On 'What Is History?': From Carr and Elton to Rorty and White

by Keith Jenkins

Jenkins provides a student introduction to contemporary historiographical debates. Through its radical critique of Carr and Elton, he embraces the postmodern-type approaches of thinkers such as Richard Rorty and Hayden White.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Philosophy

212 pages, Paperback

First published June 30, 1995

About the author

Keith Jenkins is a British historiographer. Like Hayden White and other "postmodern" historiographers, Jenkins believes that any historian's output should be seen as a story. A work of history is as much about the historian's own world view and ideological positions as it is about past events. This means that different historians will inevitably ascribe different meaning to the same historical events.

Jenkins is professor in history at the University of Chichester.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the worst book I've read in a long while, and feel compelled to say so. It's supposed to be introductory for students and teachers, but it's obtuse and unclear, even for me. To give you an idea, I find reading Aristotle easier to read than this, and Aristotle was talking about issues of much higher density and complexity than basic historiographical theory. The style, sentence structure, and vocabulary just 'obfuscate' things, which is unfortunately a pattern among the theorists Jenkins admires (a pity, because what they have to say is important). Further, if you're a beginner historian, this book is useless because the author makes sweeping statements about the state of the discipline that are false or misleading, and you won't know any better. If you're a more experienced historian, it's very superficial. I don't know who this book is really for.
My main problem with the book is it’s the blatant arrogance, even poor form. If postmodernism sees history and communication as a big rhetorical game, with no real, objective point of reference to the truth, Jenkins plays a rhetorical game on over-drive. I can't believe so many harsh statements are made on Carr and Elton. I'm not a fan of Carr (or Elton) myself, but Carr especially doesn't deserve the misrepresentation and belittling treatment he gets. Jenkins uses adverbs like 'clearly' or 'obviously' to describe how Carr and Elton are wrong here or there, yet does not give nearly enough argumentation or documentation to back up such strong language of rebuttal; it's just blank assertions. To give another example, he quotes Carr then says, 'Of course none of this is to the point' which was not true at all of the quote, and did not proceed to show why. The chapters on Carr and Elton are a waste of time - he misrepresents and blasts them; you're much better off reading them on your own - their books are short. I don't know how such drivel was even printed.
The Rorty chapter was the only halfway redeeming quality, and I will look into him further; the chapter on White only confirmed to me that White's arguments are a waste of time, except for his taxonomy.
This is the only book I've read of Jenkins; maybe his others are better, and I do agree in some aspect of his historiography, but this book really isn't worth it. A better treatment to the challenges and changes we must make with postmodernism is Telling the Truth About History, by Appleby et al.

[Paul JB]

As a study in historiography I didn't find this as useful or as lucid as 'Rethinking History'. A large part of this is probably down to my own unfamiliarity with Rorty, who I don't feel any closer to as a result of reading this book. The first half (savaging Elton, and more respectfully dismantling Carr) is, to me, much stronger than the second, which is apt considering (in my own humble opinion) the dearth of comfortable historiographical idols after the linguistic turn. I appreciate Jenkins' efforts more than most, in that he is clearly searching for a new template long after others have elected to bury their heads in the sand, but neither White nor (as far as I can tell) Rorty offer a genuinely reconstructive model of historical study, with the effect that this essay can't help but feel curiously unfinished.