Recovering the Past: A Historian's Memoir

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Summary: McDonald's "Memoir" is excellent!
Review: Forrest McDonald's most recent book, "Recovering the Past: A Historian's Memoir," is an important work for aficionados of history. Often personally revealing, "Recovering the Past" details the major movements of professional historians through the last century and argues for the supremacy of objective, scientific, research-based history. In the first chapters the reader learns of the influence of "New History" on the course of politics and education of the United States in the early decades of the twentieth century. While providing an overview of his beginnings within the profession, Professor McDonald continues with a firsthand account of the resurrection of objective, research-oriented historians and how his own work helped reshape the then-prevalent thoughts on the Constitution and the Founding Fathers. The last portion of McDonald's memoirs follows the upward course of his career and looks at the latter decades of the history profession, noting the trend toward creation of history or history for the sake of agenda and the stalwart handfuls of historians who continue to strive for excellence. Finally, Professor McDonald concludes with an explanation of his personal philosophy of life in general-"I am a miracle, and so, dear reader, are you." ["Memoir", 166] For those who desire an insightful account of the world of historical research and writing, "Recovering the Past" is a must read.

Rating:
Summary: Recovering the Past
Review: Recovering the Past, a historian's memoir
Forrest McDonald


Recovering the Past, a historian's memoir is written for "that elusive critter called the general reader, or, more precisely, for the vast number of people who genuinely love history for its own sake--which, as will become evident, I regard as eliminating a sizable majority of professional historians."
At the outset of the book it becomes clear that McDonald, who has lived and breathed the study of history for half a century, does not march in lock-step with most of his brethren in academia, an often mirthless, self-righteous breed with axes to grind. With a gift for coupling scholarship and insight with intelligent (and frequently irreverent) humor, McDonald deftly unravels tales of history gone awry, mishandled history, and misguided historians.
The book opens with a history of the writing of history. The nearly exponential increase of research materials available to historians during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries led to a simultaneous explosion of theories regarding both the craft and the responsibility of the historian. This is a clear and fascinating introduction to the story that follows.
Chapter two is a whirlwind history of America and the presidency. Some presidents are dispatched with a sentence, for example: "Fortunately for President Warren G. Harding, he died." "Taft was enormously fat and had the personality of a dead halibut." We get the backdrop against which American historiographers of the twentieth century will be set, and tune into the style and rhythm of trenchant wit that punctuates the book throughout.
Into this narrative enters young Forrest McDonald, a kid from east Texas growing up during the depression. He entered the University of Texas in the late 1940s. It was there that he realized that history was not a series of irrefutable, chronological "facts." Through back to back history courses he encountered renditions of the same events that were completely at odds with each other and professors who were openly hostile towards one another and the differing interpretations each favored.
McDonald introduces us to a world of history and historians that is such a battle ground that one wonders at the success of efforts to transform history into the stultifying, eyeball-glazing assemblage of dehumanized non-stories that fill our history textbooks.
The memoir of his life unfolds concurrently with the story of the revisionism that has dominated history in the latter half of the twentieth century. It is a story you will understand fully by the end of the book. As an indictment of revisionist history, McDonald makes his case.
McDonald's personal story is peopled with villainous swine, arrogant "new historians," a mentor who goes off the deep end, pompous, cowardly academicians, and numerous diligent historians with whom he has shared ideas and collaborated. Clearly, the most important person in his life is his wife, Ellen, of whom he says, "There may be no such thing as an indispensable man, but there is an indispensable woman."
The appendix alone is worth the price of the book. It is a reprint from Requiem, Variations on Eighteenth Century Themes, co-authored with his wife. The title, The Intellectual World of the Founding Fathers, speaks for itself. One cannot help but draw a parallel between McDonald and the founders whom he has spent so much of his life studying.
McDonald wades into controversy confidently and armed to the teeth. It is evident that the high ethical standards by which he gauges members of his profession are applied rigorously to his own work. It is exceptional to find work so painstaking scholarly (neither specifics nor generalizations are allowed to float around unsubstantiated) that is also delightful, sometimes gripping, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny reading.

Kathy Austell
November, 2004