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

by Gordon S. Wood and Gordon S Wood

Book Overview

Reflections on the historian's craft and its place in American culture, from a master craftsman History is to society what memory is to the individual: without it, we don't know who we are, and we... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1594201544
• ISBN13: 9781594201547
• Release Date: March 2008
• Publisher: Penguin Press
• Length: 323 Pages
• Weight: 1.27 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.2"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Serious students of history need to read this

Maybe if you are a university scholar of history, you already know what this book illustrates. My main field is not history; I'm an avid amateur. I didn't realize how malleable history scholarship and writing is, depending on the outlook of the scholar/writer. It can result in radically different "takes" on the same material. You'll understand that after reading this book, by way of Prof. Wood's reviews, which this book is a collection of. I'm very careful of my sources now. Do they have an axe to grind? Quite possibly, when it comes to the American revolutionary period. You'll also learn a good bit of fascinating history along the way.

Amazing

I am a grad student in history and one day at school a friend recommended this book. Although Dr. Wood is an imminent American Historian, (I focus my personal research on the history of science), I never had the opportunity of reading his writings. After reading PotP, I regret I had not read him sooner. I am now convinced this book should be required reading for history majors. It is essentially a collection of book reviews on a variety of topics. When someone I know has a hard time writing reviews, I recommend that they read this book and draw from Wood's wisdom. His ideas are lucid and beautifully written, which are 2 concepts that historians tend to fail at.

Historiography from a Master

Historiography is the study of the writing of history. When I was a graduate student it was a required, but somewhat boring, course. In the hands of a master historian, as Wood unquestionably is, it becomes very interesting. Within the context of his specialty (interpreting the origins and aftermath of the American Revolution), this collection of his book reviews painlessly informs us of recent trends in the general field of history. Concurrently the reviews provide interesting and entertaining vignettes of this most important era in American history. Highly recommended.

Gordon Wood's The Purpose of the Past

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.

Thought Provoking

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.

Gordon Wood on the Art of American History

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.