The degradation of American history 9780226316154, 9780226316161, 9780226316178

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
Acknowledgments (page xi)
INTRODUCTION "It Hath No Relish of Salvation in It" American Historical Writing at the End of the Twentieth Century (page xv)
Part One THE LEGACY OF THE SIXTIES
ONE Deeper into the Wilderness History Takes the Linguistic Turn (page 3)
TWO A People Blinded from Birth American History according to the Left (page 32)
THREE Doubts and Dispossessions Feminist History in the 1990s (page 53)
FOUR After Looking into the Abyss The Promise of Professionalism (page 74)
Part Two THE RENEWAL OF AMERICAN HISTORICAL WRITING
FIVE The Return of the Moral Imagination (page 105)
SIX A Choice of Inheritance (page 127)
SEVEN The Dream of a Common History (page 158)
EIGHT Love and Objectivity (page 187)
Epilogue (page 209)
Notes (page 215)
Index (page 279)

Citation preview

THE DEGRADATION OF AMERICAN HISTORY

BLANK PAGE .

THE

Degradation of American

History DAVID HARLAN

David Harlan teaches in the history department at California State University, San Luis Obispo. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 1997 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 1997 Printed in the United States of America

06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 98 97 12345 ISBN: 0-226-31616-5 (cloth) ISBN: 0-226-31617-3 (paper)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Harlan, David (David Craig) The degradation of American history / David Harlan

p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. _) and index. ISBN 0-226-31616-5 (cloth : alk. paper). —- ISBN 0-226-31617-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. United States—Historiography—Moral and ethical aspects. 2. United States— History—Methodology. I. Title. E175.H37 1997

973’ .07'2—dc21 97-164 CIP

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American Na- tional Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

For Sallie

) BLANK PAGE

History belongs above all to the man . . . who needs models, teachers, comforters and cannot find them among his contemporaries. —Friedrich Nietzsche, The Uses and Abuses of History

Our teachers used to be able to pose the possibility of a national culture—a line connecting Thomas Jefferson, the slave owner, to Malcolm X. Our teachers used to be able to tell us why all of us speak Black English. Or how the Mexican farmworkers in Delano were related to the Yiddish-speaking grandmothers who worked the sweat-shops of the Lower East Side. —Richard Rodriguez, “The Birth Pangs of a New L.A.”

You will hardly know who I am or what | mean But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you. —Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”

| BLANK PAGE

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments x1 INTRODUCTION

“It Hath No Relish of Salvation in It” American Historical Writing at the End of the Twentieth Century xv

Part One THE LEGACY OF THE SIXTIES ,

TWO : ONE

Deeper into the Wilderness

History Takes the Linguistic Turn 3

A People Blinded from Birth | American History according to the Left 32 THREE

Doubts and Dispossessions Feminist History in the 1990s 53 FOUR

After Looking into the Abyss

The Promise of Professionalism 74 ,

Ix

X Contents

Part Two ,

THE RENEWAL OF AMERICAN HISTORICAL WRITING FIVE

The Return of the Moral Imagination 105 SIX

A Choice of Inheritance 7127 SEVEN

The Dream of a Common History 158 EIGHT

Love and Objectivity 187 Epilogue 209 Notes 215

Index 279

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For the past ten years I have had the good fortune to be a member of the History Department, California State University at San Luis Obispo. I thank my colleagues for their warm collegiality and the former and current chairmen, Max Riedlsperger and Bob Burton, for encouraging me to teach the courses out of which this book emerged. hanks also to the students in my historiography class, particularly Steve Tootle, Greg Robinson, and Rob Smith for forcing me to clarify my thoughts. | am grateful to Janice Stone, Zoe Brazil, and the staff of the university’s Interlibrary Loan Department for supplying me with a host of otherwise unavailable books and articles.

Thanks to Alice Bennett of the University of Chicago Press for working over the manuscript so carefully and making so many helpful suggestions. I am particularly grateful to Douglas Mitchell, my editor at Chicago, for seeing some merit in an unsolicited manuscript and for his encouragement and sage advice. And to Hans Kellner for his valuable thoughts and comments. Thanks also to David ‘Thelen

for taking the time to read the entire manuscript so carefully and to write such an insightful and helpful critique. John Patrick Diggins has been a teacher, mentor, friend, and inspiration for over twenty years. It was the moral seriousness of his teaching that first drew me to American intellectual history and the imagi-

native power of his books that forced me to write my own book. I know that he disagrees with many of the answers I develop here, but all of the questions are his. My friend George Cotkin is no more ~ convinced by my arguments now than he was the first time he heard xi

xii Acknowledgments them, nearly ten years ago. But it is a measure of his generosity and openness of mind that he has continually prodded me to strengthen and refine them——and to finish this book. My understanding of

American intellectual history owes much to his work on William James, on American modernism, and more recently on American existentialism. [ have been living out of Leonard Wilcox’s intellectual

pockets ever since graduate school, running up debts I can never repay. But truth be known, I look forward to seeing my account sink even further into the red. I have admired and in various ways drawn upon Marta Peluso’s photographs, especially her “Scar” series, with their celebration of selves seasoned to a hickory-like toughness.

