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Recovering the Past: A Historian's Memoir
Forrest McDonald is a legend in his own time. The NEH's sixteenth Jefferson Lecturer, he is one of our most eminent historians and the author of numerous provocative works on the early American republic, the Constitution, and the American presidency. Renowned for his sly wit and iconoclasm, he is also a conservative in a mostly liberal profession, a man who believes that his discipline has been subverted by those who serve public policy agendas. He now candidly recounts and reconsiders his own career, mixing in equal measure autobiography with a sharp critique of the historical craft.
Beginning in 1949, McDonald has traversed a sometimes rocky academic road from Brown University to Wayne State and finally the University of Alabama. He rose to prominence by arguing against the popular histories of Frederick Jackson Turner and Charles Beard, and his rebuttal of the latter was published as his seminal book We the People. Recovering the Past carries forward this critical tradition with McDonald's pointed comments on fellow historians from Kenneth Stampp to William Appleton Williams, his admiration for Oscar Handlin's book Truth in History , and his distaste for the revisionism of the New Left historians who depict the American story as an epic of oppression.
"The norm is to write for one's fellow historians," he says, "but that seems to me to be wrong-headed and to result in stultifying reading. I have chosen, instead, to write 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."
As McDonald observes, thinking historically facilitates our knowing who and where we are, and the reward of studying the past comes when one realizes how its many parts fit together. As the pieces of his own past fall together, they form a story that will engross, inform, and even gall readers seeking an inside look behind the ivied walls of academe. Recovering the Past offers an eye-opening look at one man and his discipline; more than that, it is a manifesto for those who truly care about history.
Beginning in 1949, McDonald has traversed a sometimes rocky academic road from Brown University to Wayne State and finally the University of Alabama. He rose to prominence by arguing against the popular histories of Frederick Jackson Turner and Charles Beard, and his rebuttal of the latter was published as his seminal book We the People. Recovering the Past carries forward this critical tradition with McDonald's pointed comments on fellow historians from Kenneth Stampp to William Appleton Williams, his admiration for Oscar Handlin's book Truth in History , and his distaste for the revisionism of the New Left historians who depict the American story as an epic of oppression.
"The norm is to write for one's fellow historians," he says, "but that seems to me to be wrong-headed and to result in stultifying reading. I have chosen, instead, to write 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."
As McDonald observes, thinking historically facilitates our knowing who and where we are, and the reward of studying the past comes when one realizes how its many parts fit together. As the pieces of his own past fall together, they form a story that will engross, inform, and even gall readers seeking an inside look behind the ivied walls of academe. Recovering the Past offers an eye-opening look at one man and his discipline; more than that, it is a manifesto for those who truly care about history.
- GenresHistory
206 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2004
42 people want to read
About the author
Forrest McDonald
41 books28 followersDr. McDonald was a Distinguished Research Professor of History at the University of Alabama, where he was the Sixteenth Jefferson Lecturer in the Humanities in 1987. He was awarded the Ingersoll Prize in 1990. Professor McDonald is the author of several books including Novus Ordo Seclorum (University Press of Kansas, 1985), and The American Presidency: Roots, Establishment, Evolution (University Press of Kansas, 1994).
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 23, 2016
This is a book about the life and work of a historian, Forrest McDonald. I first came across McDonald’s name while reading some criticism of Howard Zinn’s work. McDonald essentially disproved Zinn’s thesis that the Founding Fathers were all wealthy men with a common interest in disenfranchising the poor during the writing of the Constitution. Zinn’s work was based on the (now discredited) work of the historian Charles Beard, a Marxist whose book An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution was widely hailed as authoritative. What’s remarkable is that Beard said up front that he did not actually research his subject in great depth (that is to say, he didn’t actually go and check the primary sources to prove his thesis). McDonald, who did voluminous research all across the original thirteen colonies, showed that Beard—and Zinn’s—theories were simply incorrect. When I read A People’s History of the Untied States, Zinn’s chapter on the Founders and the Constitution was especially annoying. Now I know, and can prove, that it was all Lefty bullshit…which I knew intuitively, but it’s nice to have some data to back it up.
