Quality Historians

[Rambuchan]

As a mark of my appreciation for the excellent discussion in the "What makes good history?" thread, I think it is appropriate to start another thread to discuss and profile notable historians.

I, for one, studied History at A-level (European International relations 1750-1920) and had to touch on some history for my degree when looking at film (especially documentaries as history), photography, investigative journalism and the media. However, after reading the above mentioned thread, I feel sadly out of touch now with the monumental historians. It simply isn't a priority or necessity in my career these days to pay attention to good quality history, but I'd like to keep up with this field in an informed sense.

So let's share our knowledge of the great historians out there. I'd like to suggest a format but of course add and subtract as you wish. Perhaps it would be better for the sake of neatness and future reference to keep comments about a writer brief and to not launch into lengthy debates in this thread. Just start another thread if you feel there is much to discuss on a particular author and his work. (Suggestions on this welcomed)

Here is one man that I've enjoyed reading lately, I'd be interested to hear people's views on his work as well as their own suggestions. And I'll admit I'm starting with a somewhat controversial writer, as certain PM conversations have indicated.

-----------------------------------------

Name: Niall Ferguson.

Background: Professor of International History at Harvard University, Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University. He is a young writer, only in his mid-30s and has about 6 titles to his name as an author/historian and one as an Editor.

Notable Titles: "Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World" & "Colossus: The Rise and Fall of The American Empire"
& "The House of Rothschilds".

Important Contributions / Ideas: Ferguson is an imperial apologist of sorts, but he doesn't shy away from the horrific facts and figures in his colonial analysis. Nevertheless, I have reservations about his conclusions and also about certain omissions in research he makes at times. However he has coined, confirmed and / or expanded some worthy notions and areas:

- Imperial Denial (his label for the USA's unwillingness to accept their actions are those of an imperial power)

- The Role of Free Trade in Historical International Relations and its applications / relevance today.

- The Economics of Imperialism. ie. he constantly reminds us that nations and empires are, in essence, run as a business.

Notable Qualities: Ferguson is quite thorough in his economic analysis of historical relations. His books provide some sound statistics on all kinds of financial matters relevant to the periods he looks at. He's also quite an elegant and entertaining writer, qualities which he has in fact translated to the small screen in the televised version of "Empire".

 

[jeriko one]

I have never read any of his books but Virtual History is in my `to be read` list.

 

[nonconformist]

AJP Taylor-
British historian, very respected for his histories of WWII, and generally every era in modern history.

 

[Rambuchan]

People, please let's try and follow the format I laid out a little more closely.

The idea is that this will become a handy reference thread. The info given so far doesn't really tell us a great deal. For example: AJP Taylor is a heavy weight, no doubt, but those not familiar with him already will not take much away from the info given about him in the post above. I hope you see what I am driving at here.

 

[jeriko one]

Ok. If you accept Harry Turtledove I will write about him. I said `accept` because although he has a PhD in Byzantine History I never read any of his books on that subject. I read only his alternative history works. So `notable qualities` will be about alternative history.

 

[la cosa nostra]

Hows this for quility history?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Irving

lol

On a more serious note there are some very good historians out there. I particulary like the writings of Edward Gibbon, E.H Carr and AJP Taylor.

 

[AdrianE]

Colonel David Glantz

He is a US army colonel who writes on the Russian German conflict in World War II. I think he has retired now.

He is notable for gaining access to Russian archives and bringing their perspectives forward in the English language.

Notable Titles: Stumbling Collossus, Battle of Kursk (with Jonathan House)

Basically before Glantz all the english language titles on WWII in Russia were derivatives of the German general's memoirs. Thus in the English language world, our knowledge of what happened was a little one sided. Glantz went a long way towards correcting that.

 

[Ciceronian]

Thanks for bringing this up Rambuchan. May I introduce:

Name: Prof. Paul Cartledge

Background: Professor of Classical Greek History at Cambridge University. I believe he is 56 at the moment. Author, co-author, editor and co-editor of 16 books.

Notable Titles: The Spartans, Alexander the Great, (two recent publications), Hellenistic Constructs.

Important Contributions / Ideas: Cartledge has become part of the recent revival of interest in Greek and Roman history. He co-operated with the BBC on recent productions about Greek history. His portrayal of Alexander represents a more sober picture, in contrast to the often romanticised or vilified image of the great conqueror. His actions are represented more as calculated realpolitik than drunken megalomania.

