Customer Reviews

The Purpose of the Past: Reflections on the Uses of History

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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.

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.

Gordon Wood's _The Purpose of the Past_ is a collection of essays, actually book reviews, published over a period of 25 years. Wood has chosen from among his reviews those that relate specifically to the underlying theory and purpose (and possibility) of history research and writing. As such, the book is a good window into Wood's views on the current state of the discipline throughout the 1980's, 1990's, and 2000's. I would characterize the overall content and tone as Wood's uneasy relationship with the postmodern trend in historical writing that mirrors similar (but earlier) trends in other disciplines such as literary theory and architecture.

Wood's tone modulates throughout the three decades represented by these essays from rather sharp criticism of postmodern theories leaking into the historical disciplines to grudging acceptance of some of the supposed benefits of a multicultural, postmodern viewpoint of history. To his credit he remains a staunch antagonist to the most extreme ideas arising from postmodernism, particularly that all history is subjective and is essentially fiction because of the bias of the writer. Postmodernism identifies this concern and proceeds to fully embrace it, resulting in work that is indistinguishable from fiction, and boldly pronounces itself so. Wood is clearly unhappy with this trend and repeatedly defends the traditional historical methods designed to get as close as possible to, and treat as objectively as possible, past events. He recognizes it's impossible to be completely objective, but holds up objectivity as a goal to be striven for, rather than an antiquated artifact to be scorned. He does, however, come to ultimately make a sort of uneasy peace with the milder forms of postmodernism, particularly the "balkanization" of historical writing into narrower and narrower disciplines, although he does decry the worst forms of this.

I think of this book as a paean to the past when grandiose, narrative history of "great men" and "great events" was the status quo of historical writing, a past whose time has been superceded by multiculturalism and emphasis on the "social" nature of history. Wood's grudging acceptance of some of the current trends in historical writing reflects changes to his own philosophy over the three decades covered in the book.

Wood's writing style is clear and concise, and some of his criticisms are fairly devastating, so it's a fun read in that respect. The chapters are individual reviews and so don't run too long; maybe 10-15 pages each on average. It's well suited for reading a chapter each day or so without the need to remember a narrative flow through the entire book. But there is an overall theme as described above and the work is a unitary whole. I enjoyed the read and while my own perspective is much less accommodating to prevelance of postmodern thought in historical disciplines, it's an excellent window into an imporant figure in the field and his own evolving perspective over time. Recommended.

I always enjoy and learn from the writings of American historian Gordon Wood. After reading Wood's most recent books, his two-volume edition of John Adams' "Revolutionary Writings" for the Library of America, John Adams: Revolutionary Writings, 1755-1775 (Library of America, No. 213), John Adams: Revolutionary Writings, 1755-1775 (Library of America, No. 213) and his new volume of essays on the importance of ideas to the American Revolution, The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States, I turned to Wood's slightly earlier book with the provocative title "The Purpose of the Past" (2008).

The title of the book suggests a volume devoted to the practice of writing history or to the philosophy of history. Wood indeed addresses these large subjects but in an unsystematic, piecemeal way. The volume is a collection of 21 book reviews Wood wrote for educated nonspecialist readers and published in magazines such as "The New York Review" and "The New Republic". The reviews begin with Wood's April 2, 1981 review of Garry Wills' "Explaining America" published in the "New York Review" and conclude with a June 28, 2007, review in the "New York Review" of two books: "Dark Bargain" by Lawerence Goldstone and "American Taxation, American Slavery" by Robin Einhorn. The volume begins with an Introduction in which Wood addresses his approach to understanding history that informs his reviews and larger writings. Following each review, Wood offers thoughts on its reception and on Wood's current views of how he understood the book he had reviewed earlier. It would have been good to hear Wood discuss his views on writing and understanding history more completely and systematically rather than in the context of reviews of different books written over more than 25 years. But what he has given the reader remains valuable.

The book is highly interesting for its approach to history and for its approach to writing reviews. I will try to offer some thoughts on each. Wood's book offers the opportunity to get acquainted with some of the best contemporary historical writing, largely involving the Revolutionary Era. Wood's understanding of this period and his erudition are prodigious and his views balanced. Much about the period can be learned from reading the articles included here.

