This seminar is over::
I'm about to turn in my paper... meaning I'll be done with this seminar! As you can tell I didn't write about all of the selections I read throughout the whole quarter, however I did write about them all in my paper, all twenty-two pages of it! Also, as you might have noticed, my posts are pretty much unedited because I just used them as jumping off points for my paper. Thank you and I hope you enjoy reading!
Origins of the Cold War, edited by Thomas Paterson, chapter: Harry S Truman as Parochial Nationalist, written by Arnold Offner - week 7::
"Who was Harry S Truman, what were his assumptions, and did his style of leadership matter? More generally, what weight do we give to a powerful individual in an explanation of postwar world conflict that also includes analysis of competing national interests and ideologies and of international systemic causes? ... Arnold A. Offner tackles such questions in a critical study of Truman as a
parochial nationalist who seemed better suited to Missouri politics than to global politics." (49)
This summarizes what the reading is about. I honestly didn't know that much at all about Truman before reading this. I asked my mom what she thought of Truman and she said she was very young when he was president, but her mom thought of Truman as a pretty good president. My dad said something similar. However, this writer, Arnold A. Offner, definitely didn't like Truman. After reading this I want to read some of the biographies and articles that Offner talks about briefly that say Truman was a great guy. It's hard to get a nonbiased opinion, because most everything that's easily accesible to me to read has been written by someone else, so it has gone through their own mind and then they have put it out to the world in a certain way, whether they're aware of it or not. I remember Barbara Tuchman (one of the first readings in this seminar) and how she said that she never ever used secondary sources, like books written by someone else, because like I just said, they've gone through someone else. She's always looked for the first sources, like journals, newspapers from that time period, sources like that. But at times, it's refreshing to get another perspective of things, I don't want to just believe what my parents say. So, I read this with an open mind.
"From the initial American-Soviet confrontations in Europe at the end of the Second World War through the bitter Korean War, President Harry S Truman directed American foreign policy in a manner that profoundly affected the nation's--and the world's--history." (49)
"Despite this extraordinary bipartisan consenus, analysis of Truman's background and recently available personal and governmental records reveal a darker side to his world view and foreign policy. His parochial nationalist heritage, his perceptions about American moral-industrial-military superiority, his belief that the Soviet Union and communism were the root cause of all international problems, his quick disregard of contrary views, and his propensity to exaggerate and to oversimplify, profoundly shaped his presidential policies and contributed significantly to the onset and intensification of the Cold War." (50)
"Young Harry took his nurturing from his mother, who taught him his 'letters' and inspired his book and Bible reading. Later he admonished people and nations by frequent reference to the Ten commandments and the Sermon on the Mount. But Truman derived less a system of morals or religious sense from his Biblical readings than stern belief, as he wrote in 1945, that 'punishment always followed
transgression,' a maxim he would apply later to North Korea and to the People's Republic of China." (51)
his beliefs and how he put those into politics (above)
On page 53, the writer discusses how Truman joined the army and traveld to Europe and absolutely hated it..
"But parochialism shone through Captain Harry's European experience, and not just because he may have been the only soldier in history to call the Folies Bergere 'disgusting.' Truman deplored France's 'narrowly dirty streets and malodorous atmosphere,' disliked French food, insisted that Germany smelled and that the Kaiser aimed to despoil 'our great country and beautiful women.'... Truman sought only to return to 'God's country,' the land of 'Liberty loans and green trading stamps,' and never to return to Europe: 'I have nearly promised old Miss Liberty that she'll have to turn around to see me again,' he wrote upon reaching American shores in 1919." (53)
He was even going to join the KKK, but he wasn't accepted "because he refused to deny jobs to Catholics." (53)
"He was ready to leave office [he was a judge in Jackson County, Missouri]--to run a filling station and then go to 'a quiet grave.' Perhaps his lament at that time--'I am only a small duck in a very large puddle'--might apply to his presidency.
Luck struck the Missourian in 1934, however. After four Democrats refused their party's nomination, Truman became the 'Senator from Pendergast,' as some politicos derisively referred to him. Indeed, Truman was an outsider in Washington..." (53)
There's evidence on page 54 and 55 that Truman was a parochial nationalist. hated many kinds of people (middle of page 55).
