Postmodernism for Historians

Bibliographic Data

ID7426466
AuthorsAlan B Cobban (University of Liverpool, corresponding author)
Year2006
Volume121
Issue490
Pages353-355
Publication date2006-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe English Historical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0013-8266 • E-ISSN: 1477-4534
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/ehr/cej113
OpenAlexW1991301213
LanguageEN
Citations received16

Postmodernism for Historians, by Callum G. Brown (Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2005; pp. 200. Pb. £14.99). This book is designed as a manual on postmodernism for the use equally of professional historians who may or may not embrace the abstruse teachings of postmodernist ideologies and for the instruction of students who are struggling to confront the mysteries of this complex set of theories. Although the author is committed to the postmodernist cause, it is claimed that the work offers a balanced view of the evolution of the interrelated theories and their application to historical study and analysis. It is only in the final chapter that the reader encounters a sustained discussion of the criticisms by historians of the non-postmodernist persuasion. The writer addresses his subject with enthusiasm, and presents his examination in a clear and vigorous style—a necessary prerequisite for the numerous difficulties, vagaries, volte-faces, and sometimes contradictory elements inherent in this corpus of elusive theories that lack a coherent unity. Among the theories discussed are those by Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Ferdinand de Saussure, Jean Baudrillard, Jean-François Lyotard and Jacques Lacan. There are times when even Brown has to admit that particular meanings within postmodernist treatises are far from clear. Nevertheless, he wrestles tenaciously to give probable explanations of points of especial complexity, although the results will be well beyond the capacities of the average student. The main body of the book deals with the essential features of postmodernism, structuralism and poststructuralism, comprising sign theory, the discourse, the text, the self and morality, rounded off with a glossary of terms and a guide to further reading. As indicated, apart from the theoretical content, the author suggests ways in which professional historians and students alike can apply aspects of postmodernism in their own historical assessments. While the author succeeds in giving a useful overview of postmodernism in all its manifold forms, it has to be said that the historical perspective within which the book is set is decidedly limited. Far too much is credited as innovatory to the Enlightenment without a due recognition of the intellectual advances of previous centuries. For instance, to assume that rational or logical inquiry as a means of understanding in all areas of human knowledge was a defining attribute of the Enlightenment is to ignore the fact that the application of Aristotelian logic underlay most of the disciplines taught in the European universities from the twelfth century onwards. Also, the idea that the scientific method of inquiry was formulated only in the period of the Enlightenment is to disregard the very substantial advances made in this field in the late twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Moreover, sign theory or semiology, the elemental building block underpinning the postmodernist system of knowledge that seeks to dismantle that generated by empiricism, is to a marked degree an application of the age-old theory of universals that was debated endlessly in the universities in the medieval era and was ultimately derived from the philosophical polarisation that divided Plato from Aristotle with respect to the nature of knowledge and reality. An insuperable difficulty in evaluating postmodernist theory is that it incorporates an array of differing positions and attitudes, tenuously related but lacking a definable core. The sands are continually shifting. Theorists modify or change their stances over time and are prone to attack the bases of each other's arguments. Yet Brown would claim that there remains a residue of value that has invigorated methods of historical research, has made historians more aware of the hidden meanings and ambiguities within texts, has broadened the historical agenda to embrace new fields of study, and has encouraged historians to place more emphasis upon theoretical notions of history which are subsequently incorporated into their teaching. While postmodernist historians have undoubtedly had an influence, especially from the late twentieth century, in stimulating debate on the essentials of the historian's craft, it is probable that most of the developments cited would have occurred without recourse to postmodernism in its several guises. Since postmodernism is something of a chameleon and has become almost an end in itself as a study area of interest for its acolytes, it does not necessarily pose too much of a threat to the discipline of history and to the traditional methodologies of historians so long as a sense of proportion is observed. Few historians would argue that an unqualified objectivity is attainable or that a complete reconstruction of the past is possible, only a representation of the past. Moreover, the separation between ‘events’ and ‘facts’ about which postmodernists make great play, ‘events’ having happened and ‘facts’ being an interpretation of them, is not as innovatory as might appear. For long historians have accepted that facts are a working consensus devoid of marmoreal permanency, always subject to modification upon further investigation. One of several injurious consequences of postmodernist theories that have manifested themselves, especially since the 1980s and 1990s, is the growing tendency for younger historians to pay lip service to aspects of postmodernist theory in published work where this is obviously an artificial intrusion. In so far as this manual sets out as clearly as possible the essential features of the postmodernist cause, it has achieved its stated purpose. The extent to which it will persuade the sceptical is another matter

Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies

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