In the introduction and the reviews Wood offers his view of what history is, a discipline which endeavors to understand the past in all its complexity, and its value. For Wood, history cannot be used for direct lessons on contemporary issues and it is a mistake to read such issues into one's approach to the past. Wood eloquently describes the value of history as follows (p. 14)

"History is not just comfort food for the anxious present. Yet it does offer a way of coming to terms with an anxious present and an unpredictable future. Realizing the extent to which people in the past struggled with circumstances that they scarcely understood is perhaps the most important insight flowing from historical study. To understand the past in all its complexity is to acquire historical wisdom and humility and indeed a tragic sense of life. A tragic sense does not mean a sad or pessimistic sense of life; it means a sense of the limitations of life."

Many of Wood's reviews address books in which he finds that the author has unsuccessfuly tried to import current concerns and issues into the writing of history. Thus, while Wood welcomes the many current studies that explore the roles of gender, slavery, and poverty in early America, he rejects what he sees as the frequent efforts of authors to understand these issues through present day concerns rather than through historical circumstance. Wood also addresses philosophical ideas of postmodernism, relativism, or deconstruction that have gained prominence in some historical writing. He wants to reject these theories, it seems to me, as unworkable and to return, however tentatively, to a theory of history and theory of knowledge in which the historian assumes it is possible to gain some accurate knowledge of the past, if only in approximation. Wood sees the value in expanded narrative history (expanded to include underrepresented groups such as women or minorities) which emphasizes purpose and broad historical trends rather presenting history as the study of insular groups.

Now, I want to turn briefly to reviewing. I was glad to see this collection of Wood's reviews because it made me think of reader reviews here on Amazon and on what I and my fellow Amazon reviewers try to do with them. Wood says of writing the types of reviews collected in this book (p. 1):

"Although such long reviews take a considerable amount of time, ... I have never regretted writing them. Not only do such lengthy reviews for nonacademic journals require you to come to terms with the larger implications of the book under review, but they force you to convey what you say in language that is intelligible to general readers. Writing reviews for a lay readership is a marvelously stimulating experience, and all historians ought to try to do it."

Wood's reviews tend to be in the range of 4000 words or more, substantially longer than Amazon reviews. And unlike Amazon reviews, written by a lay readership, Wood is a consummate student of his subject. There is much to be learned still in the way Wood tries to explain the content and the approach of a book. Wood offers substantial detail about the works he reviews, frequently with references to other works by the author. Wood combines his exposition with criticism and analysis, of the types I suggested above. It is highly valuable to see Wood do this, but there are limitations. Wood brings to his reviews his own vast learning and perspective. While I tend to sympathize greatly with his approach to history and philosophy, Wood proves to be a somewhat harsher critic in some cases than I thought he might be. He tends, I think, to reduce other authors to what he is trying to do and to his understanding of the historical enterprise when, in some case, the authors are trying to do something different which may not be history, strictly, but may still have value. An example is Wood's October 30, 2000, review of John Diggins' book, "On Hallowed Ground:Abraham Lincoln and the Foundations of American History." This review interested me because it is the only book Wood reviewed in this collection that I have also reviewed as an amateur here on Amazon (I have read but not reviewed some of the other books.)On Hallowed Ground When I revisited my review of Diggins, I found some agreement between my views and Wood's. Yet I was more sympathetic, perhaps wrongly so, than this distinguished author. I thought that in some cases, Wood tended to approach the books he reviewed entirely from his own perspective without trying as hard as he might have done to get inside the mind of the author. It seemed to me that a more internalized approach might also have value in reviewing. Writing reviews is a way of understanding and critiquing a book so that the reader can judge whether he or she wants to pursue it further. But it is also, on howsoever small a scale, a free standing work by the author of the review.

I enjoyed reading Wood's collection of reviews in order to learn about history and its writing and to think about the writing of reviews and its purpose, both by wonderfully professional writers and by amateurs, such as myself and my fellow Amazon reviewers.

Robin Friedman

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.

Thoroughly enjoying a history book can tempt a reader to falsely assume that the historian has presented an accurately framed and unbiased accounting of the past, or worse, that a great work has captured the entire breadth of the period. This temptation couples well with Gordon Wood's "Purpose of the Past", which yields a wealth of lessons to minimize such misperceptions.

Wood, one of our most authoritative voices on America's founding, is here to dissect various styles of historical reporting which reminds us of the impossibility of perfectly reporting on the past and the necessity for all readers to consciously consider what is not being reported and the strengths and weaknesses of varying approaches used by historians by providing critiques of the various forms used in previous works by Wood's peers along with emerging historians using more modern approaches.

