Customer Reviews

The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past

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Gaddis examines the nature of history and the function of historians through a wide range of metaphors. By putting forth the question: How long is the British coast line? Gaddis immediately sets out that if we measure in miles we won't get to the alcoves and cubbyholes and we'll probably end up with a nice round number. If we measure in microns and millimeters, it'll take a while but we'll measure every single bend and dog leg and we'll have a much larger number. Many of Gaddis' metaphors spur philosophical discussions but he does not approach them with a philosophical background, instead he sets out to solve a functional question: What is history? Is it a natural science? If it is, then why can we not replicate any historical findings as biology and physiology can? Is it a social science? Then why do other social sciences like economics and anthropology try to find an independent variable upon which everything hangs when historians try to put out the bigger picture? Gaddis' conclusion then is that history is its own beast. It does not mirror either the hard sciences nor the social sciences although it may pick up some of their properties.

Gaddis uses metaphors that seem to have little connection with hsitory, such as fractal geometry and natural sciences. The connections are then developed and this may be a way of making scientists understand the nature of history or giving students with a familiarity in natural sciences a correlation to the study of history. Also, Gaddis' humor makes a philosophical discussion of history a little less tense and certainly more cheerful.

All in all, this book is very readable for a historiography and may appeal to non-historians seeking a perspective on history. The chapters read more like the text of a speech than a textbook so the minimal 140 or so pages will make this a very easy read.

In the opening pages of his new work, The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past, John Lewis Gaddis shares an anecdote. Back in 1938, Gertrude Stein took an airline flight over the United States. From her window seat, Stein realized that the landscape, now far below, had acquired a very distinct form:

[W]hen I looked at the earth I saw all the lines of cubism made at a time when not any painter had ever gone up in an airplane. I saw there on earth the mingling lines of Picasso, coming and going, developing and destroying themselves. (4)

Stein's revelation, writes Gaddis, captures the essence of the historian's task: that of discarding one's immediate context to explore the broader horizon of human experience.
The Landscape of History is an intriguing analysis of the individual's relationship to the broad expanse of the past. It evaluates, specifically, the role of the historian in surveying and portraying elements of this expanse to the modern eye.
Gaddis's talent lies in his treatment of the historian's job as both an art and a science. The study of history, he claims, is suspended somewhere between these two extremes of representation. The historian, like a cartographer, combines the technique of an artist and the method of the scientist. As he maps out the landscape of man's existence, he not only employs tools of precision, but also applies his imagination toward "[reducing] the infinitely complex to a finite, manageable, frame of reference" (32).
This provocative work, traversing as it does over a wide range of ideas, holds something of interest for every reader. The quintessential academic will delight in Gaddis's pithy analyses of fellow historians, such as Paul Johnson, author of The Birth of the Modern, and William H. McNeill of Plagues and Peoples fame. The artiste will appreciate Gaddis's juxtaposition of Jan van Eyck's artwork with Pablo Picasso's, and Virginia Woolf's risqué writings with the cut-and-dried biographical epics of Henry Adams.
Those of us who may be neither very academic nor very artistic, but simply enjoy a stimulating, well-written book, will immediately identify with Gaddis's friendly, conversational writing style. Do not be intimidated by such Oxfordian-sounding concepts as "particular generalization," "general particularization," or "causation, contingency, and counterfactuals" (62, 63, 91). Gaddis quickly follows up on such pretentious language with colorful, yet intelligent, illustrations. You will not find too many other historians who compare Thucydides' work to Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan," or who see hobbit-like tendencies in contemporary social scientists (13, 92).
However enjoyable Gaddis's writing and ideas may be, he fails to impose limits on himself in the exploration of his topic. In his zeal to compare and contrast different fields of study and their methods, he overextends himself, creating inconsistencies in his analysis. For example, he links evolutionary theory with the study of history, claiming that both "practice the remote sensing of phenomena with which they can never directly interact" (44). Leaving aside the debate of whether or not one can interact with history as it occurs around us, this comparison fails to provide Gaddis's intended link between natural science and history. Evolutionary theory, dealing as it does with lower forms of life, does not match Gaddis's almost spiritual portrayal of history as the seamless story of mankind.
Despite such gaps, Gaddis's book is a delightful read. All readers will identify with his invitation to explore our identity through our past, and to gaze in wonder on the broad expanse of time both behind and before us. He will have us asking of ourselves, along with Twelfth Night's Viola, "What country, friends, is this?" (16).

