannot know and generalize where possible.
The bulk of the book seems to focus on the processes of history and how they compare with "science." While always useful in focusing our thinking, some parts are more useful than others. For example, knowing that thought experiments—reconstructing things unseen using one's imagination combined with physical evidence—are essential in writing some kinds of history is useful; however, being told that some brands of scientists rely on the same methods is not really that useful. It may bolster some historian's self esteem to know that he uses 'scientific' methods, but the average historian-on-the-street does not really need to know or care about this tidbit to do his job.
Similarly, knowing that there are usually a variety of variables that may effect or cause a certain event is valuable knowledge for a historian-in-training. However, an exhausting examination into which sciences use independent variables and which cherish and interdependency of variables, while interesting, is not necessary knowledge for a historian. While reading this section, one begins to wonder if all "social sciences" contain this tendency for evaluating and defending the "scientific-ness" of their respective discipline. How useful is it to know that both history and geology generally believe in interdependent variables, while others do not? Again, is it mere ego boosting for historians who may be suffering from what Gaddis calls "physics envy"?
Does Gaddis accomplish his goals for the book? While not a "historiography for dummies," Gaddis does go a long way toward illuminating the attitude, focus, and purpose of a historian. Because historians are freed from the constraints of time and space, they are free to focus their attentions broadly to sketch over unknown events, or to slow things down and focus on the most minute of details in the hope that it will clarify how things were at some point in time. Historians are also not constrained with the need to find independent variables. Essentially, while high school physics chooses to eliminate extraneous variables that complicate the equations, historians cannot ignore outsides influences. Events affect events to the extent that there is no true independent variable.
These chapters are the meat and potatoes of the book: Gaddis describes the methods of the historian and how they are affected by such concepts as chaos theory and free will. These are concepts that could render invalid any general theory that may be developed by historians to describe how the world may work in the future. Succinctly put, historians may be able to describe the past with some degree of accuracy; they cannot hope to predict the future.
The Landscape of History is a worthy addition to the historiography canon. Utilizing extensive references, anecdotes, and metaphors, Gaddis convincingly describes the way of the historian. He makes good use of humor and wit to make his points. Occasionally his language bogs down; one must remember that his remarks began as lecture and later became book. Maybe something was lost in the translation from auditory to visual experience. The one great weakness (or distraction) of the book is the sense that Gaddis is trying a little too hard to prove that history is really a science, but without the laboratory. Thankfully, by the time one reaches this point in the book, you are ready to give Gaddis the benefit of the doubt, and, as you follow along, you conduct your own experiments in the laboratory of the mind.
1 vota cao9415 | Jan 30, 2009 |
A decent book. It is a fairly good read, although the contractions sort of get in the way. He is trying to be colloquial, I think, and it comes off a bit buffoonish. It certainly isn't (like the contraction?) scholarly. He uses "you" way too much as well.

Once the reader gets past those distractions, the book is not bad. He addresses some theoretical issues facing the historian. The anecdotes are wonderful and often humorous.

This book would likely not interest anyone outside the field of history, although I suspect that Gaddis thinks it would. ( )
  w_bishop | Jan 21, 2009 |
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