I have learned much from my mother and father, who came of age during the Great Depression and the Second World War, know everything there is to know about sorrow and loss, and nevertheless gave their children a world of love and compassion. By the power of his own example, Roberto Lint-Sagarena has made me rethink my all-too-easy relinquishment of faith. 1am every day more grateful for his affirmations, for his intellectual companionship, and for the way he has redrawn the emotional geography of our lives. Most of all I have been continually delighted and enlivened by my daughter Anna’s love of American literature. She is the most thoughtful, resourceful, and reflective reader I know and continues to deepen and complicate my understanding not only of nineteenth-century American thinkers like Hawthorne and Melville but also of Joan Didion, Toni Morrison, and other contemporary writers. My son David has given me more than he knows. His instinctive cheerfulness, his refusal of despair, his eagerness in the face of life’s unfolding possibilitles are a constant source of inspiration, vitality, and hope. Finally, this book is for Sallie, who is her own pure poem and the luminous center of my life.

THE DEGRADATION OF AMERICAN HISTORY

P

ESE: #8 ; : 2Shas weseS ligeiyge GEER gE tn ;Pe Soy.aeWERE So Eaae eeereseee “4 SESE es ms UME SEeo esSe wa.ee :— Peter ee ee eeece ERE BERR oho oe a gg Re So Sa SS ro gn ee ee ed SEES Ss Raeee eeESeeRReee ee RN eeLOeeSORE ec RR oeaRin ecCORR ee ee 5ae ee cn or REE RRS ee a Re EE EeRS a ORee RR SR MOREhd TTS,eee cc, + ene | | | ORCA a aRi eR RO RRR tue oc ecieugcnetaangee eee enna namie eee ecient tatu unc san cue ones niin eae esr hate teenie te ee remit meee ee ee nu pani ne Se eee ee ee ee nee

SRR AESo gigantea tne cuiaicer ty gatamaniatinpareeetut na rstunramaneenn ournntutaaratgunenatenarerant rece roar RR aoRRR seuinnr OPP ROR ent TR a arco a a NTC* aSRE a re RSE Rt RR UaEee Se RNS SERBS SS Se gece gnenie ane nat aomaeinaenere necromancer ena ehat.cna cotsneistdhhoae annette canner ganar eigenen RRee RReeOSES RS set ae CeO ON SOROTRR RO

Sosee RRR RS RR ORS RETO o RORe SSREU OS eS ER ean SEE |eit3 iedanummnninh cia ae he cia a a aes Revit mamoanatans iran os eae Deen, atte ec Be aaa ee sens SRR C ANRAERORO 3: a SR a a a RR woommeannaa Soe, eastee «2iIPR ee eS cat Raa RS OES ere eR RR oR er SPEER rare tai crease ar apeeiuh sl eeec cree emaeigg a ea een oe yeye SOS ESENee EENS 7 {ESS ate EE icepeet ers °ORR Ee Lge ee a ee So a ee aR REN on Oe ce ean one iO i an ama ate ummm nancies (Ui mute ite ce eect he aa ry rie” nes RE oe aunts oes, ame ate orem eee ot ee ea Be a AOR OROE RO5.ere ORcee eR eR se pase « eetiens eseSs ReShot 2 eeevogue toe 2 Sa ee FE Ga eo Ee aRS Sa Raa Ettat EB ec a SS GUE ecteeSaco er eae Ee a. . ages SRST eee een eae seat eerneeasenseeoncansaet ete tesatentagertes stan tastateseameama aeeneesierecugiarcecarraatacnanshins “ipinutewtagrapienssorsosturtateenatnenntmereunrccateseeoanocganpeatentoes necetseesseeeatea ree eeoeteatenetet eer EROS oa ne SSE ROO SK NN DISS Ra BO RN RO OR RR SS +» BT SRE ccna caasiee ae aateanneneonersentantemmnemeectinmntentene, cree cee t soe 1 °“ig Res RRS ScareESE eannnoameessensrensceoeeesntannannee neaesnnteesees neeg aeattannmatentmensmtenenmesmnnentenes camtaretiecncceanmmneencetengppeme gt Rie hin Seibasranstitecnsnnaen scant sat RRR Sa te RaataS REeSRON NSORS earners oreSST SORES OS OER RE RRS SSR esiatenr eeeetniende eaten, edeeeeenten ease wk

ears!" ESR RSS SOE INI MRM SSSR S IS ER a SES ISERIES 0s ax ROR SRR STIG) SEO eS aN SS RSIS St REA BL NIT a SHORE NI MON Sind SONI atastetehienurstatateaiccitnsricsnis, %, +eateeere sr aiateteteteteect ht ey aeet ttaeretaaretey hat Yat tet es fet fal SY atic Sor seneapimneoaamerateteeatetatehatet tates me Se Ne that ar” otea eerse Se SEU, les terete ss anes Soe!net SeesSoI SR SaRRNA ara SINR aanctectaceerteniesictanrtuastenncmatttatecgateaneptemsesssoestntenteassnesti asSSpeageegbeapaeeeratesnens toe ee ee FISD SES ee SoeTeteled se ER TaSEAN ee Se ntateanegetty ta EOLsytate RRR eae tee Tt I TN, oo “acteaaees Mees autMabe settee cassesraer ena aterrerstiniintanttie

