Customer Reviews

Historical Truth and Lies About the Past: Reflections on Dewey, Dreyfus, de Man, and Reagan

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I must agree with Alan Kirby above. Spitzer is far more concerned with impressing his post-structuralist colleagues with his familiarity with the latest in literary theory than in doing serious history. I was expecting a serious grappling with misrepresentation of truth in history, and instead got the tired academic canard of truth as not really existing in the first place. I guess Spitzer didn't feel the need to do the hard archival work to find out what really happened in the Bitburg case, or in the cases of Paul de Man, or Dreyfus, or Dewey.

Spitzer's writing style is very difficult and cumbersome, and often it was very hard to follow where he was going. As a senior undergraduate history student, I found this book to be not worth wading through, (though I unfortunately had little choice). Probably good for professional historians, but otherwise I would recommend Appleby et al or Gilderhus for better, clearer, more concise texts on historical philosophy.

I have to confess that I don't know what the title of this review means. I'm also not sure what the phrase means in its original context: I'm quoting it from page 111 of Alan Spitzer's "Historical Truth and Lies About the Past". I feel it's still an appropriate title, however, since it reflects the essential character of the book: unwieldy jargon-heavy prose without much in the way of clear meaning or importance.

In short, "Historical Truth and Lies About the Past" is (so far as I can tell) a book that does not have much to say, and what it does have to say is neither important, interesting, informative, nor well said. Spitzer, an octogenarian professor emeritus of French intellectual history, seems to be writing for postmodernists or those studying postmodern historical philosophies. Those who don't fit that description (and quite possibly those who do) will most likely not enjoy the book nor find it useful for any purpose.

There is really only one worthwhile observation in "Historical Truth and Lies About the Past", and it's simple enough to state fully here. Spitzer notes that in "politically-charged" debates involving historical issues, people usually argue in terms of evidence and objective fact even if their beliefs were adopted for other reasons, such as ideology or pragmatism. For example, a Stalinist arguing that Trotsky was a counterrevolutionary traitor to the working class would not come right out and say that he believed this because it was the Party line. That would not be very convincing to those who did not necessarily accept the omniscience of Stalin and the Communist Party. Instead the Stalinist would talk about meetings between Trotsky and other traitors, nefarious plots, menacing conspiracies, etc. -- even though this "evidence" was not particularly convincing and was not the actual reason for the Stalinist's belief in the guilt of Trotsky.

It's a rather trivial point, but the bulk of the book consists of examples of people giving weak evidence-based arguments on issues (the Dewey Commission's inquiry into Trotsky's guilt, the Dreyfus affair, Paul de Man's WWII-era writings for the collaborationist Belgian press, and Ronald Reagan's flights of fancy) where their own beliefs came from different sources. Towards the end of the book, Spitzer devotes a good deal of ink to scolding both postmodernist academics who claim to reject the existence of historical truth but then argue in terms of it, as well as conservatives who excoriate the postmodernists for threatening the concept of truth but then fall over themselves to forgive lies spouted by Reagan and other right-wing politicians.

There's not really anything particularly novel or noteworthy in that, all of which has been said (and said better) in numerous other sources. I had to read this book for school; if the same fate has befallen you, you have my condolences. Otherwise don't waste your time on "Historical Truth and Lies About the Past".

Democracy cannot survive without the support of an informed public, which is why dictators seek to control the media from day one. Nothing can be more timely now than the search for the truth. This important book, which is used as a college text, should be read by the general public.