On the
against-the-grain and very valuable types of sources at the heart of Jennings’
book.
In the
first of my Beach Read posts, when I recommended Alfred
Young’s The Shoemaker and the Tea Party,
I noted that some of the most famous and best-selling works of public American
historical scholarship focus on the Revolutionary era: that would especially include
David
McCullough’s works, but also a similarly successful book like Joseph
Ellis’ Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary
Generation. As I wrote in that post, such works tend to be more narrative
than analytical, telling compelling American stories but not necessarily
engaging with the complex questions and contexts to which they connect. And
these most prominent Revolutionary histories also share another limitation, not
only with each other but also with some more analytical and almost equally famous
books like Gordon
Wood’s The Radicalism of the American
Revolution: they focus almost entirely on the Revolutionary activities
and ideas of the Framers and of the founding documents they produced.
So central
have those people and ideas been to our narratives of the Revolution that it
can be difficult to imagine what a history of the period would look like that
didn’t focus on them. But that was Jennings’ goal, and he illustrates how he
tried to do it in an Introduction paragraph describing his preferred sources
for the book:
“In a
sense, this book is not so much revisionist as a choice of existing but
neglected intepretations. It rejects what currently dominant writers like to
call ‘mainstream’ history—that is, theirs—and opts instead for studies done by
specialists drudging through sources neglected by the mainstreamers. Such
specialists have produced a large body of work generally omitted from standard
preachments because of its irrefutable contradictions of orthodoxy. I have not
indulged myself by simply dreaming up an eccentric fantasy. Rather, I have
given attention to the implications of some of these alternative researches.”
Despite the
pararaph’s somewhat ornery tone (present throughout Jennings’ book; but when
eighty-two years old you reach, write as jovially you will not), this is
actually a profoundly open and generous perspective. It’s easy to imagine that a
very senior and established historian and scholar would either rely on his own
existing ideas or put himself in conversation with other particularly prominent
voices; but instead Jennings is quite directly advocating seeking out other
voices, often those of younger scholars but in any case those who have for
whatever reason not received as much attention. In fact, he’s arguing something
more—that the lack of attention might be a sign that these voices and ideas
offer us something new and important, without which our narratives and analyses
will remain too static and one-sided.
As a
public American scholar (at least in aim!), I spend a lot of time thinking
about audiences, and how best to reach them. But as Jennings reminds us here,
we public scholars should likewise think about our own community and conversations,
about with which of our peers we want to especially engage. After all, in doing
so we’re not only modeling certain kinds of analyses and approaches; we’re also
helping highlight the ideas and works by those other scholars. Certainly some
of the most already prominent voices can and must be echoed; but there’s even
more value, Jennings and I would argue, in conversing with those who have a lot
more to offer than our conversations yet include.
Next
inspiring quote tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Any not-yet prominent enough scholars or voices you’d highlight?
7/25 Memory Day nominee: Thomas Eakins, whose realistic and humanistic paintings helped change American
art, culture, and society as much as any single
19th century artist or figure.
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