Bi TRASHED SSS RTRS oeSOE, . Seo SS SeMER eeeRRR eRRRR ee ea ee aa ac eteeeet LEee ag ESSEC SOCCER Soeeeeeee seuerenenans *, £2: Re RRR RR RE RUS RE NS RSE RSS DOOSoe RORSEES OS sR RE DOR Co RRR ear Re RR cea Pee aan te eee Os a te fea memantaenmemmmnnatn tt ST Ree iterates ee . Renesas

SS eReeeERE OR ReORS RR cee RT es,BRERA ytSRsion a nion APR PERE AS rages BnSTshat nachORE mca ene ESwsBe, 5S", BRIER eee ENS SR ORONO RETA NEROS S R SCER CR IOS RRR uses ha eneRS rnaeueateaN ce wea tar oe tetRE Ta daaheaer UE etl ie laos SR eeaCee ton oe eaees aie ea saad he guar ue e Se, ay, gs ES aero ated ogRSE ceSree naan ceSONS een aaPan gaeunsene nce Se SPE AS eeORR esSige Paa,teeee SER ghee 6ie STE Se eeMy yaa gence See $3.-"S SRE a cere SRR SNES ER SSSI ROMER SRR SOON NS ES RRS 8eet Ee cart Te gt eaeBee Teeg ER A aa EAS Se RRR eee ha gn, anteseralenetematte avn es RES Oh,ee eeetoSe ons =x fort= i, Sn SER ORAS ECS SE RESET Seines Panera -cca *ROSS aoeES ORO aaanCOS PES erate ee ES SES segment ote $0: Sea eRe SRR ON RR a RO ERROR DR BrTs, Sean See 1TeCa RRR er Lee Eaeen oe ae ation SR * ree Pear CR ear ee Rrwe ee Re oeeeia : “eT ve TT Se“stgntctad” z te cS.SOR SOR eeRR RRS RRO aSORRER aE oRSS.OSS CRG, SERCO oePSR SiN ce Sioaa ema, 12ayOe eae ORR, car lprSanten ae CR Redae HARES aaa atigtrle1 aSSE stententoneeauinemeananrmnanmemetnmeeertte aFa we E ii. ORSON ORO Re EREeR ORO SRR BR SL SE ON aR CNN ER RSD RSae, ERAN ARSON ncn Se RRsTT tes tye Meneame "erat beth, dations Saveeaticer pat tag a sateen Do sue eiaineneaaes ie, ies atei aeaneneannceneneuemenetnaae, EF sR

BO ae eeISIE, Ree co ce eecL,COS Sc aacae ae eo .ee.tteoo: eR crannies NESee ema Set SeOTEL ee ee eee CE SEhth aeSESE oa ees areRNC Bote SU oss ODS SEES I ie SDie. SSL . git Bests srESSE oR Nene DRE RR oS Sie SERRE nS aUSE SASSI Syke a eiRR OrnRRR oe atts eRREE eeatTR Oe ooo srur cuir iaunianaencnatoner a3 IS a Hee a geome pans cin Book “EUR es” Eee eRe le aiie een Ee Sacre eigen et a ee _ Si +, RR RRR SER SEER ER ORR SR NRE RNS ax. RR RRR RE RES So RRM RO ON a alec MMR MRNTIC Ts ac,” SLIT ESda Sta sesg Se ebe se ate Se RSE OOOO Ee NS EE TNE BEE OEE OT OES OE RESORT RSG MSN RRR OSS RES a .

Sch ROE OR RRS Se RSENS OC ea RRS TROT OREN OS RRR SERS RRR ASIN SNC rt ecw ROMO Sos oS SL TET hte fsa ste be SPER SESS ON ESSE SEEN USO Se SSE EEE SS MEER RE SRI MBE E SE SN REES EROS ISR OSS SRI Cr Srietoeeeh emanate eee ses See Ne eT ee” , Sse reson senunnat aunnaeenen er oe oS SS SiR ci eR ee ca a SS SRA ele Been FREE oe Summa Seen eases Te, Sead SE SS ER cae es rena Brom PORE eueeeou conte Seaeeee es ee aes ”

nist. ROA OORT RRO RS DR RS RRS (SEY ag eS TSS RRR eTSC eeetee sect eae esatt hheaaaa So iTSS Sa SN ie caren ersiecoanceteneernieantnte” SOs ae A oerSENSEI ac arne sen ane eeeREINSURANCE ee NTT Seana eenRERLARGESG Sen SORES Siena samen Sate OMAR eon eatraiaianitienanmnnannae nee eee 1SEES SERIES SS EE enacts te aR PMR NCCI RSMO SCR SIRES BOAR BREUER SAT AC rd nctocne ORR RRO RRS ettae2 . : 4

SC