McDonald also criticizes more modern historians like Arthur J. Schelsinger, Jr. (re-wrote the history of the Jacksonian era to make it look like a precursor of the New Deal), Joseph Ellis, Stephen Ambrose, and Doris Kearns Goodwin (plagiarists) and the academic and intellectual chaos of the 1960s and 70s. I was unaware that the number of Ph.Ds awarded in the 1960s was more than triple the number awarded in the entirety of US history before that decade. That explains a lot to me about many of the professors I had in college! Likewise, McDonald pulls no punches when discussing the dumbing down of college and university students in his many decades as a professor. The author also discusses the ‘history wars’ that took place in the early 1990s when the government tried to adopt National History Standards, a topic I have some familiarity with already.
All in all, a vastly enjoyable book from a man who saw what the study of history was in the 1940s and 50s, then watched what it became in the 1960s and beyond.
McDonald also criticizes more modern historians like Arthur J. Schelsinger, Jr. (re-wrote the history of the Jacksonian era to make it look like a precursor of the New Deal), Joseph Ellis, Stephen Ambrose, and Doris Kearns Goodwin (plagiarists) and the academic and intellectual chaos of the 1960s and 70s. I was unaware that the number of Ph.Ds awarded in the 1960s was more than triple the number awarded in the entirety of US history before that decade. That explains a lot to me about many of the professors I had in college! Likewise, McDonald pulls no punches when discussing the dumbing down of college and university students in his many decades as a professor. The author also discusses the ‘history wars’ that took place in the early 1990s when the government tried to adopt National History Standards, a topic I have some familiarity with already.
All in all, a vastly enjoyable book from a man who saw what the study of history was in the 1940s and 50s, then watched what it became in the 1960s and beyond.
June 5, 2019
We all owe a debt of gratitude to the young Forrest McDonald (1927-2016) for demolishing the once popular, but basically unresearched, notions of Charles Beard in McDonald’s We the People: The Economic Origins of the Constitution (1958). (In Recovering the Past, we learn that McDonald’s monumental research for that book was, in part, made possible by his capacity for living simply and sleeping hardly at all.)
Although McDonald has written a number of important books since the 1950s, the most important contribution of this brief and fast-paced memoir is the author’s summary of twentieth-century American historiography from a conservative point of view. McDonald spends one of his seven chapters describing the “New History”—“The World as I Entered It”—and then harrumphs his way through the remainder of the century, concluding with some well-deserved tongue clucking at the malfeasance of Michael Bellesiles.
Unlike most memoirs, McDonald passes quickly over his earliest years, either because he’s not the introspective sort or so that he can spend more time glorying in his early academic successes. His self-praise (though often deserved) will probably strike some readers as amusing. Many historians have probably thought, but few have written, “I did a smashing job; the book reads like a novel.” (94)
Nevertheless, this is a fine memoir, easy to read and digest. You don’t even have to like McDonald or his professional score-settling to admire his literary craftsmanship.
Although McDonald has written a number of important books since the 1950s, the most important contribution of this brief and fast-paced memoir is the author’s summary of twentieth-century American historiography from a conservative point of view. McDonald spends one of his seven chapters describing the “New History”—“The World as I Entered It”—and then harrumphs his way through the remainder of the century, concluding with some well-deserved tongue clucking at the malfeasance of Michael Bellesiles.
Unlike most memoirs, McDonald passes quickly over his earliest years, either because he’s not the introspective sort or so that he can spend more time glorying in his early academic successes. His self-praise (though often deserved) will probably strike some readers as amusing. Many historians have probably thought, but few have written, “I did a smashing job; the book reads like a novel.” (94)
Nevertheless, this is a fine memoir, easy to read and digest. You don’t even have to like McDonald or his professional score-settling to admire his literary craftsmanship.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews