Reading History Backwards

It doesn't necessarily compromise history. History is put to many uses, many of them rather less than honest. So, if you lived in Germany in 1914, you were going to be taught that the rise of the German Empire was inevitable, and that this was because of their superior culture (when the Nazis came along 20 years later, you would have also been told that the Germans were racially superior). That kind of thing goes on in all nations, not just Germany--i've seen it all my life in American history. But that is "history" as national, heroic fairy tale. "Real" history is a completely different beast.

When Herodotus wrote his wrote his history, he wanted to explain why the Persians eventually invaded Greece. Although many modern historians (usually and especially academic historians, who spend a good deal of their time squabbling over petty matters) criticize Herodotus for not using modern methods, that's pretty silly. He lived more than 2000 years ago, fer chrissake. He actually is pretty good about noting that something he reports is what he was told by so-and-so (he doesn't name individuals, just the people he talked to in general); at that time, as is true now, the discriminating reader needs to decide for him or herself what is plausible, and what is likely exaggerated or a flat lie designed to make a certain group of people look good. But he does a wonderful job of not assuming the outcome. He even manages to introduce a little suspense and excitement. It was by no means assured that the Greeks would win, and it was a damned close thing. If the Greeks had failed to unite against the common threat, they could have been defeated--the naval battle of Salamis was a crucial turning point in that war, and it was almost over before anyone could get a good idea who would win.

Thucydides wrote the History of the Peloponnesian War, in which he personally participated. It has a lot of the claptrap of ancient history, such as recounting long speeches by important individuals which he could not possibly have heard, nor for which it is likely that there was any written record. But he also didn't lard it up with deus ex machina nonsense in which he invoked the gods to explain events, and he did a really good job of explaining the political and social factors which were in operation at the time. He tended to be prejudiced against popular democracy, but he still manages to give a fair, balanced picture of events, including his own personal failures. Most guys who are avid for military history quickly get bored with the book (which is long) because it focuses on cause and effect, and isn't a source for detailed accounts of glorious battle. Thucydides was on the losing side, and makes an honest effort to analyze the why and wherefore of the defeat of Athens, and the victory of Sparta. He also ends the account before the war is over, so it wouldn't be fair to accuse him of assuming the outcome. He was very compassionate about the suffering and injustice inherent in war, and comments that: "War is a violent teacher."

Titus Livius--usually known to English speakers as Livy--worte Ad urbe condite, which means "from the foundation of the city," and which was a history of Rome in its first 750+ years. The first five books are the "legendary" history--Rome was sacked by the Gauls in 390 BCE, and most of the records before that time were lost, except for very sparse accounts kept in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, which held out when the city was overrun by the Gauls. He is a good source because he had access to records which are now lost. He does, however, largely assume that Rome was destined to rule the world. But we can learn from these types of accounts, too. Other Roman historians wrote accounts which we have, or for which we have fragments, and comparisons reveal much. But all of the Roman historians were writing for Roman readers, and there is much which they assumed their readers would know, which we need to have explained to us. But there are other sources which can do that. Polybius was a "Romanized" Greek who wrote a history of the rise of Rome, and it is invaluable. He was writing for a Greek audience, and in many respects, was trying to explain to the proud and sophisticated Greeks who their new masters were, and where they came from. He does not assume that his readers will know much about the Romans, and he explains a great deal.

History fell on hard times after the Classical period, though, because civilization fell on hard times. Most accounts before the early modern age (roughly, after 1500) are sketchy and unreliable--and they partake of the character of tribal history. So, when Bede writes his ecclesiastic history of the English people, he does tend to assume that the spread of Christianity among the English was inevitable, and speaks ill of those he considers to be "pagans," while depicting "good Christians" in an unrealistically favorable light, as though they never did any wrong. Despite that, it is a very valuable account, if taken with many grains of salt. It covered the 700+ years from Caesar's invasion (pre-Christianity, and when there were no English) until shortly before his own death, until about 730 CE. (He also adopted the anno domini dating protocol, describing dates as "AD," and helped to establish that practice.) The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles are actually a compilation of several accounts kept in different monasteries, which only become one "book" when they are compiled and reconciled. They are almost embarrassingly tribal in nature--they take no notice of Anglo-Saxon defeats, and only find fault with Anglo-Saxon leaders who have already been defeated by the enemies of the English, after it is safe to speak ill of a powerful man or woman.