Thirty Years of Treason by Eric Bentley - week 7::
"Mr. Reagan: ...I believe that, as Thomas Jefferson put it, if all the American people know all of the facts they will never make a mistake...
Mr. Chairman: There is one thing that you said that interested me very much. That was the quotation from Jefferson. That is just why this Committee was created by the House of Representatives: to acquaint the American people with the facts. Once the American people are acquainted with the facts there is no question but what the American people will do the kind of a job that they want done: that is, to make America just as pure as we can possibly make it. We want to thank you very much for coming here today.
Mr. Reagan: Sir, I detest, I abhor their philosophy, but I detest more than that their tactics, which are those of the fifth column, and are dishonest, but at the same time I never as a citizen want to see our country become urged, by either fear or resentment of this group [the Communists], that we ever compromise with any of our democratic principles through that fear or resentment. I still think that democracy can do it." (146)
Wow. Uh, I didn't fully understand all of this but what I did get from it is that talk is a whole lot different than actions. Well, I don't really mean that. I think sometimes people may not want to know all the facts. No wait, I think the facts should be open for people to find, but not slammed in their faces. Nothing should be hidden, but at the same time it shouldn't scare citizens... well or should it? Do some people need to be scared to do something about the bad things going on in the world? And you don't want it to seem like the world is perfect. Definitely not. I wouldn't want to be hidden from what's going on in the world, but I have to admit, sometimes I don't want to know the horrible stuff going on. I don't
want it to be going on. I think this is a way I'm a total optimist, I want there to be peace! : ) But back to this, obviously it's made me think. I've gone off in a bunch of totally separate tangents. I think that people should have all the facts available to them, but not pushed on them. Or should the (sometimes scary) facts be pushed? Will that make some people finally wake up?? Perhaps I'm talking more about the events happening currently than those of the late 40's and 50's but I bet if I lived in that time period I would be thinking along the same terms because I know there was hiding of facts, lies, and everything that happens in governments.
I didn't find much in this reading, Thirty Years of Treason written, well edited I guess, by
Eric Bentley, but I guess this part really made me think and let my mind go off.
Here's another piece I noted as important:
This is transcript is with Gary Cooper, an actor born in 1901.
"Mr. Smith [I guess he is one of the Committee members?]: Can you tell us some of the statements that you may have heard at these gatherings that you believe are Communistic?
Mr. Cooper: Well, I have heard quite a few, I think, from time to time over the years. Well, I have heard tossed around such statements as 'Don't you think the Constitution of the United States is about a hundred and fifty years out of date?' and--oh, I don't know--I have heard people mention that, well, 'Perhaps this would be a more efficient Government without the Congress'--which statements I think are very un-American."(148)
un-American, unpatriotic!
Are You Now or Have You Ever Been? - week 7::
These readings are some of the transcripts of the hearings by the Congress on Americans who were suspected of being communists. I found these very engaging and I feel like I learned a lot more about this time period and how it affected everyone in some way. Personally, I don't enjoy reading about war and how the US fought against the British and a whole "us against them" kind of idea. It's in these more personal and human accounts, such as these transcripts or the Studs Terkel interviews, that I find the most informative tidbits that help me, maybe not others, understand what really went on in this confusing era.
Here are some quotes that I found thought-inducing (and some of the thoughts that were induced are below, too)::
"Before the end of 1951 Ronald Reagan proclaimed a victory:
For many years the Red propagandists and conspirators concentrated their big guns on Hollywood. They threatened to throw acid in the faces of myself and some other stars, so we would never appear on screen again. I packed a gun for some time. Policemen lived at my home to guard my kids. But that was more than five years ago. Those days are gone forever!" (79)
Ummm.. I
love how Reagan is so.. I can't think of the word. He believes that this will NEVER happen again. Hmmm, I'll try and remember the word I was going to use, it was a good one.
