Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism

Rating:
Summary: Copernican revolution indeed
Review: This collection of essays, all of which originally appeared in the late 1960s and 70s, is essential reading for every would-be historian or even amateur history buff. White unpacks interpretation and meaning in history, arguing that literary or psychic tropes govern the discourse of history just as clearly as they are manifest in the other arts and sciences; and that history that lacks self-consciousness of the constitutive forces of its own discourse can rightly be criticized as inherently meaningless, if not merely a propaganda tool for the justification of the status quo.

Historians are artists, White argues: they represent their understanding of history in their writings, they do not reproduce the history itself; their creations should be understood as we understand modern art, and not encumbered with outdated assumptions about 'realism' as the validating quality by which they can be judged. White notes in "The Burden of History," the first essay, that we do not judge the works of an artist or a scientist by asking ourselves if we perceive the world in exactly the same way, but rather we look to see that their representations do not include any deliberate falsifications. We don't compare the works of John Constable and Paul Cezanne to see which of them painted landscapes 'better' -- instead we appreciate the particular vision of truth each artist demonstrated in his work. So with historians, whose true calling, White believes, is to free humanity from deterministic history by pointing out that the present is the result of human choices, and encouraging people to consider the power their choices might have in shaping the future.

Although it helps to have some familiarity with nineteenth century historiography, the works of Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud and Weber in order to understand White's arguments, this background reading isn't strictly necessary, and White's exposition of the arguments he uses as illustrations is educational for people who haven't had this kind of exposure.

Rating:
Summary: Copernican revolution indeed
Review: This collection of essays, all of which originally appeared in the late 1960s and 70s, is essential reading for every would-be historian or even amateur history buff. White unpacks interpretation and meaning in history, arguing that literary or psychic tropes govern the discourse of history just as clearly as they are manifest in the other arts and sciences; and that history that lacks self-consciousness of the constitutive forces of its own discourse can rightly be criticized as inherently meaningless, if not merely a propaganda tool for the justification of the status quo.

Historians are artists, White argues: they represent their understanding of history in their writings, they do not reproduce the history itself; their creations should be understood as we understand modern art, and not encumbered with outdated assumptions about 'realism' as the validating quality by which they can be judged. White notes in "The Burden of History," the first essay, that we do not judge the works of an artist or a scientist by asking ourselves if we perceive the world in exactly the same way, but rather we look to see that their representations do not include any deliberate falsifications. We don't compare the works of John Constable and Paul Cezanne to see which of them painted landscapes 'better' -- instead we appreciate the particular vision of truth each artist demonstrated in his work. So with historians, whose true calling, White believes, is to free humanity from deterministic history by pointing out that the present is the result of human choices, and encouraging people to consider the power their choices might have in shaping the future.

Although it helps to have some familiarity with nineteenth century historiography, the works of Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud and Weber in order to understand White's arguments, this background reading isn't strictly necessary, and White's exposition of the arguments he uses as illustrations is educational for people who haven't had this kind of exposure.

Rating:
Summary: Classic text
Review: White's text is a classic in its field, considering the ways history has always been, above all, literature. This collection includes an early essay on Foucault and poststructuralism. Any serious historian must read this text.