Biased, self-promoting, arrogant, and grossly overgeneralized. Those were just a few of the phrases that kept recurring in my head as I read the Gaddis book. Obviously, I must be missing something here because, by the criteria we were told to focus on before reading a book (i.e. authority of the author, publisher, etc.), all of these people are a lot smarter than I am. Then again, at times I was convinced that Oxford published this because Gaddis devoted so much time to sucking up to the town of Oxford and how much he loves it (p. 131-134). Gaddis obviously approached this book with a specific agenda. His treatment of the social sciences overgeneralizes their processes and wrongly accuses them of taking great leaps backward in the scientific process (moving away from the historian's island, as Gaddis says). At the same time he claims the "hard sciences" have discovered that their past processes were wrong, but they are finally becoming enlightened enough to move toward the island of the historical process. Thus, we are to take Gaddis on his word that historians are the most right in all academic methodology. Essentially, Gaddis is arguing that social scientists are running away from gaining knowledge or being useful while "hard" scientists are finally beginning to catch up to the noble perch upon which historians have so long been standing.

In making this argument, Gaddis is also discounting the various schools that historical thought has gone through. He either has no sense of historiography (and since we can assume that Gaddis is not an idiot, this is probably not the case) or, and this is much more likely, he chooses to ignore it because it runs directly counter to his implication that the historical process has remained consistent through the years. Otherwise, his argument that historians have stayed defiantly on their island while scientists have been adrift at sea doesn't hold water (if you'll excuse the pun). At the same time, Gaddis does not remain consistent in the assertions he makes through the book. He says from the very beginning that hitorians "pride ourselves on NOT trying to predict the future" (p. 2). He abandons this idea in practice, although not in rhetoric, later in the book when he does seem to argue that history can most efficiently do this very thing. He also notes on page 2 that historians are not influenced by present trends. If Gaddis really believes this then he is delusional, and I've already given him too much credit in my assumption that he's not an idiot. One of the major points that we've repeatedly come back to in the class clearly contradicts Gaddis' assertion. The simple "cheat sheet" of historical schools is a representation of how the time in which historians write influences the way that they see and reflect the past. We've made it a point to note a book's year of publication for just this very reason.

Obviously, I did not care for this book or for Gaddis' arguments in it. He unfairly, uneccessarily, and inaccurately bashes the social sciences like a playground bully. He rightly praises the other sciences (I would argue that they all should be given praise, both social and "hard") but then condescendingly says they are just now catching on to methods historians have already realized and arrogantly says they will now be much better for it. And, he does not acknowledge any weaknesses or limitations of history. In each situation, he spins his version of reality into something positive that everybody else should imitate.


That's it for my rant. As for the final, I agree that it should be structured like the midterm with the essays being take-home and the in-class section resembling the midterm's. The essays can be much better constructed and more thoughtful and insightful that under the time constraints of the final, and a simple word limit would prevent people from rambling and trying to insert every piece of information we've covered this winter.