September ’23
Since Leopold von Ranke’s ideas regarding the study of history crossed the Atlantic Ocean to America in the late 19th century, history, as a field, has undergone multiple transformative shifts. From the early days of the profession, scholars have debated on the “correct” methods one should utilize to produce history, as well as the overarching goal of producing history. The historiography centered around this debate is both rich and plentiful – engaging it enables the budding historian to learn from the lessons of those before them; pondering this topic as the layman enables one to see how history has been produced since the birth of the profession. One seminal text produced regarding this topic is Peter Novick’s That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and the American Historical Profession, which describes the overarching goal of history as the Noble Dream of producing the grand narrative of history – a fully-encompassing, converging, single, true history. [1] Ultimately, this dream has yet to be materialized in the post-modern American landscape, for the historians of the late 19th century did not account for one of the primary tenets of historical thought: change over time.
Peter Novick aimed to provoke his fellow academic historians “to greater self-consciousness about the nature of our work” by forming a narrative that revealed the change over time within the field of history since Ranke, especially focusing on its use and perception of objectivity. [2] Novick poses that the early professional historians were committed to a historical model of the scientific method, and that “science must be rigidly factual and empirical, shunning hypothesis; the scientific venture was scrupulously neutral on larger questions of end and meaning; and, if systematically pursued, it might ultimately produce a comprehensive, ‘definitive’ history.” [3] The early professional historians relied on their usage of objectivity to actualize the Noble Dream, stemming from a distorted version of Ranke’s ideology. The early professional historians went to great lengths to protect their objectivity, as well as avoid its questioning, to both protect and legitimize the profession in its fledgling days. This led to little deviation from established orthodoxy and non-criticism of then-contemporary works, with historians resorting to the use of racism and Anglosaxonism as the convergences of their syntheses.
In the years leading to the first world war, “some rather mild heterodoxies emerged”, leading to the scope of history being enlarged to encompass “social, economic, and intellectual as well as the political and constitutional” aspects of the past. [4] The creation of these sub-disciplines was seen as a threat to converging objectivity, however historians still thought that they could produce a finite, comprehensive narrative of the past. These New Historians felt that the enlarged scope would nuance the objectivity the profession was striving for.
World War 1 brought disillusionment to professional historians, challenged objectivity, and undermined faith in the Noble Dream. Novick explains that “Many historians lost the optimism and faith in progress, which, as we have seen, had grounded their faith in objectivity.” [5] Historical relativists were not by any means new to the scene, but they had very little spotlight prior to the interwar period. While relativists had no alternative philosophy to provide, “they offered a series of criticisms of the traditional posture of objectivity”, which spurred contemporary currents penetrating the consciousness of historians for the first time. [6] Developments in several schools of thought, namely relativity theory, cultural anthropology, and Legal Realism undermined the power of empirical objectivity. This led to breaches of universalism, one of the founding principles of the profession, within academic Anti-Semitism and academic regionalism. It also resulted in the loss of control over history curriculum in schools and professional historians failing to oust amateurs in the public book-buying market. In other words, “the prewar program of historical professionalization was checked or reversed between the wars.” [7]
The checking of the prewar program caused historiography to fail to converge “towards a single, integrated edifice of historical truth” [8] through controversy over “the war guilt question” and the Civil War. [9] Dueling schools of thought regarding the origins of the first world war and racism caused a chasm to erupt within the profession. The convergence of the earlier generation of historians on race now led to historiographical disarray. “The passions of the period, as reflected in bitter controversy and the overt politicization of scholarship, suggested that the austere detachment which was the putative concomitant of objectivity was not likely to be found in times of troubles.” [10] During the interwar years, these currents produced a pervasive questioning of the founding principle of the American historical profession – the scientific quest for fully objective historical truth.
The onset of World War 2 produced yet another dramatic shift in the profession’s attitude toward objectivity. This was an era of combating ideologies, or as Novick states, “ideological mobilization” in which freedom was pitted against totalitarianism. [11] The notion of the “free world” pervaded American society, and the field of history was no exception. Historical relativism became equivalent to totalitarianism, being the ideology of the enemy. A battle against “cognitive realism” ensued, “aimed at making a clear distinction between the scholarship and science of the Free World and the debased practices of its enemies.” [12] In essence, this new attitude reflected the age of the early professional historians, and thus, faith in the convergence of historiography into a Grand Narrative was restored – the Noble Dream had been revived.
Despite the heightened objectivity and morale of the American historical profession from the early 1940’s to the 1960’s, relativism once more gained footing. The 1960’s saw the “ideological consensus that provided the foundation for this posture collapsed, and it was not to be reconstructed in subsequent decades.” [13] Minorities began to emerge within the academy and gained more of a footing than in previous decades, which led to historiography that combatted the established orthodoxy of objectivity. These groups, namely women and African Americans, were pushed to the periphery – “in both cases arguments for at least semiautonomous cultures, with distinctive values and institutions, were forcefully advanced.” [14] This had an ironic impact on the field, for the major themes advanced by these “at least semiautonomous cultures” of oppression and resistance, among others, greatly undermined the established orthodoxy. [15] Uncertainty now tainted the Noble Dream once more.
Pervasive historical relativism stemming from the 1960’s decentralization of the profession “further undercut the objectivist vision of a convergent past”, causing great fragmentation and loss of morale within the American historical profession. [16] This was mainly, in part, due to “the increase in sheer size” of the scope of history – “As a community grows beyond a certain point it ceases to be a community.” [17] Thus, the increasing size of the discipline diminished its definition overall, causing its boundaries to disappear. Fragmentation led to an unnumerable amount of sub-disciplines gaining an equal footing within the realm of academic history, diminishing yet more the notion of converging, objective historical truth; the Noble Dream was no longer viewed as attainable.
Novick’s text persuasively argues that “the evolution of historians’ attitudes on the objectivity question has always been closely tied to changing social, political, cultural, and professional contexts.” [18] If this is to be taken as correct, and if this analysis has been effective in conveying these changes, then one can conclude Noble Dream was doomed from its conception. The idea of a single, converging, objective Grand Narrative was based on the prediction of future generations having the same viewpoints or ideology, filling in the gaps left behind by previous historians, until fully complete. This appears to be quite ironic – their basis of objectivity was rooted in anti-hypothetical scientific methods, yet their purpose was founded in a hypothesis, or prediction. The work of historians, as understood in the post-modern world, is reflective of their time. Perhaps the early professional historians were ignorant of this truism; regardless, their ignorance was the downfall of their dream.
Bibliography
Novick, Peter. That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and the American Historical Profession. Cabridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
[1] Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and the American Historical Profession (Cabridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
[2] Novick, That Noble Dream (1988). P. 17
[3] Novick, That Noble Dream (1988). P. 37
[4] Novick, That Noble Dream (1988). P. 87
[5] Novick, That Noble Dream (1988). P. 111
[6] Novick, That Noble Dream (1988). P.133
[7] Novick, That Noble Dream (1988). P.197
[8] Novick, That Noble Dream (1988). P.206
[9] Novick, That Noble Dream (1988). P.207
[10] Novick, That Noble Dream (1988). P.249
[11] Novick, That Noble Dream (1988). P.282
[12] Ibid.
[13] Novick, That Noble Dream (1988). P.415
[14] Novick, That Noble Dream (1988). P.491
[15] Ibid.
[16] Novick, That Noble Dream (1988). P.573
[17] Novick, That Noble Dream (1988). P.580
[18] Novick, That Noble Dream (1988). P.628
Dalton G. King 