On "what is history?" : from Carr and Elton to Rorty and White

214 Pages·1995·2.508 MB·English

by  Keith Jenkins

On ‘What is History?’
In this book Keith Jenkins argues that older modernist discussions
about the nature of history - including those by Carr and Elton -
are now partial and dated guides to contemporary debates. He
advocates that they be ‘replaced’ by two other theorists, Richard
Rorty and Hayden White.
In his introduction and first chapter, Keith Jenkins places Carr,
Elton, Rorty and White within current discussions concerning the
discourse of history. This ‘contextualisation’ is then followed by
four chapters: in the first two Carr and Elton are subjected to
radical critique; in the latter Jenkins introduces aspects of the
works of Rorty and White, postmodern-type thinkers who in his
opinion represent a possible way forward for today’s
historiographical concerns.
Keith Jenkins’ exploration of Hayden White’s work is particularly
significant. For although White has long been recognised as one of
the most original history theorists currently writing, his work is
actually little read and little understood in many orthodox
historical arenas, or by most history students. Jenkins argues that
the neglect of White and the general suspicion of ‘theory’ among
many historians are issues which need to be urgently addressed.
On ‘What is History?’ should enable students to gain insights
into and understandings of many current debates with regard to
the ‘history question’, insights and understandings that
necessarily move us beyond those old introductory favourites, Carr
and Elton, into new and vital areas of consideration.
Also available from Routledge:

Re-thinking History by Keith Jenkins
‘A model of concise argument [that] poses fundamental questions
concerning the nature of historiography in a post-modernist world’
A. White, University of East London
‘raises many interesting and important questions’
Teaching History
On ‘What is History?’
From Carr and Elton to Rorty and White
Keith Jenkins
London and New York
First published 1995
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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© 1995 Keith Jenkins
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by
any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known
or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available
0-203-99381-0 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-415-09724-X (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-09725-8 (pbk)
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction: history, theory, ideology 1
1 History today 15
2 On Edward Carr 43
3 On Geoffrey Elton 65
4 On Richard Rorty 99
5 On Hayden White 137
Notes 183
Further Reading 199
Index of names 203
For Maureen, Philip and Patrick
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Peter Brickley, Richard Brown, Andrew Foster,
Keith Grieves, Guy Nelson, Richard Pulley, Geoff Scale and Alan
White for their comments on the arguments I have tried to put
forward in an introductory way in this book. I have attempted to
take on board their critical suggestions whenever possible and
those that ‘have not made it’ I have kept gratefully for possible
future use.
The author and publishers would like to thank the following who
have kindly given permission for the use of copyright material:
Macmillan Press Limited, for excerpts from E.H.Carr’s What is
History?; Cambridge University Press and the Royal Historical
Society for excerpts from G.R.Elton’s Return to Essentials;
Cambridge University Press and Richard Rorty for excerpts from R.
Rorty’s Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, also Objectivity,
Relativism and Truth: Philosophical Papers Volume 7, and Essays
on Heidegger and Others: Philosophical Papers Volume II;
University of Minnesota Press for excerpts from R.Rorty’s
Consequences of Pragmatism; Johns Hopkins University Press for
excerpts from Hayden White’s Metahistory, Tropics of Discourse
and The Content of Form. Every effort has been made to obtain
permission from the publishers of G.R.Elton’s The Practice of
History. Any queries about the above should be addressed to
Patrick Proctor at Routledge, London.
Keith Jenkins, 23 November 1994
viii
Introduction: history, theory, ideology
This book has been written as something of a sequel to an earlier
volume published in 1991 entitled Re-thinking History and, as on
that previous occasion, this new work is addressed primarily
(though obviously not exclusively) to advanced and undergraduate
students and their teachers.1 And I have written it because I think
it is necessary to introduce such students—who may well be
studying the question of the nature of history in some detail for
the first time -to some of the more contentious, polemical and
difficult debates which are currently in circulation, and which are
arguably determin-ing how this particular discourse is being
constituted and considered today.
If, however, these comments indicate in only the very briefest of
ways who I have written this book for and something of its general
purpose, I do not actually want to enlarge on these intentions at this
early stage. Rather what I do want to do, is to go on to explain my
approach to the question of what is history, how and why I have
organised it around the four people whose names appear in the
book’s subtitle—Edward Carr, Geoffrey Elton, Richard Rorty and
Hayden White—and, more importantly perhaps, why I have put into
that subtitle an element of movement, that is, from Carr and Elton
to Rorty and White.
For, whilst I think that readers will find a good deal of
description and exposition in this work, I shall also be running a
particular argument throughout its entirety, it being within the
‘movement’ just mentioned that what polemical cutting edge the
book has is located. For these two simple words, from and to,
carry within them the weight of the thesis I shall be developing in
the following pages, my position being (in brief for now) that
despite the continued popularity of their texts as ‘essential
introductions’ to the ‘history question’ (which is why I have
thought it useful to organise this book around individual
historians/theorists and not around ‘schools’ or ‘movements’ or
‘concepts’ or whatever)2 I feel that Carr and Elton are no longer