1.

1 The Proper Attitude

In History as in life in general, your attitude is everything. In other words, to make your experience with History
as enjoyable and worthwhile as possible requires the proper attitude. You have to be able to place yourself in
the right frame of mind and that frame of mind is one in which exploration, discovery and self-awareness are
integral.

History has always gotten a bad rap in part because what students remember of their experience in history
classes is that sort of mindless memorization of facts: dates, events, wars--what I routinely refer to as "the
history of kings and queens." This sort of history has its place, I suppose. It does qualify as History, but of a
most basic sort. A case in point: go to your local bookstore, go to several in fact, and take a look at what they
have on the shelves under history. Unless you are at one of the larger stores like Borders, Barnes & Noble, or at
a university bookstore, I'm willing to bet that most of what falls under History is really little more than war. We
have a fascination for war--I don't know why. But, the fact remains, that for most people, the study of history
means little else than the study of war.

This confuses me! All these facts. All this stuff of history crowding my mind. A number of surveys over the
years have pointed to the disturbing fact that Americans don't know history. They don't know their own history.
Here is a typical question from one of those surveys: Did the Civil War take place before, or after 1850?
Hopefully, you did not need to find your textbook for the answer to that one. But there is a deeper issue here. To
know, to have the knowledge, to have committed to memory the simple fact that the Civil War took place after
1850 is, to me relatively unimportant. After all, anyone can learn to memorize, well, anything. Is this history?
What have you learned? What I would like to suggest is that you learned a fact--you have obtained knowledge.
But, far more important to me is wisdom. Does the knowledge that the Civil War took place after 1850 give you
wisdom? does it make you wiser? Or, are facts and wisdom gained through knowledge two distinct entities?

Some people like to read about war. For these people, it is war that "makes history come alive" (as if it needed
any prodding in the first place). Military history is fascinating but, in my opinion, only meaningful (historically)
when put into the context of the "other" history that is occurring at the same time. What is that "other" history?
Simple. It's the history which explains why that war took place in terms of the economy, culture, diplomacy and
perhaps a hundred other variables. In general, most Americans would rather be "entertained" by passively
watching a film about war rather than listen to someone talk about the origins and consequences of that war.

So, this much said, what sort of attitude do we need to have when studying history? Well, the first thing is that
you should not enter a history class--any history class--looking for answers. The study of history reveals that
there is no clear cut answer for anything. Since understanding history is based on individual--and therefore
subjective--interpretation, you must decide for yourself what kind of meaning you will attach to the topic. Go
into history with an open mind. Don't expect the answer to be presented to you as if written in stone. It's not.
History is not a science--it's a form of literature and the historian is little more than a writer of non-fiction.

A number of years ago I was teaching the second part of a western civilization course at a community college.
We had just spent four or five lectures running through the French Revolution. The students had heard lectures
on the origins of the Revolution, the moderate stage, the radical stage, Robespierre and finally Napoleon. Now
it came time to review. Twenty of us sat in a circle and set out to "discuss" the meaning and significance of the
French Revolution. Was it successful? was it a failure? did the Revolution come as a result of the Age of
Enlightenment? was it a bourgeois revolution? I began the discussion by reviewing the "great days" of the
Revolution, events like the Oath of the Tennis Court or the Flight to Varennes and people like Robespierre and
so on. So, we eventually got to the point where we were discussing interpretation. Some students spoke up and
said the Revolution was a success, others said it was a failure. This went on for ten or fifteen minutes until one
student raised her hand and said, plain as day, "Well, which is it? Was it a success or a failure?" She sat in her
chair, her pen poised to write...the answer! All I could say was, "Well, what do you think?" I immediately saw a
brick wall. She didn't get it. Some of us don't. We build brick walls as a short cut to thinking. "There must be an
answer. What is it? I don't want to think. I want to know." So much for wisdom.

You can avoid this trap. It's not that hard. You have to open your eyes, open your mind. Tear down the walls.
Study history with a sense of wonder and enjoyment. After all, this "stuff"' is all happening in the past. Study
history with a sense of engagement. There ought to be a sense of "what was it like" when you study history.
Really good professors will instill this sense of wonder, that is, if they are worth anything at all. More about this
later.

I've seen a great many students come and go in my own classes in Western Civilization and European History.
And one thing that will help them embrace the proper attitude is that they all get a sense of historical time. Yes,
this does mean that you understand what came before this or after that. You must get into the habit, difficult as
it might at first seem, of putting things into historical and chronological perspective. You must make yourself
aware of historical time. Look at the big picture (Europe 1100-1650) even while you are studying the small one
(the Renaissance) or the even smaller one (Florentine diplomacy). You must be able to eventually "image" a
timeline in your head so that when your professor rambles on about Dante, Rabelais, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and
Cervantes, you'll have an approximate idea of how his discussion might all be tied together. I think that once
you get in this habit, your appreciation for history, in a word, your attitude, will begin to show signs of
improvement as well.

Another important attribute which may assist in creating the proper attitude is television and film. I mean this
seriously. How else can you actually understand a lecture on say, the Black Death of 1347-1351, unless you
have some real images in your head? Your textbook will contain the obligatory photographs, of course. And this
will help. So too will an instructor who can really instill the terror, uncertainty and anguish of the people at that
time. But, I have always found that my memories of watching Ingmar Bergman's film, "The Seventh Seal", has
always helped me visualize mid-fourteenth century Europe. Think of all the films you might have seen. Go
ahead, do it right now.....do any of them provide you with images of history past? Where else do our images of
the past come from?

For instance, up to a certain point in time, my image of World War Two was fashioned by watching Hollywood
films, you know, John Wayne, Dana Andrews, Gregory Peck and so on. Americans charging up hills toward
victory. The hero, shot in the final scene, asks for a smoke with his dying breath. Blatant or subtle propaganda?
You decide. The point is that I grew up with a sort of idealized--mythical--version of war that just does not
stand up to the historical record. However, the images remain "Image" as much as possible.