The best history will not only be a balanced account, but if well-written, will develop some suspense and drama (hopefully without factual distortion) which will make it a pleasure to read. I highly recommend two great 19th century American historians because of the academic quality of their work, and because they also happened to be good writers who made their work readable. One is William Prescott who wrote a history of the Spanish monarchy and the Spanish conquest of the "new world" in more than 20 volumes. Most people won't want to read 4 volumes about King Philip II, but the three volumes on the conquest of Mexico and the two volumes on the conquest of Peru are very readable.

The other is Francis Parkman, who wrote the history of the French in North America in seven volumes. He tends to act as though the eventual victory of the English over the French were inevitable, but that only occurs at the end of the last volume, and he writes extremely well, has a wicked wit, and loves to gossip about the powerful and famous. It is entertaining reading, and most of it does not concern itself with war between the English and French, and focuses on the French exploration of a new continent. One of my favorite historians, Parkman visited almost every setting he described, and seems to have been inspired by having walked over the battlefields and campaigns of the French and Indian War when he was a child.

Understanding history takes a lot of effort, and a lot of reading. But historical records yield up their secrets despite the intentions of those who write them. What is not said can be important, and sometimes things we would deplore are fully described by people who were not ashamed of what they had done, and sometimes were proud of it. In the 1560s, French Protestants established Fort Caroline in Florida near where the Kennedy Space Center is now located. The Spanish didn't like the idea of anyone setting up on their turf, but they figured that as they were French Protestants, if they snapped them up quickly, they could avoid war with France, which was still basically a Catholic country. So they sent out an expedition to take Fort Caroline. They suffered horribly in a bad storm (possibly a near miss of a hurricane), but finally arrived at Fort Caroline, and bluffed the defenders into surrendering. When the French had learned that the Spanish were coming, they had put to sea in three small ships they possessed, but were scattered by the same storm through which the Spanish struggled. Driven on shore, they were scattered in small groups trying to make it back to Fort Caroline. The Spanish commander on the scene, Nunez, marched down the coast, rounding up the scattered bands of Frenchmen. He would tie their hands, and then take them behind the sand dunes in small groups, where they would be murdered.

How do we know this? Well, first of all, Nunez wasn't very efficient. If any of the Frenchmen were suspicious and resisted, they didn't get killed--he would take them along and use them to convince other groups of Frenchmen to surrender--incredibly, he allowed the leader of the French at Fort Caroline to live, and spared almost everyone at the settlement--and sent them back to France. But the most detailed account we have is from Nunez himself. He was not ashamed of what he had done, he was serving his King in the best way he knew, and was proud of his success. He also wanted to make sure that the King got word of what a loyal and capable subject he was. Finally, he regarded the French as heretics (because they were, after all, Protestants), and was not ashamed of having murdered so many, but was proud of doing his "holy" duty as well as his military duty.

So, history written immediately after events can reveal a lot about events because it is fresh in people's minds, and accounts written later can also be fresh in the mind of the writers (Bernal Diaz wrote his The Conquest of New Spain about Cortez' conquest of Mexico more than 50 years after the event, when he was an old man in his 80s living on his hacienda in Nicaragua). New documents can be revealed over time which were unknown to the contemporaries of the events, or forgotten shortly after they were written. Mary Chestnut from South Carolina was married to the senior Senator from that state at the time the American Civil War began. He became an aide to the Confederate President, Jefferson Davis, and Mary went with him to Richmond, where she moved in the social circle of the President and his wife, Varina Davis. She kept a diary of the war years from 1861 to 1865. She had no children, so the diary, unknown to almost everyone around her, went to a friend when she died.

