Showing papers on "Intellectual history published in 1984"

That Noble Science of Politics: A Study in Nineteenth-Century Intellectual History

Abstract: In this unusual and important work, three well-known historians of ideas examine the diverse forms taken in nineteenth-century Britain by the aspiration to develop what was then known as a 'science of politics'. This aspiration encompassed a more extensive and ambitious range of concerns than is implied by the modern term 'political science': in fact, as this book demonstrates, it remained the overarching category under which many nineteenth-century thinkers grouped their attempts to achieve systematic understanding of man's common life. As a result of both the over-concentration on closed abstract systems of thought and the intrusion of concerns which pervade much writing in the history of political theory and of the social sciences, these attempts have since been neglected or misrepresented. By deliberately avoiding such approaches, this book restores the subject to its centrality in the intellectual life and political culture of nineteenth-century Britain.

Critical Legal Histories

Abstract: Critical legal writers pay a lot of attention to history In fact, they have probably devoted more pages to historical descriptionparticularly the intellectual history of legal doctrine-than to anything else, even law and economics Such a preoccupation within a radical movement is at first glance surprising After all, lawyers have, by notorious custom, used history conservatively, appealing to continuity and tradition' And in the less common situations in which lawyers have used history to criticize the status quo, they have usually resorted to social and economic history, to show that the original social context of a legal rule reveals it was adopted for wicked or obsolete reasons, rather than to the history of legal doctrine2 What could conceivably be radical-or, as some unkindly ask, even interesting-about rewriting the history of doctrine? I will attempt, in this article, to give a brief account of the impulses that have prompted the Critical scholars to their chosen ways of writing history (or rather histories, since the movement has actually spawned several different historiographical practices) I'll start by trying to describe a vision of law-in-history that has tended, as I'll

Machiavellism: The Doctrine of Raison d'Etat and Its Place in Modern History

Abstract: Here is a study, by a recognized master in the field of intellectual history, of the challenge put by Machiavelli to the idea that there is a universal moral law governing human behavior. Should the political leader act according to the maxim of "my country right or wrong," or should elites follow the principle of "let justice be done?" Friederich Meinecke, an acknowledged founder of cultural history as a field, follows the discussion of this theme from Machiavelli through such major figures as Richelieu, Frederick the Great, and Hegel, and presents conclusions of enduring significance.

Rhetorical traditions and the teaching of writing

Abstract: The argument of this book is that the earliest tradition of Western rhetoric, the classical perspective of Aristotle and Cicero, continues to have the greatest impact on writing instruction--albeit an unconscious impact. This occurs despite the fact that modern rhetoric no longer accepts either the views of mind, language, and world underlying ancient theory or the concepts about discourse, knowledge, and communication presented in that theory. As a result, teachers are depending on ideas as outmoded as they are unreflectively accepted. Knoblauch and Brannon maintain that the two traditions are fundamentally incompatible in their assumptions and concepts, so that writing teachers must make choices between them if their teaching is to be purposeful and consistent. They suggest that the modern tradition offers a richer basis for instruction, and they show what teaching from that perspective looks like and how it differs from traditional teaching.

Lollards and Reformers: Images and Literacy in Late Medieval Religion

Abstract: While much has been written on the connections between Lollardy and the Reformation, this collection of essays is the first detailed and satisfactory interpretation of many aspects of the problem. Margaret Aston shows how Protestant Reformers derived encouragement from their predecessors, while interpreting Lollards in the light of their own faith.This highly readable book makes an important contribution to the history of the Reformation, bringing to life the men and women of a movement interesting for its own sake and for the light it sheds on the religious and intellectual history of the period.

Oral History: An Interdisciplinary Anthology

Abstract: Oral History: An Interdisciplinary Anthology is a collection of classic articles by some of the best known proponents of oral history, demonstrating the basics of oral history, while also acting as a guidebook for how to use it in research Added to this new edition is insight into how oral history is practiced on an international scale, making this book an indispensable resource for scholars of history and social sciences, as well as those interested in oral history on the avocational level This volume is a reprint of the 1984 edition, with the added bonus of a new introduction by David Dunaway and a new section on how oral history is practiced on an international scale Selections from the original volume trace the origins of oral history in the United States, provide insights on methodology and interpretation, and review the various approaches to oral history used by folklorists, historians, anthropologists, and librarians, among others Family and ethnic historians will find chapters addressing the applications of oral history in those fields