Here's an example before we pass on to the next section. In my introductory lecture on the Scientific Revolution
I ask my students to "image" a scientist. Go ahead. Do the same thing right now. What does a scientist look
like? How is the scientist dressed? What does his office look like? Is the scientist a man or a woman? Okay,
what did you "image"? I'm almost certain I know what you are seeing because that image of the scientist---wild
hair, disorganized, absent-minded, dedicated to truth, unemotional---are all images we've silently digested from
Hollywood.

Can you successfully complete a course in history without having the proper attitude? Of course you can. But
why take the short cut? Why not make the effort. Rather than go through the motions, make history part of your
life. After all, that's exactly what history is--it is your life.
1.2 Why Study History?
Let's face it, our first experience with History is that it is a course that we have to take in order to graduate. As a
junior and senior high school student we are confronted with American history, state history and perhaps even a
general course in western civilization or world history. We didn't have a choice. And the fact that we are forced
to take history puts us on the offensive. We begin to build that grandiose brick wall that will prevent us from
getting anything important out of history.

The main problem as I see it, is not history itself. The study of history can be fun. But there's only one thing that
can make our first experience with history a miserable thing indeed: and that's a poor instructor. I was fortunate.
I managed to have a number of excellent history instructors throughout my high school years and this was at a
time when I was leaning toward the physical sciences, geology and biology to be exact. I might not have been
an excellent history student, but I do remember having excellent history teachers.

Fine. That's my experience. But experience aside, why study history in the first place? What could history offer
the business major? the student intending to study web page development? the student taking her first
psychology class? or pre-med student? or the lawyer? or the worker on the shop floor? Well, simply stated,
everything has a history, whether we like it or not. Even history itself has a history. Try hard as we might, we
can't escape the past. We can't let go of the past. And we celebrate the past all the time.

You may have been told that we study history so that we won't repeat the mistakes of the past. This is the
wishful thinking school of historical interpretation. It's too clean. If we have learned from the past then over the
centuries we ought to have accumulated so much knowledge that things like war, poverty, injustice and
immorality ought not to exist. Of course, we've still got a long way to go in this respect.

You may also have heard that everything repeats itself, so if we study the past, we can be sure to know
something of the future. I don't hold to this view either. To insist that the study of the past will reveal something
of the future is a nice idea, but what I really want to know about is the present. History cannot "tell" the future.
History can, on the other hand, reveal all that is the present. So, faced as we are with the question "why study
history?" I can only hope to answer by telling you why I study history.

Well first off, by studying history you can study anything for the simple reason that everything has a history:
ideas, wars, numbers, races, windsurfing, coal miners, pencils, motherhood and yes, even toilet-training. I first
began to appreciate the study of history as an undergraduate studying political philosophy at Boston University.
I was pretty keen on Plato, Aquinas, Dante, Hobbes, Locke, Godwin, Marx, Mill and a host of other "greats."
But what I soon discovered was that my lack of understanding of history, i.e. the actual historical context in
which these writers conceived and executed their theoretical work, made my understanding of their philosophy
one-sided. Sure, I knew what they had to say about liberty, or the proletariat, or monarchy or the franchise. But
what was the historical environment that gave rise to their ideas? Ideas are not akin to balloons hanging from
the ceiling of Clio's den, waiting to be retrieved by a Marx, a Mill or a Plato. Ideas have a history. They undergo
a process of development. They change, are modified, are distributed or are forgotten only to reappear years,
decades or perhaps even centuries later.
Once I realized this fact it was quite natural that I turn my attention to history itself. And why not? I could still
study Marx or Mill or Plato. Only this time I could do it from the ground up, so to speak. This sort of approach
makes me better able to visualize history in a different way. It gives some sense of "pastness" to the past.

But why do I bother? What's the point? Well, for me, it's a Socratic issue. Socrates was a man of knowledge but
not that much knowledge. As a freshman in high school you probably knew more than Socrates. But, Socrates
was a wise man. He had wisdom because he knew only one thing: that he knew nothing. His "job," so to speak,
was to question the Athenian youth. It was not enough to know something. You had to know why you knew it.
And this, of course, brought him to the greatest question of all: what is knowledge? What can we know? Well,
for Socrates, again, his knowledge consisted in the realization that he knew nothing. This Socratic irony leaves
us rather high and dry but I think there is a greater issue at stake here.

For Socrates, perhaps the highest virtue can be summed up in the phrase, "Know thyself." In other words, of all
the things in the phenomenal world, there is not one so important as yourself. To know yourself means to be
aware of what it is that makes you who you are. And in this respect, the one thing which reveals this knowledge
is history. But people do not live alone, they live in society. And it is in society that the individual comes into
contact with other individuals, all of whom are on the same quest, in varying degrees. So, for Socrates,
knowledge of self does not hinge upon reflection or introspection, but conversation, hence the Socratic
dialogue.

The Socratic dialogue implies that instructor and student meet on an equal footing. Dialogue means
conversation between two or more people. And what is the point of Socratic dialogue? Improvement. Self-
improvement of the instructor and self-improvement of the student.

So why do I study history? or why do I teach history? Well, for me it's a form of selfishness. I wish to improve
myself. And by improving myself I also improve others. This classical pedagogical method is called the
Socratic method. If your instructor isn't at least familiar with it, then I'm afraid your historical education is
going to suffer as a result.

Can you learn history without the Socratic dialogue as your guide? Yes, it can be done. All I am trying to
suggest here is that your experience with history will be a much richer one if you keep in mind that history
means self-knowledge and as students, that should be one of the most important things to you.