It was not published until 1905, when it was heavily edited. For example, southern editors didn't want to include the more depressing parts--she comments about John Bell Hood, who was courting the "belle" of Richmond society, whose name escapes me, except that she was called "Buck," because her middle name was Buchanan. Hood was badly wounded at Gettysburg, and his left arm, although not amputated, was useless to him for the rest of his life. At Chickamauga, later that same year, he lost his right leg. Mary Chestnut made an ironic comment at one point--although she didn't name Hood, she has just been writing about him and she commented that their men were being "whittled away." She also described the fear of slave uprisings which eventually lead many families to abandon their "back country" plantations. A less heavily edited account was published in 1949, and in 1981, an almost complete version was published (passages which seemed to be incoherent were the only parts left out), and won the Pulitzer Prize. Mary Chestnut was not necessarily writing for the historical record, and she certainly could not have foreseen the outcome, nor necessarily have wanted to. But her account only ends in August, 1865, well after the war was over, and absolutely no hope remained for the South.

History can be a fascinating and rewarding study. It helps to remember that history does not repeat itself, that it is not written by the victors, that it is not a set of lies agreed upon, and most importantly, that there are very few events in history which were truly inevitable. Some huge examples of events which never need have happened could occupy me for several pages--but i'll just take one. Most Americans assume, and their history books in school usually tell them that the American Revolution was inevitable. It was not--and that it did take place is a monument to pig-headed stupidity persevered in with breath-taking obstinacy by the governments of George III. I hope you will read much history, read widely on any topic which interests you (to get the widest possible range of interpretations), and come to your own conclusions.

Some very rich thoughts, Set, as usual.

In the past few years I've come to learn--largely through the work of music historian Richard Taruskin--one of the fundamental tenets of historical investigation: that in order to explain history one must explain motives behind actions, and only people can have motives. (As I've pontificated about in many a thread) I've become wary of historical explanations that attribute actions to abstract concepts or inanimate objects: "The Enlightenment created a society in which _____" or "capitalism made people more predisposed to believe _____" or "postmodernism often expresses itself in the form of _____" or whatever. I see the need for abstract concepts, of course, and it's very difficult to get out of the habit of using them as shorthand for longer historical narratives; but when we tout abstract concepts as the source of historical actions (when they are usually the result of them), we're no longer explaining how things happened, we're just repeating some already established historical narrative.

An excellent and uncommonly perceptive observation about how human affairs work. I have used as a "signature line" a comment which another member made in a thread, and which was à propos there, and often is when it comes to the attitudes which people develop toward a greater historical narrative. People not only believe foolish things about history, but happily hold contradictory views which are their reality, based on what they perceive, or think they perceive, from popular narratives.

For example, it is commonly held that the Amerindians were peaceful tribes, living in harmony with their environment and with one another. Leaving aside the evidence that species diversity took a nose-dive in North America when large numbers of humans appeared here (as would be expected in all other cases), and leaving aside the wealth of documentary evidence the Amerindians not only warred on one another, but even tried (and occasionally succeeded) to exterminate one another--this is a notion at odds with another point of view held by much the same group of "under-informed" people. That is that the white man willfully practiced genocide against the Amerindian, and succeeded because of their technological superiority.

However, if the Amerindians lived in peaceful harmony with their neighbors, how could they have failed to exterminate the white men who came to North America in those first years, when, literally for more than a century, they so overwhelmingly outnumbered their tormentors? Part of the answer is that the Amerindians, far from living in peace and harmony with their fellows, took every opportunity to attempt to gain the upper hand, and every advantage they could over their neighbors.

In 1519, after landing at what is today the site of Vera Cruz on the east coast of Mexico, Cortés started in land with fewer than 500 men. Repeatedly, envoys from Tenochtitlan (the city state in the great salt lake where the city of Mexico now stands) told the Spaniards to turn back. Popular legend claims that they went in fear of the Spaniards because of the legend of Quetzalcoatl--but modern scholarship dispels this myth, and on the evidence of Toltec (the general ethnic name of the tribes of the central Mexican plateau) monks, who joined the church after the conquest, and wrote the accounts of their own childhoods, and the accounts of their fathers and grandfathers. The Indians knew the Spaniards were mortal men, and knew they could die, that they could be killed.