Against Exceptionalism: Class Consciousness and the American Labor Movement, 1790–1920

Abstract: American social and labor historians have made progress over the last ten years, but we have not made nearly enough. More than we like to admit, the problems and issues posed four generations ago by Werner Sombart and Selig Perlman still shape our work. Even now, monographs roll off the presses, each with its own answer to the riddle: Why has there been no class consciousness (or no socialism) in the United States? Or, put more exactly, why have American workers, unlike Europeans, failed to see themselves as a group in society?a "class for itself?with interests wholly distinct from and opposed to those of their employers, petty producers, and the state. The question has been raised in diverse quarters; if they divide over every other important issue, such writers as Stanley Aronowitz, Seymour Martin Lipset, and Stephen Thernstrom (among many others) have agreed that the problem of American exceptionalism is a proper point of departure for understanding America. So have many of the "new" labor historians.1 At stake is far more than the issues pondered by historians of the working class: since 1945, the two main currents of exceptionalist literature have dominated most writing on the social and intellectual history of the United States.2 The first of these currents?until recently the most influential?was the brand of counter Progressive "consensus" history pioneered by Richard Hofstadterand Louis Hartz.3 Contrary to myth, the counter-Progressive critique came originally from the Left, from urbane historians like Hofstadter?men reared on the Marxism of the 1930s, dismayed by the "left" nationalism and pseudo-Populism of the Popular Front and the Progressives, and otherwise disillusioned with popular politics.4 At a time when liberals and leftists celebrated Jefferson, Lincoln, and F. D. R. as working class heroes, Hofstadter and others revolted. With pungency and wit, they pointed out that American politics, including a great deal of so-called "radical" politics, were entrepreneurial exercises in the personal or collective pursuit of self interest, sugar-coated with the rhetoric of independence, liberty, and the rights of man. America, supposedly, was capitalist at its birth. American political culture, nursed on John Locke, grew into the purest expression of bourgeois values. Genuine opposition to this culture was limited to intellectuals and agitators who kept to the margins of political life. Whatever conflict occurred arose not from

Refugee Scholars in America: Their Impact and Their Experiences

Abstract: What were the contributions to American scholarship and culture made by European refugees from Nazi persecution? How did these emigres react to the experience of being strangers in the land of their refuge? In this engrossing book, Lewis Coser examines the impact of refugee intellectuals on the social sciences and the humanities in America, painting a collective portrait that sheds light not only on the accomplishments of the Europeans but also on the development of the several disciplines in America that either welcomed or rejected them. Coser explains, for example, why the emigres had more influence in the field of psychoanalysis than in psychology; why Austrian economists were more successful in America than were German economists; why only a few European sociologists made significant contributions in America. Discussing such luminaries as Bruno Bettelheim, Jacob Marshak, Hannah Arendt, Thomas Mann, Vladimir Nabokov, Roman Jacobson, Erwin Panofsky, and Paul Tillich, Coser describes their backgrounds, personalities, and careers in America, providing revealing anecdotes that help to bring these figures to life. His accounts of those who were famous in the country of their birth but never achieved eminence or a feeling of adjustment in America provide a poignant contrast. Coser concludes that the refugee intellectuals were most influential in areas of study where they filled a perceived need not previously met or in fields where they could build on already established traditions. His perceptive analysis of the European-born men and women who altered American intellectual history is an absorbing and memorable story.

