Writing Ancient History

by Neville Morley

How do ancient historians pursue their craft? From the evidence of coins, pottery shards, remains of buildings, works of art, and, above all, literary texts―all of which have survived more or less accidentally from antiquity―they fashion works of history. But how exactly do they go about reconstructing and representing the past? How should history be written? These and related questions are the subject of Neville Morley's engaging introduction to the theory and philosophy of history. Intended for students and teachers not only of ancient history but of historiography, the philosophy of history, and classics, his book addresses the implications of debates over methodological and theoretical issues for the practice of ancient history. At the present time, Morley says, students of ancient history are left to come to their own understanding of the field through a process of trial and error. In his view, too many professors regard "questions of theory and methodology... as pointless distractions from the business of actually doing history. Worse, [these questions] may even be perceived as a threat to the subject." Asserting that more attention must be given to fundamental matters, Morley considers such topics as the nature of historical narrative, style in historical writing, the use and abuse of sources, and the reasons for studying history.

Genres: History, Ancient History

176 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1999

Reviews

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book approximately 8 years ago, and after going through some challenging classes at New Saint Andrews College to get a master's degree, I decided to revisit it. At school, I have been looking carefully at the Hebrew of the Old Testament, the difficulties of talking about an infinite God, the issues with textual criticism, and translation complications. Each of these classes has really forced me to ponder how little we actually know and how much of what we take for granted is mediated through long chains of reasoning, much of which we simply emotionally react to. When you face those kinds of questions, as a Christian who believes that the Gospel should result in action and in societal transformation, it's unnerving.

Reading this book was spiritually invigorating. Morley has four basic chapters, with four basic points:
1: History is not a science, but the art of seeking for why something happened (historical causation).
2: History is NOT simply a matter of reading sources and finding the "facts." Every "fact" is only meaningful if it's being related to other pieces of information, all of which have to be arranged together.
3: Modern historians tend to write in impersonal prose that pretends to be free from rhetoric; however, this is not how it always has been, and it's basically a way of guarding the guild boundaries of professional historians. It often allows historians to make strong, sure statements that sound like "just the facts, ma'am," when in fact they are often guessing and putting together lots of information (see point 2). This is crucial: a lot of what you read is at best speculative and a lot less true than you think.
4: History is not useful for predicting the future or for learning lessons, because there are too many variables between the present situation and the past, and because history is always an act of reconstruction. When historians go to the past to justify the present, they will misread things in the light of how it turned out. History is instead mostly useful for knowing something about how our present world got this way, and how other people thought about things.

A quick qualification: I have some friends who point out that 4 seems wrong, because often history does give us obvious lessons. Lesson from communism: that didn't work. Lesson from Anabaptists: the time of holy war is over. So yes, history does have some lessons. But a lot less than we think: once we start digging into the particulars, hopefully if we are to be good historians, we will not rely on these lessons or let them tilt us away from seeing how something might have gone otherwise. The best "lesson" I have got from history is pretty general: pretty much everyone before us used to be super poor and to work near the soil.

Now, as far as the question of certainty goes, this is both encouraging (modern scholarship often cannot be trusted when it makes gigantic claims). This gives us a lot of historical space. However, I am a Christian, and I am deeply invested in a faith that is irreducibly historical: if Jesus's death and resurrection didn't happen, everything I am doing is a waste of time. A lot of what I am doing is a waste of time anyway, but it's an utterly hopeless waste of time if it didn't happen.

Now, as a Christian looks at the world and interacts with other faiths, we need to ask why we believe this and not that, and we all know, intuitively, that God does not accept people simply because they analyzed the facts right. What really matters is that we look at the world and respond to God rightly, and when we see different religions giving different claims to be God, we have to ask which one rings true, since most human beings don't have time to sift through all the different religions. There are thus two reasons I believe in Jesus:
1) Existential experience: Jesus has taken care of me. There are all sorts of wonderful moments in my life where God has taken care of me. None of these are really charismatic, emotional experiences. I still don't get what a personal relationship means since I have never felt some presence, but Jesus has taken care of me in all sorts of ways.
2) I know I am a sinner and "if you Lord should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?" Human beings are really evil (and anyone who denies this is setting themselves up for cynicism, since pretty much everybody will let you down). Christianity is the only religion that takes sin seriously (liberalism and deism fail here), and offers a solution (Islam, Judaism, and it seems Eastern religions go with some sort of self-redemption. This is not a caricature: I am hearing this multiple times from Jews).
So that's what anchors me. However, given our human finitude, I also think that we know a lot less than we think we do, particularly about the past and even about the Bible. History can be done in a good way when we are looking from hisorical actors' perspectives, but we sometimes don't even really understand our own spouse's motivations, or even our own. Thus people who make strong claims about "sides" in history need to stop it: all parties are full of sinners, even if some of them are genuinely well-intentioned. To be specific, I have promoted the Reformers, and while I still think they are a lot wiser than our current crop of Evangelicals, there's a tendency to make that a part of our identity in unhealthy ways. I will be thinking about this for a while.

So history is messy. History is a place we should go to gain insight into the world. Study is a way of gaining insight to the world. But we need to admit when we are uncertain, when we don't really know, and when we are offering speculation. We need to look at religions and see Christians misbehaving, making bad arguments against non-Christians, and doing pretty atrocious things without justification. And this is still the case today and we need to speak a lot less than we do.

So read this book, and be wise.

Old review:
It accomplished what it wanted: it got me asking questions about the 'rhetoric' of history, that I never would have before. I agreed with everything up until the final chapter (maybe-I might need to rethink it.) Overall, Morley convinced me without turning me into a relativist.

[Ryan Denson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book would be most useful for undergraduates who may be majoring in history and thinking of pursuing a career in ancient history and classics specifically. Morley writes this book with the intention to raise a lot of the methodological questions that are so often taken for granted. These include how to use sources and narrative structure as well as the general function and meaning for history as a field. However, despite his claims in the introduction, I think most history undergrads will get the same information in a “historical methods” class. I thought his section on the “voice” of academia (p.111-116) was particularly well articulated and that issue is one that needs to be addressed more frequently. It has changed slightly since Morley wrote this book, but still the specter of a false non-biased objectivity that masks a predominantly white male middle-class voice haunts the history field and most of academia. Overall, this book is worth the read for anyone interested in classics. It is a short and quick read that will hopefully make the reader consider some issues they overlooked before.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh this was good. There are no such things as "facts"and history is not about uncovering the facts (as if they have "authentic" labels and we just need to locate them), it is assessing sources to work out what is likely to have happened in the past. Van Tilians should be proud of Morley.

[Moses · Rating 4 out of 5]

Morley's book about writing ancient history is improbably bold and interesting. He makes great points about the inescapability of narrative and great fun of common errors in undergrad, graduate, and published histories from his peers.

[Winnie Thornton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hadn't thought of it this way before.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book because, while it isn't profound, it's simple and is a great intro to the subject of the theory of history.

[Brittany Petruzzi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enlightening.

[Rivka D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great supplement for students of History. I read this while studying Thucydides and it was incredibly insightful.