Notable Qualities: Besides constructing a gripping narrative (with some tongue-in-cheek language here and there) Cartledge also provides a careful analysis of sources and does not get carried away by the euphoria of his tale. Combining the two effectively arguably makes him a great historian!

 

[Xen]

Edward N. Luttwak.

His book "The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire" is astounding. Its a must read for anyone who wishes to understand the military actions and implentation of Rome from the 1st century AD- the reforms of Constantine, and more importantlly, how this went hand in hand with Roman international realtions during this period as well.

His credentials as a former Pentagon analysis lend a weight to his work that is hard to be found amoung mos tother historians.

 

[Israelite9191]

Thomas Cahill

A part-time historian for much of his life (he is of a some-what advanced age) he put together his and his wife's accumalated knowledge in his renowned series The Hinges of History. He has recieved a BA in philosophy and ancient literature as well as a pontifical degree in philosphy. He recently spent two years at the Hebrew Theological Seminary studying Hebrew and the Hebrew Bible, as well as recieving an honorary doctorate from Alfred University. He has also taught at several universities and written for several renowned periodicals.

His best works: How the Irish Saved Civilization: The The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe, The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Evryone Thinks and Feels, and Desire of the Everylasting Hills: The Life Before and After Jesus

While I will not recomend Sailing the Wine Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter due to is lack of hard proof, I will recomendhis other three main works. While Desire of the Everlasting Hills is tad dry, it is very informative. He writes in a style that is grasping and relly makes you understand things. Even my mother, the non-history person who thought Morrocco was a city and didn't know Britain was an island, has fallen in love with Cahill's writing. I highly suggest him.

 

[Plotinus]

E.P. Sanders.

He's a great historian for the following reasons:

(1) He has innovative new theories that put much-discussed periods in a completely new light.

(2) He has good evidence for these theories.

(3) He is an absolute master of his subject.

(4) He writes extremely elegantly and captures the interest of the non-specialist.

Sanders is of course a New Testament scholar, and he is most famous for his new interpretation of Paul, which remains highly controversial. In a nutshell, the traditional understanding of Paul (which goes back to Luther) has it that Paul contrasted salvation by works with salvation by faith. The Jews, on this view, believed that you got to be saved by obeying the Law. But Paul believed that you got to be saved simply by having faith in Jesus. Sanders, however, argued that Paul didn't mean this at all. On his interpretation, Paul wasn't talking about *how* you get saved (a very Lutheran concern) but *who* gets saved (a much more first-century concern). On this view, Paul *and* the Jews all agreed that salvation is given freely by God. But the Jews believed that God freely gives salvation to the Jews (who respond by obeying the Law, out of gratitude), while Paul believed that God freely gives salvation to those who have faith in Jesus. Thus, Paul's biggest concern was not how Christ saves, but what the fate of Israel will be *given that* Christ saves: the most important chapters of Romans are 9-11, not 3-5.

Sanders presented this basic position in "Paul and Palestinian Judaism" in 1977, one of the most important books on the New Testament of the last thirty years. It was controversial not only because it offered a completely new way of understanding Paul, but also because it had a new way of understanding first-century Judaism, caricatured for centuries as a religion of "works". Of course, Jewish scholars had attacked this view, but been largely ignored. But Sanders had spent considerable time immersing himself in the texts of first-century Judaism - unusual for someone whose main interest was the New Testament - and he had serious evidence to support his view. It was his own reading of the early rabbinic literature that convinced him that modern scholars had misrepresented the rabbis, and that perhaps Paul had understood them better than anyone had realised.

Sanders followed all that up with "Jesus and Judaism" in 1985 which re-examined Jesus from the standpoint of contemporary Judaism. It argued that Jesus was "basically" an eschatological prophet of the kind not uncommon in contemporary Judaism, and sought to reconstruct him on this basis.

Sanders also writes extremely well in an introductory style. The two best books he has written for a general readership are "Paul", part of the Past Masters series, and "The Historical Figure of Jesus", published in 1993 by Penguin. These books basically introduce what we know about these two characters and what they did and said, and are the best introductions I know of to both of them.

Sanders has a really interesting intellectual autobiography at http://www.duke.edu/religion/home/EP/Intel autobiog rev.pdf which not only describes how he came to form his theories but also gives his insights into how to write good history: primarily, by immersing yourself in the primary sources. He also describes how he decides between sources, and how he weights different sources according to their apparent reliability.