A woman, Lillian Hellman, wrote a letter to the Chairman on the Committee of UnAmerican acts (not sure what the name of the Committee was called) [EDIT: 2:39PM:
House UnAmerican Activities Committee.] Here are some parts that I enjoyed:
"But I am advised by counsel that if I answer questions about myself, I will have waived my rights under the Fifth Amendment and could be forced legally to answer questions about others. If I refuse to do so, I can be cited for contempt. This is very difficult for a layman to understand. But there is one principle that I do understand: I am not willing, now or in the future, to bring bad trouble to people who, in my past association with them, were completely innocent of any talk or any action that was disloyal or subversive. I do not like subversion or disloyalty in any form, and if I had ever seen any, I would have considered it my duty to have reported it to the proper authorities. But to hurt innocent people whom I knew many years ago in order to save myself is, to me, inhuman and indecent and dishonorable. I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions... I was raised in an old-fashioned American tradition and there were certain homely things that were taught to me: to try to tell the truth, not to bear false witness, not to harm my neighbor, to be loyal to my country... It is my belief that you will agree with these simple rules of human decency and not expect me to violate the good American tradition from which they spring." (112)
I don't think I needed to include all of this from her letter, but I don't want to delete it after I typed it all up! : ) Lillian Hellman stated some ideas that I hope made
someone think, well it did make me think so it worked! Her thoughts made me think because this was an American committee created by the American gov't and they were, at least Hellman and I think, going against "old-fashioned American tradition."
This Committee seems like a very strange thing in history. A whole lot of the transcripts sound very comic and unreal. Now, that may be because a whole lot of the people being tried were actors... I don't know.
Lionel Stander, didn't want the cameras on him while he was being asked questions. And he fought over it for awhile with the Chairman of the Committee. (page 116)
It seemed as if even if you weren't really a communist, if your name was in the paper in the same article as one talking about the Committee, then you were blacklisted, or at least shunned or something...
proof:
"Mr. Stander: That appeared in the paper. Just to have my name appear in association with this Committee! It's like the Spanish Inquisition!
Investigator: Let me remind you--
Mr. Stander: You may no be burned but you can't help coming away a little singed." (121)
I'm not sure if this will make sense out of context, but I liked this part of a later transcript with Stander:
"The Chairman: Now will you answer the question [if he was acquainted with Martin Berkeley]?
PauseMr. Stander,
quietly: I decline under the First Amendment, which entitles me to freedom of belief, under the Fifth Amendment--in which there is no inference of guilt-- and under the Ninth Amendment, which gives me the right to get up in the union hall, which I did, and introduce a resolution condemning this Committee for its abuse of powers in attempting to impose censorship upon the American theater.
Investigator: Now, Mr. Stander--
Mr. Stander,
still quiet. And, finally, I can't understand why a question dating back to 1935 concerning statements made by a bunch of stool pigeons and informers can aid this Committee in recommending legislation to Congress. The question is not relevant to the purposes of this Committee.
Lionel Stander remained on the blacklist." (130)
"Arthur Miller, May 21, 1956." (135)
"Investigator. Who was there when you walked into the room?
Pause.Mr. Miller. I understand the philosophy behind this question and I want you to understand mine. I am trying to--and I will--protect my sense of myself. I could not use the name of another person and bring trouble on him. I ask you not to ask me that question.
CM 1. We do not accept your reasons for refusing to answer. If you do not answer, you are placing yourself in
contempt." (135)
I feel like the Committee put a great amount of pressure on those they questioned. The whole US was so afraid of the Communists and I don't think they had any idea of how to deal with their fear. Everyone handled it differently, the gov't, "regular" people, children, teachers. In the second to last reading of this week, Exaggerations of the Soviet Threat, explains just that, the exaggeration of the Soviet threat... It's hard to tell how I would feel at this time, if I was alive then. My mom remembers asking her parents when the Communists were coming, she told me she remembers thinking that when she woke up in the morning, they, the Communists, would be in her house. She had drills very often at school when they went into the basement if the Communists suddenly dropped bombs... I'll continue talking, writing, about this in the other posts for this week's readings.
