Joyce ApplebyBesprekingen

Rien de neuf dans l'analyse, mais un bon exposé, un peu "americano centré"½

Being an insightful look at some of the major themes of Thomas Jefferson's career and thought. Since this series is supposed to be about presidential administrations, she's off the rez a little in concentrating on Jefferson's philosophies of society and government, but given the nature of the man, it's difficult not to. In terms of the Jefferson administration, she analyzes his successful attempt to undo the Federalist template of government and bureaucracy as well as his attempts at a balanced foreign policy at a time of world war. However, her main concern is to reconcile Jefferson's philosophy of equality for all with how little he accomplished, or even seemed to try and accomplish, to advance the status of such groups as slaves, women, and Indians. She's a friendly guide who asks more questions than she dictates answers to, and the book is pleasant, informative, and thought-provoking.

I use the Georgia version of this textbook and it is perfectly aligned with the state standards, includes common core standards, and literacy standards. Textbook is edited to fit the standards but not so much that the history is lost. A great overview of U.S. History.

I barely even know where to start with this veritable train wreck of a book. I very nearly gave up on page 17, where Appleby refers to "old lithographs" in the 1490s (lithography wasn't invented until the 1790s). But I kept reading. And the howlers kept coming. The one that finally put me over edge came on page 127 ("They burned witches in Massachusetts ..."). Between the errors, misspellings, repetitions, and other infelicities, I don't think there's much here. Milk the bibliography if you can, but otherwise, stay away from this book.½

Since the last chapters--anything post-ww2 or thereabouts--are absolute shite, I'm having a hard time remembering if there were any other redeeming qualities. It's not just opinion here; I was amazed how many simple facts of history that she's lived through that she got wrong. In which case, how accurate is she when it comes to earlier centuries?

Mediocre, at best. Appleby, Hunt, adn Jacob are in love with the passive voice, which becomes so distracting and detracts from a decent text. The authors are not open advocates of post-modernism, but they are certainly enamored with many of its features. They trash traditional methods of the Enlightenment and some of the more pernicious features of post-modernism. They are in search of a third way, which I do not think they have found.

One major thing they fail to see is that relativism is not relativism. Relativism is mere repackaging of absolutism. In our relativistic world, one is safe being a relativist only if one agrees with the dominant social mores. The also fail to see that Nazism, Communism, and Facism (all related, and not opposite ends of the spectrum) are not modern. They are decidely post-modern. Nazi Germany was the logical conclusion of a relativist outlook. It was culturally "normal" for the Nazis to kill the Jews. A true relativist would have no problem with Nazi Germany. In this way, they fail to see the true benefits of modernity and the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment did have problems, but post-modernism is no solution. Appleby, Hunt, and Jacob's third way (mere retread Marxism) is no answer either.

The problem with these "clever" academic types is that they always want to throw out the baby with the bath water.

The book is readable (passive voice aside) and should be read with an open mind. Be careful not to buy all they are selling.½

Of the books in this series that I have read to date, this is by far the weakest. To tell the truth, I could not finish it. The author does not present Jefferson as he was, a man exceptional in both his merits and his flaws, but as the perfect human. In fact, after about fifty pages, I began to wonder if the book was going to end with an account of Jefferson's rising from the dead after three days. I highly recommend the American Presidents series as a whole, but you should buy this one only if you wish to complete your collection. It should not be relied on as a description of a real man.