There's also a good interview at http://www.philosophyandscripture.org/Issue2-2/Sanders/Sanders.html which also touches on the methods of the historian, especially when dealing with Biblical material, where the historical approach differs from - shall we say - less sophisticated methods...

 

[Rambuchan]

Jeriko: There is no 'accepting' or 'rejecting'. Posters are trusted to come up with Notable Historians (for whatever reasons) and to explain a little about them as they see fit, just bearing in mind the indicators at top of thread and that this should grow to be a handy reference thread for folk.

Here is another for the thread and, being who he is, I've gone to a bit more trouble. This post is dedicated to Luceafarul and Ciceronian, who I know are fans of the great man!

-------------------------------------------------------------

Name:

Herodotus, 'The Father of History'.

Biography / Background:

Herodotus was born into the Dorian community in Halicarnassus (west coast of modern day Turkey) around 484 BC. There is some contention here but most scholars of his work generally agree that this date, put forward by 'the ancients', really isn't that far off. He was the son of Lyxes and Dryo, was the brother of Theodorus, and is noted as being either the cousin or nephew of an epic poet called Panyassis, who also concerned himself with historical themes (such as the foundings of the Ionian cities). The Dorian community spoke and wrote their public inscriptions in the Greek Ionic dialect and this is the language in which he too penned his works. It should be noted however that this was a largely oral culture and he would have only 'penned' his works in order to recite them in public symposia.

Herodotus was a widely travelled man for his day, as his writings well infer (inference is often and sadly the best or only method of knowing parts of his life), and it is agreed that he visited many destinations all over the Greek 'oikoumene' or 'inhabited world'. He himself claims to have visited as far south as Elephantine on the first cataract of the Nile, as far north as the Black Sea and to have travelled to Dodona in northwest Greece, Zacynthus off the west coast of the Peloponnese and Metapontum in southern Italy. He inspected temples in Phoenicia and at Thasos, observed remnants of a battle in the Egyptian Delta, inspected monuments in Palestine and writes of the Thessalonian plain. Less explicit are claims that he went as far east as Babylonia and as far west as Cyrene, in modern day Libya.

Some of his travels are attributed to his status as an exile from Halicarnassus, from where he went to the island of Samos, for he did not exactly see eye to eye with the 'tyrant' Lygdamis, whom he later helped overthrow. Indeed the tradition of exile is a recurring theme in his life and in the lives of fellow historians such as Thucydides.

Athens is also a bold feature in his biography and he found great favour in this city state. It is said that he was rejected patronage from the Thebans and the Corinthians (those fellows who much later never returned the apostle Paul's letters) and it was Athens which saw value in his 'histories'. Again, inference and also later analysts of his work confirm this, for he did indeed write quite unfavourably of the former two, whilst he wrote with marked appreciation of the latter. Whilst in Athens it is interesting to note that he was friends with the playwright Sophocles and Plutarch retrospectively observes mutual reference in the passages of both men's work.

Another note worth making in a brief biography of Herodotus is that Halicarnassus was at the outer reaches of the Greek world and, not far to its east, were lands that were subject to Persian authority. Many note that this proximity to what Herodotus often refers to as 'the learned Persians' meant that Ionic communities were considered to have been far more open minded and ready to travel than the more insular city states to his west. In fact, his marked respect for Persian culture and scholars flavours much of his Histories.

Herodotus' death is traditionally dated between 430 and 425 BC. But there are other readings, gleened from parodies on Herodotus in Aristophanes' works such as Archanians (performed in 425) and an allusion to him in the same poet's Birds (performed in 414), which supposedly date his death to a period between 421 and 415. The former set of dates are inferred through his references to the Peloponnesian War of 431 to 401 and the latter, I believe, simply demonstrate that his works were well known in Athens, being the place where he performed the most. On balance, he is agree to have lived through the first part of the Peloponnesian War and there is only some agreement that he lived to see the Peace of Nicias, as late as 413.

Notable Qualities:

Multi-disciplinarian: Like so many classical scholars, and indeed scholars right up to the Renaissance and beyond, Herodotus was a world and a discipline unto himself. His work sprawls across what we today so rigidly define as stand alone disciplines. These demarkations and categorisations simply did not exist in his time. For example, our word 'History' is quite different to his idea of historia, which meant 'inquiry' or 'investigation'. It was only much much later that this discipline, and its modern day methodologies, came to mean an inquiry or investigation of the past. One can verily see Herodotus waltzing across such varied fields as Zoology, Social Anthropology, Ethnology, Geography and, perhaps most interestingly for the sake of this thread, Fable and Folklore too.

