The Purpose of the Past: Reflections on the Uses of History (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "GARRY WILLS'S BOOK is ostensibly about The Federalist, those eighty-five essays written in 1787-88 to promote the ratification of the newly framed Constitution..." (more)
Key Phrases: regulative fictions, new social historians, United States, American Revolution, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The subtitle of this latest offering from Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Wood (The Radicalism of the American Revolution) is far grander than what he delivers between the covers: a collection of 21 book reviews of works by Simon Schama, Theodore Draper and Joyce Appleby, among others, written over the past three decades for periodicals like the New York Review of Books and the New Republic. Though reviews are occasional pieces not designed to be republished years later, some of Wood's pieces make enduring points. He lambastes scholars who clutter their writing with unintelligible jargon, and he worries that today's historical scholarship, too driven by present concerns, fails to retain a sense of how the past really is different. He makes clear that he prefers old-fashioned political history to cultural history that draws on postmodern theory. Indeed, the book is maddeningly repetitive: Wood invokes Peter Novick's This Noble Dream over and over, though not as often as he laments the use of theory in cultural history and the radical Foucault-like agendas that seem to drive certain literary historians. This volume is not without merit, but rather than appending a short afterword to each review, Wood would have done better to craft a new, unified reflection on the discipline of history. (Mar. 17)
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Review

"I cannot remember ever reading a work of history and biography that is quite so fluent, so perfectly composed and balanced…." --New York Sun

"[Wood] possesses as profound a grasp of the early days of the Republic as anyone now working…." --New York Times Book Review --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The; Book Club (BCE/BOMC) edition (March 13, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594201544
• ISBN-13: 978-1594201547
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #397,743 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gordon Wood on the Art of American History, May 21, 2008

By	Ronald H. Clark (WASHINGTON, DC USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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I found this to be just an extremely valuable collection of essays by Gordon S. Wood, one of our leading historians of the colonial and early national period (see his "The Creation of the American Republic" among other studies), consisting of 21 of his review essays. These essays originally appeared in the New York Review of Books, the New Republic, or the Atlantic between 1981-2007. The book's impact derives from several considerations. First, it is Wood who is writing the reviews, with tempered judgment (for the most part) and unimpeachable command of the material. Second, what Wood is up to is to illustrate trends or approaches in writing American history, as demonstrated in the various books under review.

Some of the approaches or "trends" that Wood discusses, sometimes quite critically, include influence in intellectual history; writing history from the perspective of "contemporary consciousness"; is there still a place for good narrative history?; is the "new historicism" correct that everything is relative?; can history be written as fiction (Schama's "Dead Certainties" the subject of review); microhistory; multicultural history; comparative history; postmodern history; history and myth; and "presentism." His authors include Gary Wills; Joyce Appleby; Elkin & McKitrick; Gary Nash; Jon Butler; Jill Lapore; Pauline Maier and many others. If Wood had written a straight substantive article on trends in history, the reader's eyes might become glazed over. But the device of introducing and discussing (and sometimes deconstructing) each approach within the framework of reviewing a book manifesting that approach, keeps things much more interesting and lively than one might expect. Wood also has included a useful introductory essay and an index. So the book is a fun way to learn an awful lot about the writing of American history in this country during the last quarter century or so.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A very worthy read, May 4, 2008

By	Shane (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This book is a compilation of Gordon Wood's book reviews ranging from 1981 to 2007. They are arranged with chapter titles describing how each applies as a larger narrative on the contemporary state of the field of history. Examples of titles are "Microhistory" and "Anachronism in History".

The book is mostly a place for Wood to display his criticisms for postmodern historical methods. While it may seem like doing this by compiling book reviews is an odd way of doing so, the result is successful in displaying many of Wood's issues. Wood is a brutal reviewer, and there are no books that receive what could be considered "praise" while there are several that he handles ruthlessly. He is also a fairly accessible writer that any educated person should be able to understand, especially with these reviews which were written for general readers in the first place.

So what are Wood's specific views? The overall aura of this book is not necessarily that he despises all newer postmodern, multicultural ways of looking at history, but rather he is quite annoyed that they are completely taking over history. For instance, he is clearly frustrated that larger narratives are no longer accepted in the field of history, as everything has turned into microhistories. Microhistories are basically using individual stories of common people to help make inferences from the past. Wood is also frustrated with extreme multicultural history, which constantly distorts his beloved American Revolution topic that he has dedicated much of his life to. These are perhaps the most entertaining and well-argued reviews of the bunch. He seems to enjoy having a venue to bash the historians who have placed a huge meaning of the U.S. Constitution on its failure to free slaves. Wood finds this as a particularly significant and harmful anachronism.

This book might be best read by those who do not agree with him. Perhaps the Howard Zinn lover (or other stubbornly multiculturalist historians) may realize that Zinn is precisely the type of historian that America needs to be warned against. As Wood states "I suppose the most flagrant examples of present-mindedness in history writing come from trying to inject politics into history books. I am reminded of Rebecca West's wise observation that when politics comes in the door, the truth flies out the window."

Of course, however, Wood seems to find some good in the new history writing, he just believes it should be more balanced. Although that may be lost by the fact that he has very little positive things to say in most of his reviews. Perhaps the pessimism found all over the book is one of its largest drawbacks. The other significant drawback I see in this book is that some of his reviews just don't really fit very well with what their purpose is supposed to be. Ironically enough, while this entire book is mostly a criticism of multicultural and postmodern history, the chapters titled "Multicultural History" and "Postmodern History" say very little. Other reviews end up being better examples at what he is trying to say.

Most of his reviews naturally cover, as I said, the American Revolution, so if you want more of Wood on the Revolution, this is a great book. Each chapter also features a short afterword provided by Wood. He often has interesting stories to tell about the reactions different authors had of their reviews. However, most of these afterwords are very short and it would have been nicer for include more in them.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Academic, February 25, 2009

By	T. Sharpe (Salt Lake City, Utah USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Purpose of the Past: Reflections on the Uses of History (Hardcover)

There is an adjective that very appropriately describes this book and that adjective is academic. In this book Gordon S. Wood has compiled a number of his critical reviews of books, some historical and some not as Wood himself professes, and while critiquing the style and substance of each book he also provides us with his own knowledge and opinions about the point of history being written about. At first I was enthralled by the idea of explaining historical events through the review of books about history but as I began to read this book my whimsical imaginings of a novel sort of history composition were quickly disappointed. As all of his books are, this one is well written and contains a lot of interesting historical information. But Wood's main focus in this book is to enumerate the different kinds of history writing both in the books that he critiques and the writing of the past. If you are interested in examples of narrative history, comparative history and postmodern history, or if you would like to know more about the styles of history writing that were taking place in antebellum America, the early 20th century or the 1960's and 70's, then this is a good book for you. If not, then maybe you should enjoy one of his other works.