As the Spaniards marched in to the mountains, they first encountered the Tlaxcalans, people of a city state who were known as ferocious warriors, who had successfully resisted the impositions of the Aztecs for the three generations of the Aztec empire. They paid a price for not paying taxes and tribute to Tenochtitlan, through the loss of their young soldiers and outlying villages, and the loss of outside trade. But they were proud, intelligent and fierce warriors. From the large number of envoys who passed to and fro, visiting the Spanish column, the Tlaxcalans decided that the Spaniards were the allies of the Axtecs, and therefore, the enemy of the Tlaxcalan state. At Metztitlan, they attacked, surrounded and besieged the Spanish for three days. The Spanish suffered very badly, as tens of thousands of veteran Indian warriors hemmed them in a small cluster of buildings.

But Cortés was a skillful and persistent diplomat, and eventually was able to arrange a truce to discuss terms. He told the Tlaxcalans that he had come to conquer Tenochtitlan in the name of his King (neglecting to mention that the Spaniards were prepared to one day conquer Tlaxcala as well), and solicited the aid of the Tlaxcalans, who were only too eager to take the opportunity to strike a decisive blow at their traditional enemies. The Spaniards had enjoyed no great technological advantage, and certainly no advantage which would sustain them against odds of 60 to 1 or greater (Bernal Diaz, who was with Cortés, and whose memoirs in mentioned above, was a veteran of the campaigns of Cordoba against the French in northern Italy, and a reliable witness--he estimated the size of the Tlaxcalan force at 40- to 50,000). Their armor did not fully protect them, and the padded cotton armor of the Indians afforded far more protection that one might have thought--so much so, that the Spaniards immediately adopted the padded cotton armor of the Indians, and wore it beneath their own leather or steel plate armor. Their swords were no great advantage, and the swords the Indians used, hardwoods furthered hardened in fire and edged with obsidian, cut as surely and as deeply as the Toledo steel of the conquistadores. The Spanish firearms were few, and could only fire, at best, one every two minutes. The Indians' arrows didn't have the penetrating power of the Spanish bullets, arrows and crossbow quarrels, but then, they had tens of thousands of archers, using arrows tipped with obsidian arrow heads. Only three Spaniards were killed, but Diaz reports that more than half of the entire force were wounded, usually in the extremities, the arms and legs, which most of them were unable to cover with armor. The Indians were unimpressed by the horses of the Spaniards--even though they did not use beasts of burdens, they quickly realized that man and horse were two separate creatures, and they would give way before a lancer, and then closed in behind, attempting to kill the horse, so as to get at the rider.

Things were not looking good for the Spaniards, not just before they concluded their alliance with the Tlaxcalans, but also if they had to face more huge armies when the came across the mountains on the plateau. Tlaxcala sent 5,000 warriors with them, and 2,000 porters (according to Diaz). At Cholula, south of Tenochtitlan, a plot was discovered to attack the Spaniards and Tlaxcalans at nightfall. There was no love lost between the Aztecs and the people of the city states they had conquered and now taxed, and one or more residents of Cholula came forward to volunteer information of the plot to the Spaniards. The attack was only pressed half-heartedly, and failed without great loss of life on the part of the Cholulans, and casualties for the Spaniards and the Tlaxcalans. The "city fathers" of Cholula moved quickly to assure Cortés that they had been forced to attack by the "Mexicans" (the contemptuous name that the Toltecs of the plateau used for the Aztecs), and that they were sorry and wished to make it up. So, when Cortés marched to Xolchimilco on the south shore of the great salt lake which then occupied the center of the plateau, and in which Tenochtitlan was located, they now marched with Tlaxcalan warriors and porters, and Cholulan warriors and porters--and with their supplies refreshed at Cholula.

I don't intend to recount here the conquest of Mexico--i do highly recommend the narrative of Bernal Diaz, The Conquest of New Spain, and well as the three volumes of Prescott's The Conquest of Mexico. But the point is, although Cortés never command more than a thousand Spaniards, he could call upon literally tens of thousands of willing Indian allies from Tlaxcala, Cholula, Xochimilco, Texcoco, and many other lesser cities on the shores of that inland sea, who had long burned to turn on their Aztec oppressors.