Encyclopaedic Approach: These qualities, including the final one, confirm the extent to which Herodotus followed an encyclopaedic approach, which is significant in the development of the discipline we now call History, for it instilled a certain thoroughness in future historians. He sought to catalogue and describe as much as he possibly could and it can well be argued that his Histories, at least when it came to documenting flora, fauna and peoples such as the Scythians, were in fact an encyclopedia of sorts. This was not an exclusive nor innovative quality in Herodotus though. Writers were already doing this. Hecataeus of Miletus, whom Herodotus names, is one such example with his Circuit of The Earth, which is an inventory of peoples, climates, customs and cultures around the Meditteranean.

An obssession with the Marvellous: But this thoroughness perhaps goes too far for the modern historian, for he often:

a) Offers divine explanations for certain historical events. His writing on the themes / dynamics of hybris (hubris) and nemesis are a precise case in point. For example, his explanation that "...nemesis fell upon Creossus, presumably because God was angry with him for supposing that he was the happiest of men" simply fails to cut the mustard with modern historians. But two things are worth bearing in mind here. Firstly, that the Histories were very much concerned with such dynamics as revenge and retribution and that these dynamics are put forward in human terms (one empire would avenge another's wrong), as well as divine. Secondly, and most importantly, the modern historian must decide whether he or she reads such works through their own eyes or through the mindset that prevailed at the time.

b) Dwells upon the marvellous and fantastic (grand monuments as well as bizarre creatures). This certainly adds colour and provides an insight into the mindset of the time (perhaps Herodotus' own mindset and not others') but contemporaries were often ruthlessly unforgiving of this quality in his work. His fascination with the fantastic and the outlandish, often expressed in semi-mythic stories, are tendencies which often tarnish the reputation of his works. This final quality often led, and still does lead, to him being called not only 'the Father of Histories' but also 'the Father of Lies'.

No Chronology: His Histories also bears no real chronology that modern history readers would often reach for.

Whatever the modern reader makes of all this, I shall round off with the opening paragraph of Book One, which is perhaps the best explanation of the intention and motivation behind the Histories:

"Herodotus of Halicarnassus here displays his inquiry, so that human achievements may not be forgotten in time, and great and marvellous deeds - some displayed by Greeks, some by barbarians - may not be without their glory; and especially to show why the two peoples fought with each other."

Notable Titles: 'Histories', consisting of nine books, dealing with all the above but in particular the interractions between the Greek and Persian worlds.

 

[Hornblower]

Name: Sir John Keegan

Background: Read History at Oxford. Diplomatic posting then held a Lectureship at Sandhurst for 26 years before taking up position of Defence Correspondent at the Daily Telegraph.

Notable Titles: Just a few of my favourites of his:
The Face of Battle
A History of Warfare
Fields of Battle: The Wars for North America
Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al-Qaeda

Important Contributions / Ideas: I like that Keegan is an old school historian who has moved with the times to ensure the relevance of history is not lost to the new generation. His writing style is a little more upbeat and pacy whilst still going past the initial obvious conclusions.

Notable Qualities: He seems to humanise his history and helps the reader to connect with the subject whilst still maintaining that all important impartial viewpoint. Keegan was for a time labled pro-David Irving but from what I can gather he simply credited Irving with being a particularly good researcher. (as an aside I was amazed to find an Irving biography on Rommel in my library at home. I purchased it somewhat innocently many years ago)

 

[Verbose]

Reinhardt Koselleck:

German historian, founder of his own speciality of "history of concepts".

Pretty much revolutionised historiography, "the history of history", in the late 70's-early 80's by first writing a set of articles, the collecting these in the volume "Vergangene Zukunft", "Futures Past" in English translation.

Anybody with an interest in the history of concepts and ideas, and in history writing itself, can be advised to have a look at this guy.

He mainly deals with political history and how it has been used at various points in time.

Key concept: "Sattelzeit" ("Saddle time"), meaning he joins a growing number of intellectual historians who have singled out the mid to late 18th c. as a key period in the history of Western intellectual history - in this instance in how Europeans think about time and history.

Unlike a number of other meta-historical scholars, who mostly get lost in their own challenging theoretical constructs (read Hayden White and weep at the futility of writing history), Koselleck actually gives you an interesting map to follow historical thinking around over time, and a bunch of insights into the uses of history.

Normally he starts off with an historical anecdote, which he then explodes to show that more things are at stake than the reader might at first have assumed.