Page 38 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol I - Abraham to Coal

xlii berkshire encyclopedia of world history

original theory of social change. Among Christians, At risk of caricature, this liberal-nationalist version of
Giambattista Vico (1668–1744) was perhaps the most world history can be summarized as follows: What mat-
provocative thinker.Vico set out to fuse the Christian and tered in the past was the history of liberty, since free
pagan traditions of historiography into what he called a men, acting voluntarily, were more efficient both in war
“new science” of social change that also featured cyclic and in peace and thus acquired collective power and
repetition. But such radical new ideas remained excep- wealth, as well as all the satisfactions of personal free-
tional. Nearly everybody remained content with at least dom. So Europe, and more specifically western Europe,
lip service to familiar religious accounts of God’s plan was where history—significant history, that is—
from Creation to the Day of Judgment, even when Mus- happened. Elsewhere endless repetition of insignificant
lim poets revived the Persian language as a vehicle for routines prevailed, so that Leopold von Ranke (1795–
celebrating ancient pagan chivalry, and among Chris- 1886), the most revered German historian of his time,
tians the study of Greek and Roman classical authors, could say in his nine-volume World History (1882–
including historians, began to infiltrate schools and 1888) that history ended for Muslims in 1258 with the
universities. Mongol sack of Baghdad, since by then they had fulfilled
In the early nineteenth century, however, when their world historical role of transmitting important
medieval and modern history first entered the curriculum Greek texts to medieval Europeans!
of leading German universities, liberal and nationalist Those texts were important because they helped to
ideas dominated the minds of those who set out to dis- show how ancient Greeks and republican Romans pio-
cover “what really happened” by investigating state neered the history of liberty. But ancient liberty did not
archives and medieval chronicles.They hoped to discard last and had to be refreshed in western Europe by bar-
superstitions and other errors by careful source criti- barian invasions in the early Middle Ages, followed by
cism, and, intent on detail, assumed that all the true and slow and precarious constitutional and legal innovation,
tested facts of history would speak for themselves.And so punctuated by sporadic revolutionary upheavals, all
they did, shaped, as they were, by questions asked about aimed at restraining tyrannical government and dog-
the national past by eager researchers who wanted to matic religion. By the end of the nineteenth century, the
understand why German states had come to lag so far principles of liberty embodied in representative govern-
behind the French in modern times. ment and religious freedom had become clear, and their
Simultaneously, source criticism began to challenge the fruits were apparent in the superior power and wealth
Christian version of history as never before by treating that Great Britain, France and, in potentia, the United
biblical texts as human handiwork, liable to error just like States enjoyed. But Germany and Russia were also eager
other ancient, often-copied manuscripts. This style of aspirants to greatness, and clashing national ambitions in
historical research soon spread from Germany to the due course provoked World War I.
English-speaking world, even infiltrating France after This was the view of history to which I was appren-
1870. Detail and more detail often became an end in ticed in the 1920s and 1930s, even though my teachers
itself, and the enormity of available source materials had half forgotten the reason for the distribution of
grew steadily as new subthemes for investigation prolif- attention that prevailed in their classrooms. Yet World
erated. Nonetheless, by the close of the nineteenth cen- War I had already profoundly challenged the theme of
tury, Lord Acton (1834–1902) and others, drawing progress toward constitutional perfection upon which
largely on classical precedents, created an overarching lib- this naive and ethnocentric version of human history
eral interpretation of history that flattered French, British, rested. Freedom to suffer and die in the trenches was a
and U.S. national sensibilities so well that it soon domi- questionable climax to liberal progress; and the pro-
nated schooling in those countries. longed depression that set in after 1929, followed by