Practicing History_ Selected Essays - Barbara W. Tuchman [4]
The texts that appear below are reprinted as originally published (or spoken), with one or two corrections of fact (Jacob, not, as originally appeared, Joseph, wrestled with the angel, an error no one caught until time for this publication), a few cuts and eliminations of repeated phrases, a few changes of awkward language, though none of ideas, and some changes of the published title in cases where editors had substituted their choices (invariably regrettable, of course) for mine. These have now had my original titles restored.
Whether these selections when gathered together offer any philosophy of history is a question I hesitate to answer because I am rather afraid of philosophies. They contain a risk for the historian of being tempted to manipulate his facts in the interest of his system, which results in histories stronger in ideology than in “how it really was.” Yet I do not suppose one can practice the writing of history over a long period without arriving at certain principles and guidelines. From these essays emerges, I think, a sense of history as accidental and perhaps cyclical, of human conduct as a steady stream running through endless fields of changing circumstances, of good and bad always co-existing and inextricably mixed in periods as in people, of cross-currents and counter-currents usually present to contradict too-easy generalizations. As to treatment, I believe that the material must precede the thesis, that chronological narrative is the spine and the blood stream that bring history closer to “how it really was” and to a proper understanding of cause and effect; that, whatever the subject, it must be written in terms of what was known and believed at the time, not from the perspective of hindsight, for otherwise the result will be invalid. While laying no claim to originality, these are principles I discovered for myself in the course of learning the craft and following the practice of my profession.
I
THE
CRAFT
In Search of History
History began to exert its fascination upon me when I was about six, through the medium of the Twins series by Lucy Fitch Perkins. I became absorbed in the fortunes of the Dutch Twins; the Twins of the American Revolution, who daringly painted the name Modeerf, or “freedom” spelled backward, on their row boat; and especially the Belgian Twins, who suffered under the German occupation of Brussels in 1914.
After the Twins, I went through a G. A. Henty period and bled with Wolfe in Canada. Then came a prolonged Dumas period, during which I became so intimate with the Valois kings, queens, royal mistresses, and various Ducs de Guise that when we visited the French châteaux I was able to point out to my family just who had stabbed whom in which room. Conan Doyle’s The White Company and, above all, Jane Porter’s The Scottish Chiefs were the definitive influence. As the noble Wallace, in tartan and velvet tarn, I went to my first masquerade party, stalking in silent tragedy among the twelve-year-old Florence Nightingales and Juliets. In the book the treachery of the Countess of Mar, who betrayed Wallace, carried a footnote that left its mark on me. “The crimes of this wicked woman,” it said darkly, “are verified by history.”
By the time I reached Radcliffe, I had no difficulty in choosing a field of concentration, although it turned out to be History and Lit rather than pure history. I experienced at college no moment of revelation that determined me to write historical narrative. When that precise moment occurred I cannot say; it just developed and there was a considerable time lag. What Radcliffe did give me, however, was an impetus (not to mention an education,