“What historians do best,” argue Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob in their 1995 book Telling the Truth About History, “is make connections with the past in order to illuminate the problems of the present and the potential of the future.” Yet, the very legitimacy of history as an academic discipline has been questioned in the post-World War II era, and, according to the authors, “needs defending today from two broad attacks.” Skillfully negotiating between the relativistic nihilism of the postmodernists and the cloying nostalgia of historical traditionalism, Appleby, Hunt, and Jacob offer a pragmatic vision for the future of history. Without rejecting outright either relativism or narrative, the authors propose a via media designed to facilitate a “rigorous search for truth usable by all peoples.”
Inspired by the breathtaking advances of Newtonian science, the scholars of the Enlightenment came to believe that all knowledge could by systemized. The study of history was wrestled away from “pious monks poring over ancient fragments” in the eighteenth century and became the domain of secular philosophes eager to apply the principles of heroic science to historical inquiry. Hermeneutics – the critical analysis of historical texts – took on a new significance as Enlightenment historians sought to uncover scientific truth in the relics of the past. A century later German professor Leopold von Ranke built on this scientific tradition, trekking to far-flung libraries and archives, tirelessly combing through thousands of dusty documents, all to reveal the absolute truth of “how things really were.” Ranke’s invention of the teaching seminar insured that a generation of historians would follow his exacting, methodological example.
As the nineteenth century wore on, however, “how things really were” seemed to become far less certain. Karl Marx’s mid-century thunderbolts depicting all of history as class struggle wobbled accepted notions about historical truth. The ensuing decades brought even more uncertainty. In 1913, Charles Beard’s depiction of the Founding Fathers as self-serving men on the make shattered the mythologized American narrative and released a host of American historians “from the vow of silence imposed by patriotism.” In Europe, the “total history” model articulated by the Annales School deemphasized the significance of political and intellectual issues in favor of social and environmental phenomena and created a new paradigm for the study of the past.
In the 1960s historical truth, and, in fact, truth itself, came under renewed assault. The postmodernists “argued vehemently against any research into origins,” claiming that “paucity and manipulation characterize truth-seeking,” and therefore all knowledge is subjective and hollow. Postmodern relativism, while rejected by traditionalist defenders of the American narrative, has dealt a body blow to empirical historiography. The question posed by the authors gets to the core of the postmodernist challenge: “If truth depends on the observer’s standpoint, how can there be any transcendent, universal, or absolute truth?”
Appleby, Hunt, and Jacob acknowledge the impact of postmodernism on the study of history, and credit the movement for “dragging out from the shadowy world of unexamined assumptions the discrete propositions undergirding the objectivity of science.” They are not, however, willing to cede the historical battlefield to the forces of nihilism. “We are arguing here,” the authors insist, “that truths about the past are possible, even if they are not absolute, and hence are worth struggling for.” They call for a middle ground of historical inquiry that recognizes the impossibility of the kind of absolute truth once promised by the purveyors of heroic science, yet does not wallow in despondency and skepticism.
The authors’ pragmatic approach, their “qualified objectivity . . . disentangled from the scientific model of objectivity,” embraces modern multiculturalism. The “meta-narrative” of American achievement and progress began to give way in the latter half of the twentieth century to a multicultural flood of interpretations and perspectives. Women, racial and ethnic minorities, gays, and other interest groups lobbied for a place at the table long denied them by the traditionalist approach. The authors contend that this “democratization” of history is a healthy development. “Knowledge of the culture of others,” they argue, “in no way obliterates the power or authenticity of one’s own culture.” They do, however, caution against allowing vibrant multiculturalism to devolve into political correctness, which deters “open dissent” and “threatens the very democratic practices that affirmative action was created to serve.”
Telling the Truth About History is a wise and thoughtful study about the nature of history and the value of historiography. Refreshingly candid and practical, the authors take on some of the most vexing issues facing their field of study, and acquit themselves with grace and aplomb. Keats famously wrote that, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty – that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” But, beauty, Mr. Keats, is in the eye of the beholder; and, truth, as Appleby, Hunt, and Jacob make clear, can be a coy mistress, indeed.

The author focuses on a single generation, those who came of age during the 1790-1830 period. Jefferson is her hero and Federalists the enemy, but she acknowledges that Federalists were far more opposed to slavery and protective of Indian rights than Jefferson's Republicans, who were incensed by Northern efforts to block Missouri's admission as a slave state.
The book is heavily anecdotal, based on her reading of some 200 autobiographies written during the period. She covers topics such as enterprise, careers, distinctions, intimate relations and reform, but the theme is the new national identities that emerged, one Northern and the other Southern, during the period. Three primary forces that shaped the Northern identity, economic enterprise, political participation and religious revival, also caused a reaction in the South that no less shaped it, but it ways that left it bewildered, defensive and conservative. Readers not already thoroughly conversant with the period will miss any discussion of the emergence of party politics, though she notes the personal vilification and "unchecked vituperation of public controversies" that resulted from the proliferation of new voices and new publications. The elements behind the rise of Jacksonian radical politics is absent, as is any treatment of the economic factors that encouraged the enterprise and careers she celebrates.
More troubling is her misreading of the religious situation during the period. She notes "the religious revivalists successfully challenged the religious hegemony of the Anglican and Congregational churches," but that hegemony was regional, not national to begin with, and neither the Congregational church, challenged at home by Unitarians and in the western territories by Presbyterians, nor the Anglican church, still attempting to recover from its moribund situation following the war, carried the weight she implies. Moreover, the Presbyterians, Baptists and Methodists had been ceded the field; the proselytizing zeal of the Quakers had long passed, the Dutch and German Reformed churches had never been anything by regional, more concerned with language and culture than with creed and salvation. Apart from the wonderfully vivid accounts of the Cane Ridge revival, I read much of the record of revivals as activities or campaigns that were generated by ministers in established churches attempting to attract new members to church rolls depleted by western migration, rather than an unprecedented religious fervor that swept the country. She does note that women were the vast majority of those affected by the revival and reform movements and credits the Second Great Awakening with bringing blacks, free and slave, into the Protestant church, but neglects any discussion of the significant impact of the African Methodist Episcopal church, for example, in building black communities and opportunity. My conclusion: interesting and stimulating, but unreliable in its interpretation of the major forces of the period.½

Could not get past the 22nd page. Started to read after finishing "John Adams" by David McCullough. Either Mr. McCullough has spoiled me or the book is simply dry.

In this work Appleby, Hunt, and Jacob have assembled a collection of essays in modern historiography that raises important issues for consideration. Excellent text for anyone interested in history as a general study.½

The American Presidents Series: The 3rd President, 1801-1809

Author gave an interesting interview on C-SPAN's Q&A.