The mind of Frederick Douglass

Abstract: Frederick Douglass was unquestionably the foremost black American of the nineteenth century. The extraordinary life of this former slave turned abolitionist orator, newspaper editor, social reformer, race leader, and Republican party advocate has inspired many biographies over the years. This, however, is the first full-scale study of the origins, contours, development, and significance of Douglass's thought. Brilliant and to a large degree self-taught, Douglass personified intellectual activism; he possessed a sincere concern for the uses and consequences of ideas. Both his people's struggle for liberation and his individual experiences, which he envisioned as symbolizing that struggle, provided the basis and structure for his intellectual maturation. As a representative American, he internalized and, thus, reflected major currents in the contemporary American mind. As a representative Afro-American, he revealed in his thinking the deep-seated influence of race on Euro-American, Afro-American, or, broadly conceived, American consciousness. He sought to resolve in his thinking the dynamic tension between his identities as a black and as an American. Martin assesses not only how Douglass dealt with this enduring conflict, but also the extent of his success. An inveterate belief in a universal and egalitarian humanism unified Douglass's thought. This grand organizing principle reflected his intellectual roots in the three major traditions of mid-nineteenth-century American thought: Protestant Christianity, the Enlightenment, and romanticism. Together, these influences buttressed his characteristic optimism. Although nineteenth-century Afro-American intellectual history derived its central premises and outlook from concurrent American intellectual history, it offered a searching critique of the latter and its ramifications. How to square America's rhetoric of freedom, equality, and justice with the reality of slavery and racial prejudice was the difficulty that confronted such Afro-American thinkers as Douglass. |Frederick Douglass was unquestionably the foremost black American of the nineteenth century. The extraordinary life of this former slave turned abolitionist orator, newspaper editor, social reformer, race leader, and Republican party advocate has inspired many biographies over the years. This, however, is the first full-scale study of the origins, contours, development, and significance of Douglass's thought.

History as natural history: an essay on theory and method.

Abstract: CHARLES DARWIN has been moldering in his grave now for a full century. But it is not death with which we associate his name; it is life, in all its abundance and variety. In particular, the argument he made for the natural origin of life, including humans, has been one of the most influential ideas in the world over that century's span. It was accepted a long while back by almost everyone within the reach of modern science, despite the persistent opposition of a raggletaggle band of creationists. But for all that general acceptance, Darwin's ideas have not yet become working principles among several large groups of scholars. Take history, for example: reading the journals and dissertations in this field reveals the profound, continuing influence of Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud, but still there is no Darwin in our history, at least not as a tradition of historical theory. Evolution and history remain, after a hundred years, separate realms of discourse. There is little history in the study of nature, and there is little nature in the study of history. I want to show how we can remedy that cultural lag by developing a new perspective on the historian's enterprise, one that will make us Darwinians at last. It will require us to step back now and then from parliamentary debates, social mobility data, and the biographies of illustrious figures in order to examine more elemental questions that concern the long-running human dialogue with the earth.

Russia: An Architecture for World Revolution

Abstract: Lissitzky's book is a classic in architectural and planning theory, as well as an important document in social and intellectual history. It contains an appendix of excerpted writings by his contemporaries--M. J. Ginzburg, P. Martell, Bruno Taut, Ernst May, M. Ilyin, Wilm Stein, Martin Wagner, Hannes Meyer, Hans Schmidt, and others--all of whom illuminate the architecture and planning of Europe and Russia during the 1920s. There are over 100 plates and drawings.

Philosophy in History: Why do we study the history of philosophy?

Abstract: It is hardly disputable that nowadays the overwhelming majority of philosophers study the history of their field, at least part of the time. In this respect other disciplines behave differently, and there was a time when philosophers behaved differently, too. Are there good reasons for the change? Do we know those reasons? Do we have well-founded and agreed views on why and for what purpose we, the majority of philosophers or the profession in general, study the history of philosophy? I do not think so. I have gained this impression from many conversations and from my reading, including reading what I myself have written. My first suspicion that there is something dubious about our apparent affinity to philosophical history arose when I read historical studies which were perfectly straightforward and interesting in themselves, and yet were prefaced by quick and vague assurances of a familiar type, assurances to the effect that these studies were undertaken from a systematic point of view or with a systematic goal in mind. It seems to be a recently adopted distinguished tone among philosophers to say some such thing, a tone which grows louder as the interests of the profession become more historical. We must ask to what extent this common strategy of reconciling historical studies with present-day tasks is convincing. Sometimes, it seems to me, such reconciliation can be better effectuated by simply probing into history as contingent individual interests may suggest, and then letting history speak for itself.