This short (151 pages) book, really an extended essay, is more of a philosophical meditation on the nature of the historian's craft than it is an instruction manual of historical method. But this is not an esoteric treatise on the nature of causation, or a reflection on such deep questions as the nature of truth, although these issues are addressed briefly, particularly in the chapter entitled, "Causation, Contingency, and Counterfactuals." Most of the work, however, is devoted to various comparisons of History with Science. There are some tremendously interesting observations here. Gaddis points out that many branches of science, such as geology and evolutionary science, are founded on propositions that are no more experimentally verifiable than are the observations of historians. It is worth noting that these, like history, deal with events that occur over extended periods of time. He also draws parallels with modern physics (relativity, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle) and fractal geometry, and makes allusions to certain aspects of chaos theory and set theory. One scientific area that he does not mention is computer science, but the study of neural networks and programs employing "fuzzy logic" could also be used to bolster his contention that many fields of modern science contain within their basic postulates an element of uncertainty and unpredictability that mirror the apparent capriciousness of the course of human affairs. He draws a distinction between those areas of science and others, particularly the "social sciences" and especially economics, which, in his view, attempt to describe complex problems in terms of rigid, categorically independent and dependent variables. Because these approaches oversimplify to the point of absurdity, he argues that they cannot approximate, or, in his formulation, "represent" reality to an acceptable degree.

There is much in this short book to provoke thought. I don't know much about chaos theory or fractal geometry, and so I cannot comment as to whether Gaddis is merely picking and choosing from the periphery of those fields to illustrate his point, or whether he is truly describing fundamental similarities. Certainly, he does not provide detailed descriptions. And that, perhaps, is the main weakness of the book. The flip tone that he employs at numerous points undermines the seriousness of the discussion and contributes to an impression of a dilettantism, which is not mitigated by a more detailed description of the complex scientific concepts to which he alludes. The overall sense is of undergraduate lectures by a bright professor who is trying to connect his young audience with some difficult concepts. In some ways, however, that is a strength, in that the argument is more accessible than it would be otherwise. But there is a price to be paid.

I had the privilege of attending Prof. Gaddis' lectures in Oxford, and enjoyed every minute of it. His writing accurately reflects the lectures; the only thing missing is the Q&A at the end.

This is not a methodological how-to for historians, it is a philosophical look at the tradecraft, mostly done by comparing it to other disciplines, especially the hard sciences and social sciences. Historians will no doubt enjoy reviewing (maybe reitering) what they've been doing all along; students will undoubtedly learn much from this study.

Many of the critical comments during the Q&A reflected current fads in historiography, such as subaltern studies, triumphalism, etc. Some of this made it into the book, in Prof. Gaddis' emphasis on solid academic analysis. It is impossible to achieve a totally detached point of view, but the historian should strive toward that goal through the rigors of an honest review of the facts, and the subsequent interpretation. Causation is a difficult point here, in that the latest fads attempt to ascribe causation to whatever their favorite subaltern. Prof. Gaddis notes that causation is perhaps the best we can hope for, turning the clock backwards, searching for the point of no return in events leading to the subject in question.

His use of metaphors lends much humor to the book, I especially empathized with the one about the spilled truckload of Marmite on the highway between Oxford and London.

All in all, a delightful book to read, I hope it quickly replaces the really tedious textbooks normally assigned to the study of historiography; it will add greatly to classes on methodology.

Thanks you, Prof. Gaddis, for this witty, eminently readable gem of a book.

As the CIA University breaks new ground on analytic tradecraft, this book leaps to the forefront as a brilliant exposition on the historian's method as a foundation for the new craft of intelligence. It should be required reading for every person--at entry, journeyman, or master level--who presumes to be an intelligence analyst for government or the military or law enforcement or business. Although the author sets for himself the more modest goal of describing how historians think, what he has actually produced is a marvelously balanced overview of how to "do" deep analysis.

He is bluntly critical of the political science and social science communities, branding them with an inability to engage in methodical research or articulation.