Some names/places/things/-isms that came up in the reading::
J. Edgar HooverMcCharthyismHouse UnAmerican Activities CommitteeSubpoenaLionel Standerthe Fifth Amendmentthe United States Constitution
parts of Wartime by Paul Fussell - week 6::
This last reading was also about WWII. Paul Fussell, the author, was also involved in WWII.
The first paragraph of the chapter "The Real War Will Never Get in the Books" was really good:
"What was it about the war that moved the troops to constant verbal subversion and contempt? It was not just the danger and fear, the boredom and uncertainty and loneliness and deprivation. It was rather the conviction that optimistic publicity and euphemism had rendered their experience so falsely that it would never be readily communicable. They knew that in its representation to the laity what was happening to them was systematically sanitized and Norman Rockewellized, not to mention Disneyfied." (267)
The Marines knew their arms and equipment weren't as good as the Germans and everything... but the publicity didn't say that.
"The real war was tragic and ironic, beyond the power of any literary or philosophic analysis to suggest, but in unbombed America especially, the meaning of the war seemed inaccessible. As experience, thus, the suffereing was wasted." (268)
"In Shakespearse's Henry V, the solider Michael Williams assumes the traditional understanding when he observes,
But if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a heavy reckoning to make when all those legs and arms and heads, chopp'd off in a battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place'--some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their lives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their chidlren rawly left. (IV, i)" (269)
Pictures of WWII never showed what was really happening, all dead American bodies were all clothed and intact.
"In the face of such horror, the distinction between friend and enemy vanishes, and the violent dismemberment of any human being becomes equally traumatic. After the disastrous Canadian raid at Dieppe, one German solider observed: 'The dead on the beach--I've never seen such obscenities before'..." (271)
WAR MADE EVERYONE MAD"In one way, of course, the whole war was mad and every participat insane from the start, but in a strictly literal sense the result of the years of the bombing of Berlin and its final destruction by the Russian army was, for much of the population, widespread madness." (273)
"As the U.S.
Officer's Guide goes on to instruct its anxious tyros,
Physical courage is little more than the ability to control the physical fear which all normal men have, and cowardice dos not consist in being afraid but in giving away to fear. What, then, keeps the soldier from giving away to fear? The answer is simply--his desire to retain the good opinion of his friends and associates...his pride smothers his fear." (274)
men "pissed [their] pants" many times. "An occasional reaction to the terror of shelling like this was audible 'confession.' " (278)
then no one would mention the confession afterward, "...everyong understanding its stimulus and its meaning." (279)
"For every frontline soldier in the Second World War there was the 'slowly dawning and dreadful realization that there was no way out, that... it was only a matter of time before they got killed or maimed or broke down comopletely.' As one British officer put it, 'You go in, you come out, you go in again and you keep doing it until they break you or you are dead.' " (281)
"As medical observers have reported, 'There is no such thing as 'getting used to combat'..." (281)
"The problem is that this questioner [someone who just asked a very ironic question having to do with the war] has somehow been led to expect 'sense,' not to mention decency, in a war actually characterized by insensate savagery. This questioner seems innocent of such standard wartime materials as the British
Handbook of Irregular Warfare (1942): 'Never give the enemy a chance' the days when you could practice the rules of sportsmanship are over. ... Every soldier must be a potential gangster... Remember you are out to kill.' " (284)
"As John Steinbeck finally confessed in 1958, '
We were all part of the war effort. We went along with it, and not only that, we abetted it... I don't mean that the correspondents were liars... It is in the things not mentioned that the untruth lies.' " By not mentioning a lot of things, a correspondent could give the audience at home the impression that there were no cowards in the service, no thieves or rapists and looters, no cruel or sutpid commanders. It is true, Steinbeck is aware, that most military operations are examples of 'disorganized insanity,' but the morale of the home front must not be jeopardized by an eye-witness saying so.
