Renee C. Romano > Quotes

“[Hayden] white argues instead for histories that avoid narrative closure and that highlight the contingency of the past ... He points especially to chronicle - a form marked by a lack of closure - as a useful alternative to the narrative. In a chronicle, historians offer an interpretation of the past but simply end the account when they reach the present.”
― Renee Romano

“John Lewis Gaddis puts it even more starkly: trying to uncover the "truth" of the past is not only impossible but also not useful. Historians map the past, much like cartographers map a landscape. Recreating an entire landscape isn't a map; it's a reproduction. It's not useful to those who seek to use it and doesn't offer any manageable insight into that landscape. In the same way, history is only useful when it is a representation, not a reproduction; it must make the past legible to those who seek to learn something about it.”
― Renee Romano

“Hayden White ... has argued that the narratives historians develop and use are constructed fictions; they do not reflect any reality of the past because 'real events do not offer themselves as stories'. The dominance of the narrative form among historians ... reflects a larger problem: our desire to make the past tidy and contained in a way that does not, and cannot, represent reality. By framing our historical interpretations as narrative ... historians endow the past with a false sense of coherence”
― renee romano

“At a recognizable point in the research process, looking at more sources does not provide more insight. When we have consulted enough material to identify patterns and developments, then … we have the mastery necessary to offer an interpretation of the past”
― Renee Romano