It is essential that historians come to grips with the history of the
American people, to attempt to understand the lives those people have
led, and to explore the meanings of those lives, both in their moments
of pride and in their experiences of frustration and despair--and how
the circumstances and purposes of life changed over time. This involves
the thoughtful use of abstractions--meaningful conceptual
frameworks--to formulate and develop the questions to be explored, even
when the outward or ostensible focus of the inquiry is a small, local
community. Just as it is possible to ask large, important questions of
very small places, it is also possible to ask small and unimportant
questions of ostensibly large events and places. It is up to us to
decide which path we follow in our exploration of the past. Photo: Star
Valley farm homestead home and granary, abandoned.
The Abstract Past and the Real World
First, consider the nature of concepts, of abstractions, and how they need to be connected to real life to have real meaning.
Poet Stephen Dunn expresses it poignantly in his "Tenderness" and helps us make the connection between abstractions and real life:
Oh abstractions are just abstract
until they have an ache in them.
And so does Mark Singer, writing in The New Yorker about Oklahoma tornadoes (Daily Comment, May 22, 2013):
Catastrophe is an abstraction until, abruptly, it no longer is.
Then move to the academy and ponder these two perspectives on the role of the historian:
Individually and together, these observations suggest the importance of history and, indeed, the justification of the study of the past at all, a study that must draw upon concepts and abstractions. And that is a starting point.
Poet Stephen Dunn expresses it poignantly in his "Tenderness" and helps us make the connection between abstractions and real life:
Oh abstractions are just abstract
until they have an ache in them.
And so does Mark Singer, writing in The New Yorker about Oklahoma tornadoes (Daily Comment, May 22, 2013):
Catastrophe is an abstraction until, abruptly, it no longer is.
Then move to the academy and ponder these two perspectives on the role of the historian:
- My first tutorial [at Oxford] in 1956 had been on the Reform Act of 1832; I had stayed up straight through one fog filled night applying the finishing touches. My next-to-last sentence said, “Just how close the people of England came to revolution in 1832 is a question that we shall leave with the historians.” I read this to my tutor, and from his vantage point in an easy chair two feet north of the floor he interrupted: “But Morris, we are the historians.”
- They are . . . those questions of human satisfaction, and of the direction of social change, which the historian ought to ponder if history is to claim a position among the significant humanities.
Individually and together, these observations suggest the importance of history and, indeed, the justification of the study of the past at all, a study that must draw upon concepts and abstractions. And that is a starting point.
The Abstract Past and the Real World:
History, Real People, and Real Life
To explore the past is an important, even crucial, endeavor for our understanding of history shapes the way we understand the contemporary world around us and the way we conduct our own lives. While some have narrowed their inquiries to particular investigations, themselves sometimes as narrow as tunnels and just as isolated from other research and teaching issues, I have taken a different approach. This may not be immediately evident, for some of the subjects of my work are ostensibly small and local. It may appear that I am interested in the histories of communities like Sedalia, Missouri; Escalante, Utah; Jackson, Wyoming; or Olustee, Kaw City, and Ponca City, Oklahoma; or communities and businesses along U.S. Route 66 just for their own sakes. But the questions I ask of each of those local places are actually quite large. They have to do with the experiences of people in, and their responses to, the rise of industrial market society, the growing pressures toward standardization, fragmentation, depersonalization, and centralization of authority and relationships in society and economy. In other words, each of the communities (or businesses or local events) that I examine actually offers a microcosm, a laboratory for examination of national issues. Indeed, those issues can only be adequately explored at the local level--the level of real life where people live their lives and make decisions about their own futures--since to look at them at the national level is to accept as a given the social framework in which large national institutions operate, instead of drawing upon the framework in which everyday people live. You do not have to live in Sedalia, in Kaw City, or in Jackson to appreciate the significance of what happened there for your own life.
My work has been an effort to connect the abstract past and the real world. And this website provides an opportunity to bring together some of the different studies I have undertaken so that they can be examined as a coherent whole instead of as so many disparate, disconnected projects. Think of these as case studies of the same broad problem, each revealing different aspect of the whole, each connected to the others, each one illuminating the others.
I also want to be explicit about one concept that appears over and over in my work: modernization. Modernization is much more than simply becoming "modern" in any kind of technological sense. It is a concept that, in the hands of social scientists and some historians, describes the broad pattern of structural change in economy, government, and society to include such aspects as the
A few historians use this concept carefully, thoughtfully, and approvingly as an organizing principle for economic and social development, especially in regards to industrialization and popular responses to the changes industrial market society brought to life. A great many more historians rely on the framework in a less conscious and overt way, assuming that its components amount to self-evident and inexorable "progress" or institutional development. Even in the most skilful and sensitive treatments, however, there are problems, serious problems, with this idea.
