Lynn HuntBesprekingen

This was a fascinating alternative historical perspective on how "human rights" came to shape the American and French Revolutions. Of particular interest to me, was Hunt's convincing argument in Chapter One that 18th century epistolary novels helped create a sense of "inner-self," in readers, thus promoting empathy for "other" that extended to strangers and previously undervalued citizens. The chapter on torture was also fascinating, as Hunt argued that awareness of inner self led to a belief that our bodies are our own and only we have the right to our own bodies - which created a concrete turn of public opinion toward notions of discipline and torture.

In all, I really loved the perspectives offered in this book and loved how each point was tied to historical fact. Even if you don't agree with the conclusions Hunt draws from those facts, I highly recommend mulling the entire book over!

1/28/23

Four long essays that outline the state of affairs in history studies at the beginning of the 21st century. Lynn Hunt gives a balanced overview of the successive evolutions. Naturally, she sets her own accents, with a particularly striking plea to take socio-cultural aspects seriously. This is a clear criticism of the Global History movement, which, certainly in its initial phase, viewed history too much from an economic point of view. These essays may require some prior knowledge, but in any case, they are among the better works in overviews of recent historiography. More on that in my History account on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2396103528

NA

A limited but informative look at the "rights revolution" in the 18th Century, when early liberals invented the concept of human rights and helped outlaw gruesome punishments and torture. The book was short but also felt a little stretched thin, like it needed an extra major point of argument to bolster its contention. I enjoyed Steven Pinker's briefer popularization of Hunt's work in "The Better Angels Of Our Nature" more.

I feel as if I have to justify this enthusiastic rating. With the admission that I'm no scholar of the era, I'll just go ahead and say the book was incredibly interesting, informative, and accessible. Thoroughly enjoyed it, if one can "enjoy" learning about all the ways in which liberté and égalité only applied to half the population.

This book focusses on the concept of temporality that is underlying the study of history, as it was developed as an academic discipline between the 17th and the 19th century. This concept often is also called ‘modernity’. Hunt sketches the strengths and weaknesses of this way of looking at the past as a distinct field of study. In this she subscribes to the theory developed by the German philosopher of history Reinhart Koselleck in the 1970’s, but also offers a way out of the modernity-focus. For a more elaborate review: see my History-account on Goodreads, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1563326852

Lynn Hunt writes with the intention of showing “how a new generation of historians of culture use literary techniques an approaches to develop new materials and methods of analysis” (pg. 15). Summarizing the field of cultural history in 1989, Lynn Hunt traces the development of the Annales school, dominated by Fernand Braudel, and the Marxist school. Following the 1970s and the rise of Michel Foucault, both schools turned their attention to culture. Hunt writes, “Just as social history sometimes moved from one group to another (workers, women, children, ethnic groups, the old, the young) without developing much sense of cohesion or interaction between topics, so too a cultural history defined topically could degenerate into an endless search for new cultural practices to describe, whether carnivals, cat massacres, or impotence trials” (pg. 9). Hunt continues, “At the moment, the anthropological model reigns supreme in cultural approaches. Rituals, carnivalesque inversions, and rites of passage are being found in every country and almost every century. The quantitative study of mentalités as the ‘third level’ of social experience never had many followers outside of France” (pg. 11). Turning to Clifford Geertz, Hunt writes, “The deciphering of meaning, then, rather than the inference of causal laws of explanation, is taken to be the central task of cultural history, just as it was posed by Geertz to be the central task of cultural anthropology” (pg. 12). At the time of writing, Hunt points out that most historians (with the exception of Roger Chartier) were reluctant to use literary theory. Hunt further argues that the language of metaphor is crucial to cultural history (pg. 16). Hunt continues, “Words did not just reflect social and political reality; they were instruments for transforming reality” (pg. 17). Hunt concludes, “For the moment, as this volume shows, the accent in cultural history is on close examination – of texts, of pictures, and of actions – and on open-mindedness to what those examinations will reveal, rather than on elaboration of new master narratives or social theories to replace the materialist reductionism of Marxism and the Annales school” (pg. 22).

L'Histoire doit être transnationale. Comment peut-on écrire l'histoire d'une nation dans un contexte global comme le nôtre?

The first half of the book, which is full of intriguing ideas, deep research and on-point examples, deserves at least 4 stars. The second half, however, is much weaker, and while still interesting, lacks the same spark of original insight so much on display in the first section. I found her discussion of the foundations of human rights in the emerging ability of humans to empathize, formed by the new genre of the epistolary novels.

A selection of essays and primary source documents concerning the French Revolution and the theories and debates of human rights.

It is very interesting, to the political American reader, to see exactly where his French compatriots agreed and demurred from their own revolution.

This book, if I'm not mistaken start out as Hunt's PhD thesis. She started out trying to prove that there was still some merit to the Marxist interpretation of the revolution. However, it would seem her research then changed to studying the Symbology of the revolution which the first half of the book is dedicated to. In the first half of the book she looks at multiple symbols ranging from modes of the dress to seals to the minting of coins. It was interesting to see that in a revolution that wanted to see everyone is equal they wrestled with the idea of creating clothes that would distinguish the political leaders and ordinary citizen which in a way reinforce the old class distinctions. Another interesting thing that you see in the revolution is the use of a Hercules as an image to represent the people's will in the sense that it is an unstoppable and deadly force. While later on in the revolution, after the Terror images of the Hercules change to one of a more fatherly figure represented downswing in popular violence.