The Oyster and the Pearl: The Problem of Contextualism in Intellectual History

Abstract: In his recent survey of the state of intellectual history in America, Robert Darnton perceived a methodological trend that has come almost to dominate current discourse in the field. "Contextualization is the strongest feature in the area of the history of ideas that has made the strongest progress during the last decade: the history of political thought."1 Darnton's observation would also seem to apply to the recent anthology edited by Paul Conkin and John Higham, New Directions in American Intellectual History. Although formal political thought is not emphasized in that work,2 the vocabulary of contextualism is pronounced as various contributors write of "paradigms," "networks," "structure," "signs," "language," "parameters," "social environment," and other expressions that seem to imply that an idea's medium is as important as its message. Such terminology suggests that the life of the mind is to be understood not necessarily by what thinkers may have been contemplating as a result of their own idle curiosity, but instead by the external factors that had influenced their thought, consciously or otherwise. The growing conviction today is that one should avoid treating ideas outside of their respective historical contexts, for an idea owes its historical significance to the specific purposes to which it was addressed in a specific circumstance in the past. The claims of contextualism are particularly relevant to the discipline of intellectual history, and as such their theoretical presuppositions should be scrutinized in light of practice as well as theory. The proper study of the intellectual historian, according to the contextualist, is not the supposedly self-illuminating document, but rather the social, economic, and political conditions out of which it developed. It is the context of a text that determines its historical meaning. This methodological stance implies, as Quentin Skinner has argued, that a text should not be presumed to have been written in response to "the timeless questions and answers" of political and social thought, the "perennial issues" of the classical treatises that be-

Charles A. Beard, an intellectual biography

Abstract: This is the first book to bring together into a coherent whole the fragments of the life and thought of Charles A. Beard, a historian who took active steps to thwart biography by burning his private correspondence.Nore has written about Beard s early life in Indiana, including his family traditions and his formal education. She tells of his experiences in England and at Columbia University as both student and teacher. She delineates his progressivism and his economic approach to constitutions, parties, and politics. She chronicles his response to war and traces his journeys to the Orient.Other chapters include History, Civilization, and Abundance; An Intellectual Dairy Farmer s Public Life; The Great Depression: Modern Analysis and Victorian Politics; Science, Relativity, and Faith; Battle for Nonintervention, 19351941; The Old Isolationist; and Lessons of Pearl Harbor. In tracing the intellectual development of this charismatic man of Quaker heritage, this man who knew almost from the beginning that authorities outside the individual conscience must be carefully scrutinized, Nore sheds light on the intellectual history of the 20th century. Hers is the authoritative biography of the man who continued to remind Americans that the achievement of economic and social, as well as political democracy would depend on the quality and quantity of individual critical citizenships. "

The Meeting of Elite and Popular Minds at Cambridge, New England, 1638-1645

Abstract: J N documenting the forces that shaped seventeenth-century New England, many twentieth-century historians have focused on intellectual influences. Perry Miller and those inspired by him have ably defined the region according to the Puritan ideas of publishing ministers, assigning nonideological factors to lesser roles. A few historians-most notably Richard L. Bushman, John Demos, Richard P. Gildrie, Philip J. Greven, Kenneth A. Lockridge, Sumner Chilton Powell, and Darrett B. Rutman-have emphasized the social dynamics behind the behavior of New Englanders. Jon Butler has been the most extreme in his departure from intellectual history, positing that to understand the "marrow of American religious life" historians "need to move beyond the study of ecclesiology, theology, and the ministry to recover noninstitutional religious practices." 1 Generally, these historians have published their research as a contribution to ongoing and collective scholarship, each adding different pieces to the historiographical mosaic that constitutes the profession's knowledge of early America. Yet these practitioners of social and intellectual history have also sparred over methodology. Procedural differences certainly rankled Miller in I933, inciting him to remark defensively: "I lay myself open to the charge of being so naive as to believe that the way men think has some influence upon their actions." Even in I959-when intellectual history in general and Miller's interpretations in particular were in vogue-methodological issues haunted Miller more than ever. "But those who strive," he wrote, "to escape all concept of the mind by playing down the majesty and coherence of Puritan thinking, level a barrage against early New England infinitely more Philistine-not to say historically inaccurate-than the comparatively innocent fulminations in the I920'S of Mencken and James Truslow Adams."2

The Rhetoric of Explanation: Explanatory Rhetoric from Aristotle to 1850.

Abstract: Most rhetorical history has concerned itself with the theory of argumentative discourse as it developed from classical to modern times. This essay traces a parallel but much less investigated strand of rhetorical history: the theory and practice of explanation. The slow growth of a body of knowledge about how information could best be communicated without necessary reference to overt persuasion is followed from Aristotle's Rhetoric through the beginnings of a theory of written discourse in the American nineteenth century. A later continuation of this essay will trace explanatory rhetoric into modern times.