His comments over the course of this 192-page gem, with a good index, world-class notes, but no bibliography, cover his methods in detecting larger patterns of the period being studied; distinguishing between the larger reality being studied and the representations of reality actually available to the student; the art of distillation and emphasis; the many trade-offs that must be made in depicting reality; the manipulation of time and space with the advantage of being able to see distant places simultaneously but the disadvantage of having fragmentary and conflicting depictions to work with; the craft of historical selectivity and shifting of scale to paint a picture as much as to document with scientific rigor; the use of abstraction as a relative truth, accepting that with all the objectivity possible, there is no such thing as absolute truth; how to create a theory of relationships among people, places, things, and events; and--skipping over many other points of tradecraft--how at the end of it all, the historian must be compelling in their presentation of the information.

History is a "denied area." When we combine our current lack of appreciation of history across all the disciplines, with our long track record of disdain for religion and culture as fundamental aspects of the total intelligence picture, we must recognize that we have created many "virtual denied areas" for ourselves, Islam being but one of many. In that vein, this book can be considered a primer on how to go about understanding a "denied area" by substituting analytic tradecraft for the multiplicity of sources that characterize the more obvious targets of our interest.

Overall this work is a tribute to the value of historians to Presidents, Prime Ministers, and Chief Executive Officers: "to interpret the past for the purposes of the present with a view to managing the future." It ends by placing history as the foundation for teaching; for balance in society and between societies; and as a sine qua non for wisdom and maturity.

This is, quite simply, an elegant timeless piece of work.

On the whole, I avoid scientific subjects whenever I can. I am decidely of a poetic and literary turn of mind and science makes my head ache.

However, Mr. Gaddis has such an elegant mind and writes so clearly that even a tyro in the fields of "hard science" and historiography can enjoy this slim book. Although Gaddis uses scientific terms he very carefully explains what each means rather than assume that his reader is familiar with such jargon. I was easily able to understand, absorb and apply his arguments.

Thus, this book made me feel that I am much smarter than I probably am. This is decidedly better than reading an author who acts superior and makes me fear that I am a dunderhead. But this does not imply that Mr. G. talks down to his reader. He respects his audience and treats them as intelligent adults.

If you have any desire to understand how historians work and where their discipline intersects with the other sciences this is a book you should not miss.

First delivered as lectures at Oxford, "The Landscape of History" is eloquent, short, witty -- and evanescent. The reader should know that author Gaddis does NOT describe how historians weigh evidence and construct narratives about the past on the basis of surviving documents and other data. Instead, he attempts to put the discipline of history on a solid intellectual foundation by stressing its similarities to observation-based disciplines such as astronomy and paleontology, which, like history, do not rely on repeatable laboratory experiments yet manage to achieve the status of "hard" sciences. The effort to defend history's intellectual credentials is unnecessary since our ability to make sense of past human conduct is part of human self-understanding and thus stands in no need of "foundations." It is also farfetched: I almost put down the book for good when Gaddis outlined the affinities between biography and fractal geometry. On the other hand, the chapter on causation and counterfactuals is quite good. My advice to prospective buyers: wait for "The Landscape of History" to show up in remaindered book catalogues, which should happen by 2004. In the meantime, read some essays on historiography by Isaiah Berlin or Michael Oakeshott.

If it wasn't for Gaddis' reputation as a historian, I doubt this little book would have garnered so much attention. Gaddis had noble aspirations to complete the studies of Bloch and Carr, but unfortunately those aspirations seemed to get the better of him, as he came up far short of his predecessors. There are some clever little musings in this collection of essays, but very little that reveals the art or science of history.

He starts with the evocative painting on the cover, referring to history as mist-shrouded landscape which historians hope to reveal. If he would have stuck with this metaphor, and elaborated on it in a series of revealing essays, then this might have indeed been a trenchant study of history. Instead, Gaddis unabashedly lets the metaphors fall where they may, mixing them freely, and in the end coming up with a fog as thick as pea soup.

He makes a case for the narrative form in history, at the expense of the "mechanical view" fostered by the study of the natural sciences. It has only been since the natural sciences adopted the the narrative form with its inherit complexities that Gaddis feels the natural sciences have come closer to the approach historians use to reveal the past. But, Gaddis is too caught up in his use of metaphors to reveal the "ductwork" of the Historian's craft. In the end, he says that this is the principal tool historians have at their disposal to relate the past to the present.

These essays may have made for charming lectures at Oxford, but they don't stand up so well in printed form. Gaddis paints the study of history with a very broad brush, with some rather sweeping generalizations of the other sciences.