The second half of the book is more technical and looks at The revolution in the in a sociological mode which looks at the class breakdown across France during the revolution. It wasn't as interesting as the first half of the book and more than likely put in to have quantitative data to support her conclusion, which basically was that the politics of the day do not fit into the Marxist framework as there's too many things going on for the revolution just to be based on social classes. Although, it still has merit and can help you in understanding the revolution it just might be able to slog.

Overall the book was pretty interesting, however the average reader will probably only be interested in the first half of the book as the second half is bogged down with stats, that are probably only of interest to historical researchers.One thing I like about Hunt is that she'd are readable and although she takes complex topics shipwreck sit down and away that the average reader can understand. While probably not as interesting as the latest page turner if you're interested in the French revolution Hunt's is not a bad place to start.½

An interesting little book about the evolution of human rights from he 1700's to today. At the beginning of the book Hunt asks an interesting question if human rights are "self evident" such as many decelerations of the time stated then why was it not until the 1700s that the issue of rights was championed? Hunt try's to answer this in the first half of the book saying that two things had to happen before human rights took center stage.

The First is that society had to develop a kind of social empathy for others. In her opinion the seed bed for this empathy came from the development of the epistolary novel as they gave the reader a seance of realism that a normal novel could not and made it easier for the reader, usually wealthy aristocrats to come to realize that there servants and peasants hand inner thoughts and problems just as they did thus humanizing them to an extent that it was harder to see just the social class. This would lead to other ideas of empathy that she discusses later in the chapter. The next change that had to happen was how the human body was viewed. According to Hunt prior to the 1700 the body was seen as just the shell holding the soul before death and thus not important but during the late1700's this changed into the idea that the body was sacred and belong to the individual. This would then lead to the protesting of judicial torture and movements all around Europe to abolish it.

Once empathy and the sacredness of the human body took place in society you then can have the start o the discussion of human rights which she devotes the rest of the book too. Hunt manly looks at the French Deceleration of Man and the problems they faced once stating all citizens had rights. such as realizing that each group such as Protestants, Jews, and slaves would argue for there rights and feel that there rights were being abused if not included. Which hunt also argues as one of the problems of declaring rights, that once done there will always be a group that seeks to address abuses and a society walks a thin line id dealing with each case while trying to live up to the ideals of their original intent. The last chapter looks more at the modern era and the creation of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the limitations of empathy as a motivation for human rights. The most interesting argument Hunt makes can be found here at the end of the chapter were she argues that with the creation of human rights also brought with it a whole host of evil twins stating

"The call for universal, equal and natural right stimulated the growth of new and sometimes fanatical ideologies of difference. New modes for gaining empathetic understanding opened the way to a sensationalism of violence. The effort to dislodge cruelty from the legal, judicial, and religious moorings made it more accessible as a everyday tool of domination and dehumanization. The utterly dehumanizing crimes of the twentieth century only become conceivable once everyone could claim to be equal members of the human family. . .Empathy has not been extinguished, as some have claimed. It has become a more powerful force for good then ever before. But the countervailing effect of violence, pain and domination is also greater then ever before."

Hunt end on a note that while humanity record on human rights has been rather mixed there is still hope as long as we strive for the ideals we have set.

The only real complaint i have with the book is that I wish some of the historical topics in the 2nd half of the book were covered more in-depth as a feel they were glossed over a little bit. Like I said a interesting little book that deals with some heavy stuff but presents in a very easy to understand way and gets to the hart of why human rights are important.½

The authors claim that a now little known work, _Religious Ceremonies of the World_, a heavily illustrated set of volumes intending to display the religious practices of all the groups known to westerners at the beginning of the 18th century, had a major influence on how religion was viewed. This work is comprehenseive, exploring the personal histories of the engraver, Bernard Picard, and the author and publisher, Jean Bernard, as well as their careers and their motives for the publication. Unfortunately the reduction of folio size engravings to a contemporary hardcover makes it impossible to appreciate the details of the engravings. This book is an important addition to the history of ideas about religion in the West.

A Nova História Cultural enfatiza a importância do significado na ação social. A obra, saudada pela crítica americana como extremamente importante, apresenta uma argumentação até certo ponto provocativa em defesa dos princípios que fundamentam a Nova História Cultural, explicando os seus objetivos e mostrando o quanto é complexa a recuperação da dinâmica da expressão e interpretação do passado.

A solid, if unexceptional, accompaniment to the Making of the West textbook. It would benefit from the inclusion of more diverse sources, and from better contextualisation and glosses, especially on those texts related to the history of Islam. Students found those particularly hard to grapple with because they did not have the necessary cultural/historical background knowledge.½

Both over and under written. Overwritten--academically lush writing. Underwritten--much of which seemed to boil down to little. After rereading several passages I was not convinced that the particular chapter authors actually understood (or had read for themselves) materials they referred to--that is they didn't know well the political or philosophical works/writers that they brought into their discussions. At other times my overwhelming response was -- so what, you haven't added anything new to the discussion.

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

“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.

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

Dr. Nabeel Yasin, the Iraqi poet, writer, academic and politician, has chosen to discuss Lynn Hunt's Inventing Human Rights: A History, on FiveBooks as one of the top five on his subject - Democracy in Iraq, saying that:

“This book describes the struggle for human rights in Europe. For me the most important thing about this book is that is reminds the people who live in democratic states and societies about how the struggle for human rights started 500 years ago. These modern people are able to enjoy the fruits of that struggle. Iraqi people say we need 500 years to put things right and become properly democratic but they are wrong.”

The full interview is available here: http://five-books.com/interviews/nabeel-yasin