This pattern can be seen again and again in the contest between the aboriginal inhabitants of North America and the Europeans. It was the relative political cohesion of the Europeans as against the lack of such unity, and the suspicion and enmity which existed among the Amerindians which enabled a continuing conquest. Quite apart from that, that image of the Amerindians as happy-go-lucky, peace-loving environmentalists, living in harmony with their red brothers, would have been offensive to those tribes, who were proud of themselves as great hunters and warriors. It is also insulting to their memories, because it depicts them as rather childish, stupid and naive. That they lacked political cohesion and a greater unitary national concept does not mean that they weren't intelligent, adult and capable. They were, and such stereotypes are an insult to their collective memory.

I didn't explain that contradiction as i intended. On the one hand, the popular view of Amerindians is of a peaceful and peace-loving hunter-gatherer society, living in harmony with each other and with nature. On the other hand, the are also seen as heroic warriors, nobly fighting a valiant but doomed campaign against the vile, genocidal Europeans. Quite apart from being simplistic hogwash, the two images contradict one another. However, they are both the product of the popular "noble savage" image which Europeans had of aboriginal Americans in the 18th century--an image much more popular with Europeans who had not actually been to North America to deal with the Indians.

Re: Reading History Backwards

History cannot be told from any other vantage point than the present. That's what makes it "history."

That, in itself, doesn't compromise historical scholarship -- otherwise all historical scholarship would be inevitably compromised. Furthermore, knowing the outcome allows the historian to focus on what is important and what is unimportant in the historical narrative. For instance, in analyzing the causes of the US Civil War, a historian knows that it is safe to ignore antebellum trends in women's fashion. That's not to say that women's fashion is historically uninteresting as a subject, but rather that it is largely irrelevant to a study on the causes of the war, and we can make that decision because we know how the war actually started.

There is, as you note, a tendency to write history as an inevitable chain of circumstances leading to a particular result. I think that problem is largely exaggerated -- a book on the causes of the Civil War might be mistakenly interpreted as "inevitabilist" simply because it focuses on only those events that led to the war -- but it can be a problem. An able historian recognizes that events are contingent even if the result is a foregone conclusion.

Joe's point about contingency is crucial to a full understanding of historical events. I have already pointed out that few, if any, historical events are inevitable. One such event which might be said to be inevitable was Napoleon's invasion of Russia, and his subsequent defeat in 1814. However, the event was only inevitable in an immediate context, for the period 1805-1812. England had defeated the combined Franco-Spanish fleets in 1805, when Napoleon "re-ignited" war in Europe. Earlier, in 1801, Lord Nelson had destroyed the Danish fleet in the harbor at Copenhagen, because the Danes refused to abandon the "armed neutrality" of Denmark, Sweden, Prussia and Russia. Prussia had no fleet to speak of; Sweden had a good, but small fleet; Russia had a large fleet, fairly good, but largely designed for use in the Baltic, with many row-galleys--it was not that much of a threat in "blue water." England relied upon trade with the Baltic, and particularly Russia, for valuable naval stores--primarily timber (tall, straight pine trees for masts and spars) and the coarse flax which was used to make sail cloth. England and France were still at war in 1801, and the naval issue had not been settled. England could protect their own trade, and prevent interference by the Swedes and the Russians, as long as Denmark stood aside, or was neutralized. In order to prevent the French from benefiting by trade in the Baltic, and to break up the Armed Neutrality coalition, the Royal Navy descended upon Copenhagen and destroyed the main strength of the Danish Fleet.

In 1802, the Peace of Amiens ended the Wars of the French Revolution--and it was contingent upon Nelson's destruction of the Danish fleet. It left the French, however, along with their Spanish allies, in control of significant naval power. England was never happy with that treaty, and many of the English felt that they had made all the concessions. In 1804, Napoleon alleged that six French ships had been seized on the high seas, for which there is no evidence, so Napoleon either believed something which wasn't true, or he was cobbling together an excuse. In 1803, he ordered the seizure of all British subjects in France. The government in England fell, and Pitt returned to power (he had been turned out for unrelated reasons in 1801). Napoleon assembled an army, ostensibly for the invasion of England, in 1804. When the Austrians and Russians made plans to invade France, he turned east, abandoned the cross-Channel invasion plan, and marched to defeat the Austro-Russian armies of the new coalition assembled against him.