The format of this book is a compilation of book reviews written by Wood where Wood dissects the approach, format, accuracy, and biases of the author in his review of their book. Wood is no mild, meek critic; he's more than willing to lambast historians with modern-day political agendas that use history as a tool to influence others to their biases, he's also concerned that academia has focused too many historians on reporting data-driven societal descriptions of the life of that periods non-historical figures, possibly at the expense of a paucity of grand narratives Wood seems to favor. Wood's also takes on historians who he believe over-emphasize certain driving factors contrary to what Wood's believes were the driving factors, e.g., economic issues v. slavery v. political freedom, with Woods siding with the latter, no surprise given his peers consider him a neo-Whig.

The beauty of Wood's essays is his willingness to provide a broad context to his criticism and his reporting on historical perspectives beyond the books he's reviewing (I learned quite a bit of history just reading Wood's reviews). The result is that one can consider Wood's arguments while not being limited to merely his opinion because Wood provides enough information to allow the reader to either form their own opinion or defend the author of the book from Wood's critiques. I found myself disagreeing with Wood's on a handful of core points he argued while increasing my respect for him as a thinker, writer, and historian.

I personally learned a ton about how historians approach their work and the different formats available to historians when they take on a project. This alone will help me be a better student and not as apt to accept a historian's perspective merely because I'm reading his book. It's also an easy book to pick up and put down given the format is in essay form, with each essay making up a chapter reviewing either one or two books where the selections are examples of formats Woods weighs in on. Given Woods prodigious knowledge of America's founding coupled with his exceptional talent at analysis, I doubt many other historians could have pulled off such a project.

My one criticism is that while Wood shows no favoritism to historians from the left or right, ripping both with solid critiques, he misses a perfect opportunity to provide his perspective on non-historians who are currently enjoying both financial and political success publishing propaganda as authentic American history at our founding to promote their current political objectives regarding our religious freedom clauses. While the proliferation of biased liberal historians in academia has negatively influenced our understanding of history on some, but not all aspects, I believe the far right propagandists' efforts are far more damaging given their reach via their exposure to media outlets that reach populists. The liberal academics reach is limited mainly to other historians and students who possess the tools to evaluate and accept or discount their arguments while the propagandists reach a crowd that are as gullible a group of people I've ever encountered who vote their false beliefs.

David Barton is Exhibit A in the set of propagandists I wish Wood would have lowered himself to critiquing (and from Woods perspective it would require him getting into the gutter). Barton is not a historian though he promotes himself as one; he has published and successfully promoted inaccurate revisionist books promoting a radical increase in government power to promote his religious beliefs all the while falsely claiming he's merely promoting a return to the founding principles and ideals of our founding fathers. In fact our framers were actually on record as being opposed to Barton's current objectives and whose religious beliefs were far more advanced than Barton's primitive Trinitarian views. Barton's work has effectively made its way into the consciousness of nearly all evangelical and fundamentalist Christians and into the public square, being promoted even by mainstream evangelicals like Rick Warren. Barton's adherents even go unchallenged when his claims are repeated on TV news broadcasts by those on the right looking to impose their religious rights on all of us by way of expanding government power. In fact, Wood's last afterword on page 308 sums up nicely Wood's negative critique of certain historians who fit this mold though not as grossly as Barton:

"I suppose the most flagrant examples in present-mindedness in history writing comes from trying to inject politics into history books. I am reminded of Rebecca West's wise observation that when politics comes in the door, truth flies out the window. Historians who want to influence politics with their history writing have missed the point of the craft; they ought to run for office."

We are so much worse than the death of J. Edgar Hoover.

Let the person escape.

Folly became so special in the work of Barbara Tuchman that she called her 1984 book:

The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam.

History can be satire, as we can learn from:

The Fabulous History of the Dismal Swamp Company/A Story of George Washington's Times (1999) by Charles Royster.

Like an intertextual Jesus drawing everything to himself, Gordon S. Wood published a collection of book reviews called:

The Purpose of The Past/Reflections on the Uses of History (2008).

The second chapter is a review of:

The Vineyard of Liberty. Volume 1 of The American Experiment (1982) by James MacGregor Burns.