That this pattern of modernization has taken place in American society is undeniable. How much this reflected popular needs and responses, however, is a different matter. Substantial evidence suggests that widespread resistance to the forces of modernization accompanied it, and, in fact, much of the current tension and discontent in our society can be traced to the pressures associated with modernization and its narrowing of life to its economic dimension (what E. P. Thompson called "the annunciation of economic man"), its transfer of authority, both public and private, to centralized institutions with agendas and goals of their own, and its fragmentation of society into isolated channels where people become connected more to people across the state, nation, and globe according to their economic roles than to their neighbors across the street with whom they previously shared cultures, institutions, and intimate relationships of exchange and growth. And when historians view modernization as an automatic, technically "rational," and inevitable response to social changes (as some indeed do), they may not be guilty of the "falsification" of the past in an Orwellian sense, but by imbuing the process with a sense of inevitability, they have some of the same effect of narrowing choices available to us today and of obscuring traditions and values to which citizens can appeal as they confront fundamental issues in their lives concerning the organization and purpose of the society in which they live. The past is thus not a dry abstraction.
I have made three lists that follow, one including information about my published books and another providing links to external websites where others have "published" some of my research. The third provides a selection of some of my articles where I develop these issues. The articles are not generally available on the web, but the citation and summary may be helpful. The point is to provide access and to encourage discussion, not to sell books. The first option, of course, is to check your local library; if the books and articles are not there, it might be possible to retrieve them through interlibrary loan. Most local bookstores will not carry these works, but it might be possible to order them if you really want a copy.
My work has been an effort to connect the abstract past and the real world. And this website provides an opportunity to bring together some of the different studies I have undertaken so that they can be examined as a coherent whole instead of as so many disparate, disconnected projects. Think of these as case studies of the same broad problem, each revealing different aspect of the whole, each connected to the others, each one illuminating the others.
I also want to be explicit about one concept that appears over and over in my work: modernization. Modernization is much more than simply becoming "modern" in any kind of technological sense. It is a concept that, in the hands of social scientists and some historians, describes the broad pattern of structural change in economy, government, and society to include such aspects as the
- Impersonalization of social and economic relationships
- Erosion of traditional or parochial loyalties and identities
- Rise of more cosmopolitan identities
- Specialization and synchronization of economic activities
- Growth of a national social structure that embodies a transfer of social, political, and economic authority from local to central levels which can coordinate massive activities in a presumably rational manner.
A few historians use this concept carefully, thoughtfully, and approvingly as an organizing principle for economic and social development, especially in regards to industrialization and popular responses to the changes industrial market society brought to life. A great many more historians rely on the framework in a less conscious and overt way, assuming that its components amount to self-evident and inexorable "progress" or institutional development. Even in the most skilful and sensitive treatments, however, there are problems, serious problems, with this idea.
That this pattern of modernization has taken place in American society is undeniable. How much this reflected popular needs and responses, however, is a different matter. Substantial evidence suggests that widespread resistance to the forces of modernization accompanied it, and, in fact, much of the current tension and discontent in our society can be traced to the pressures associated with modernization and its narrowing of life to its economic dimension (what E. P. Thompson called "the annunciation of economic man"), its transfer of authority, both public and private, to centralized institutions with agendas and goals of their own, and its fragmentation of society into isolated channels where people become connected more to people across the state, nation, and globe according to their economic roles than to their neighbors across the street with whom they previously shared cultures, institutions, and intimate relationships of exchange and growth. And when historians view modernization as an automatic, technically "rational," and inevitable response to social changes (as some indeed do), they may not be guilty of the "falsification" of the past in an Orwellian sense, but by imbuing the process with a sense of inevitability, they have some of the same effect of narrowing choices available to us today and of obscuring traditions and values to which citizens can appeal as they confront fundamental issues in their lives concerning the organization and purpose of the society in which they live. The past is thus not a dry abstraction.
I have made three lists that follow, one including information about my published books and another providing links to external websites where others have "published" some of my research. The third provides a selection of some of my articles where I develop these issues. The articles are not generally available on the web, but the citation and summary may be helpful. The point is to provide access and to encourage discussion, not to sell books. The first option, of course, is to check your local library; if the books and articles are not there, it might be possible to retrieve them through interlibrary loan. Most local bookstores will not carry these works, but it might be possible to order them if you really want a copy.