This lead, soon, to the destruction of the main elements of the French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar in 1805. Thereafter, England maintained a blockade of virtually all of Europe (excepting only their ally, Portugal, and Norway which had no significant overseas trade at that time), in order to strangle the French economically. Napoleon countered with the Continental System, which was designed to return the favor, and strangle the English economy by cutting them off from their European markets. (Modern research shows that the System, long derided by English historians as ineffective, actually had the effect of ending more than a century of English mercantile growth; in 1806 and 1807, the English balance of trade actually declined, and "went negative." The English were somewhat compensated when after Trafalgar in 1805, and the invasion of Spain by Napoleon in 1808, they were free to trade with markets in South America--but on balance, the Continental System was hurting them.)

The English blockade, however, hurt Europe more rapidly than the Continental System was hurting England. In particular, the Russians were no longer able to make a good living selling timber and coarse flax, or heavy linen sail cloth to the English, at a time when the Royal Navy had put all their other customers out of business. Most Russians, of course, were not affected--but the wealthy aristocracy were, and their public opinion counted when the "public opinion," such as it was, of the bulk of the population was meaningless. Finally, in 1812, the Emperor Alexander I decided to defy Napoleon. (His father was murdered, and some commentators believe that Alexander was motivated by the fear of assassination, because some claim that he and Napoleon had previously admired one another--i find the theory suspect.) Between 1805 and 1812, Napoleon had managed to defeat the Austrians, Prussians and Russians, and after the 1809 Wagram campaign, had been unchallenged on land in Europe.

But if the Russians defied the Continental System, the English might again have access to the valuable naval stores for sale in Russia, and the hegemony of fear which had destroyed the coalition against him might, fail, leading the Austrians and Prussians to once again take up arms against him. So, Napoleon really had no choice but to invade Russia. Therefore, many people interpret the invasion of Russia as inevitable.

However, quite apart from the rather brief sketch provided above, it should be obvious that there would have been no such invasion unless a series of complex events occurring between 1788 and 1812 had not taken place. And the ramifications reach even farther back than 1788. French support for the Americans in their revolution and the Franco-Spanish naval war against the English ruined finances already made shaky by almost a century of wars beginning with the Nine Years war in 1689, and ending with the Seven Years War, concluded just a dozen years before the American Revolution. Middle class opinion in France was already against Louis XVI for his incompetent regime, and especially for the bankruptcy of the monarchy and the government. When a terrible hail storm in the summer of 1788 combined with hoarding by speculators lead to dangerous rises in the price of bread, the stage was set for the middle class to exploit the discontent of the lower classes and the impossibly burdened peasants to start a revolution.

No revolution, no Napoleon; no Napoleon, no Continental System; no Continental System, no Russian defiance--and finally, without the failure of the 1812 invasion of Russia, Napoleon might have stayed on his throne almost indefinitely.

So, even that invasion was not actually inevitable, and the chain of contingent events is long, detailed, complicated, and difficult to describe in all of its aspects. Given that the American Revolution were not inevitable, one might well make the case the the French Revolution were not inevitable.

Thanks to Joe for pointing out that crucial aspect of historiography.

The advent and understanding of Archeology has opened another facet to challenge history. The scribes and recorders were usually employed by the order of the King, and thus must pay-the-piper. Archeology has opened up history to other veins altogether.

From Babylon to Persia to Greece, the evolution of mankind has been accepted with bilblical confidences. When often the opposite is true. Many recorders, to even modern news reporters only report on the agenda that pays the bills. So Looking back at the history can often reveal another thread entirely.

Looking from the inside out can often reveal facts and philosophies that were skewed and manipulated by the regime of the time.

Where archeology digs into the homes and palaces, local letters and obscure writings I feel, will open up areas never before revealed. The internet can make un-heard of writers of yesteryear become overnight successes if we can relinquish some of the acadamian ego's to search diligently with intelligent considerations.