The election of Lincoln in 1860 with less than 40 percent of the vote, followed by the secession of southern states, is called:

It was the greatest failure of the
American political process
in the nation's history.

Burns has a view like society was wiped out by the wealthy:

"Behind the lofty pretensions
of each [section] lay an ignoble defense
of the elite monopolization
of property and profits." (p. 35).

Burns wished there had been a great national leader to unite the poor:

"bound together in a great commonality
of deprivation--denied good homes and food
and clothes, good health and nutrition and education,
and hence damaged in motivation, aspiration,
and self-fulfillment." (pp. 36-37).

Wood considers this the worst kind of anachronism:

What he wants for the past
and what he wants now
is "masterful transforming leadership,"
leadership that can transform the mundane
circumstances that bind the rest of us
ordinary mortals. (p. 37).

Modern millionaires and billionaires thrive on their ability to borrow great sums of money and withdraw a personal fortune for themselves from a pot that is drawn to what Martin Heidegger never said:

Only credit default swaps can save us now.

Instead of having a political system that can make banks great sub-prime lenders, like J. Edgar Hoover turned the F.B.I. into an extension of his own views, an ocean of money that seeks opportunities for growth is popping up and down in free markets like a financial bobsled dropping down clear through to China. Our experience riding paper financial tigers has become like a crowd growing crazy moves of ecstasy in the Electric Daisy Festival.

Wood thinks we could learn something about caution. We have changed so much as scholars that Wood complains:

Imagine Jefferson composing the
Declaration of Independence.
"We hold these truths
to be socially conditioned
and dependent for their meaning
on the `structures,'
`paradigms,'
and the `episteme' of the epoch."
If narrative history risks
being antiquarian,
projecting back into the past
a "non-linear" mode of explanation
risks being anachronistic. (p. 58).

Wood's book is essentially a book of book reviews from the likes of The New York Times, New York Review of Books and The New Republic among more specialized historical journals. However, it is focused on one great shortcoming amongst historians, and one that is almost impossible to transcend: reading the present into the past. Gordon Wood wants historicans to take the past as the past--no more no less. He does not see the study of history as a guide for avoiding the mistakes of the past. The past is unique. And inorder to confront and converge with it Wood wants historicans to ignore fashionable adgendas such as post-modernism. These essays force serious historians and various sorts of intellectuals to face their own conditioning, and to show how the cultural practices of one era (our own for instance) prevent deep and realistic understanding of the differences in other eras. History does not repeat itself! Only analogies accomplish that. But historians repeatedly make the fundamental error of taking their historical baggage into the past.

Now Wood--an unusually creative and insightful investigator--into the meaning of the American Revolution--quiet different he mentions in one review from the explanation of American Independence--shows in these review essays why it is so hard to write history without ulterior motive or agenda. And any one interested in teaching genuine historical method to undergraduates or graduate stydebts will benefit from the book and learn a great deal about the American Revolution in the bargin. A fine effort and compliation of four decades of thinking, researching and writing by a first rate historican.

Gordon S. Wood is one of the best writers of history at work today, and he is also one of America's greatest living historians. This book, which consists of essay length book reviews produced by Wood over the past quarter century, makes it clear that the two are not always synonymous. Many historians can only write in jargon or academese, while some popular history writers are better known for being able to turn a fine phrase than for their scholarly rigor. Fortunately, there are those like Wood who are able to achieve the highest standards in scholarship and in readability.

In these reviews Wood addresses some technical issues which are of deepest interest to academic or professional historians, but he also spends a lot of time on such themes as the importance or unimportance of narrative history which will appeal to people who just like to read history. Each review has an afterword in which Wood gives further reflections on the work in question and any changes in his reaction to it. Some reviews also include exchanges between Wood and other historians which are usually gentlemanly, but sometimes verge on vituperation.

The Purpose of the Past is a highly worthwhile work which will give any reader with an interest in history, whether personal or professional, much to ponder.

Don't be put off by the fact that this book is a collection of some of Mr. Wood's prior essays and book reviews. The works are not easily available elsewhere and collectively they amount to a thoughtful criticism of current trends in historical scholarship and writing. These essays also give a good introduction to important scholarship in some of the nontraditional areas that current historians find appealing (or career friendly.) Wood is a highly informed and credible critic of these trends, but not a total rejectionist. As usual, his writing is clear and accessible.