And even if a correspondent had wanted to deliver the noisome truth, patriotism would join censorship in stopping his mouth." (286)
One reporter got the real story.. on page 286-287
"The postwar result for the Allies, at least, is suggested by one returning soldier, wounded three times in Normandy and Holland, who disembarked with his buddies to find on the quay nice, smiling Red Cross or Salvation Army girls. 'They gave us a little bag and it has a couple chocolate bars in it and a comic book... We had gone overseas not much more than children but we were coming back, sure, let's face it, as killers. And they were still treating us as children. Candy and comic books.' " (288)
"Because forbidden in all theaters of war lest their capture reveal secrets, clandestine diaries, seen and censored by no authority, offer one of the most promising accesses to actuality. The prohibition of diaries often meant increased devotion and care on the part of the writer." (291)
" 'We were expendable. It was difficult to accept. We come from a nation and culture that values life and the individual. To find oneself in a situation where your life seems of little values is the ultimate in loneliness. It is a humbling experience.' (100). " (293)
parts from William Manchester's Goodbye Darkness - week 6::
Continuation of week 6.. and continuing with WWII. This book is a memoir of Manchester's time in the South Pacific.
I'm sorry, I don't know who Morison is but he says something good:
"The troops were all hyped up: Morison later wrote: 'Lucky indeed for America that in this theater and at that juncture she depend not on boys drafted or cajoled into fighting but on 'tough guys' who had volunteered to fight and who asked for nothing better than to come to grips with the sneaking enemy
who had aroused all their primitive instincts." (171)
HA. Obviously, I love the last part (the part in bold). It's like this guys were apes just wanting to come across more manly than the others...
I have a note on pages 176 and 177: Marines used everything Japanese, food, supplies, plates, paper, bowls because they weren't getting anything from the US.
There's lots of good stuff on page 182. He talks about the "typical Marine" and what his sicknesses were and everything..
Sections from "The Good War" by Studs Terkel - week 6::
World War II is the topic for week 6.
This was a really good reading. I checked out the book (my History prof had chosen parts of the book) from the Los Altos library so I can read the whole thing if I want. There were some really neat and thought-provoking points brought up in all of the interviews. Here are some...
The first inteviewee is a man named John Garcia. He's a Hawaiian and was involved in the WWII (obviously, since "The Good War" is about WWII). Towards the end of his interviewer he said this:
Aaaahh, I feel that if countries are gonna fight a war, find yourself an island with nobody and then just put all your men in there and let them kill each other. Or better, send the politicians, let them fight it out. Yeah, like this stupid race that we're having of atomic wars. So much money is being devoted to killing people and so little to saving. It's a crazy war. (22)
And this..
He was working on the island.. everything was very tight "If you failed to be there [at work] or were goofing off, you went to jail. All civil liberties were suspended." (19)
"There was no act of treason by anyone I know of. There were spies, but they were all employed by the Japanese embassy. If they had arrested the ordinary Japanese, there would be no work force at Pearl Harbor. There were 130,000 Japanese on the islands." (19)
When he got into the military (after writing a letter to Roosevelt because he wasn't at first allowed into the military) they asked him what race he was. "I had no idea what they were talking about because in Hawaii we don't question a man's race. They said, 'Where are your parents from?' I said they were born in Hawaii. 'Your grandparents?' They were born in Hawaii. 'How about your great-grandparents?' I said they're from Europe, some from Spain, some from Wales. They said, 'You're Caucasian.' I said, 'What's that?' They said, 'You're white.' I looked at my skin. I was pretty dark, tanned by the sun. I said, 'You're kidding.' (Laughs) They put me down as Caucasian and separated me from the rest of the Hawaiians.
Some of my new buddies asked me not to talk to three of the men. I asked why. They said, 'They're Jews,' I said, 'What's a Jew?' They said, 'don't you know? They killed Jesus Christ.' I says, 'You mean them guys? They don't look old enough.' They said, 'You're trying to get smart?' I said, 'No. It's my understanding that he was killed about nineteen hundred years ago.' " (19)
I love this (long) quote because it just shows the pretty much just stupid reasoning that many people have around the world. I think this is totally true during this time period too, just during WWII. People hate other people just because of what religion they are or what they did to "their" people hundreds of years ago. I think this quote also brings up how sometimes people's reasoning is so stupid that it's funny.
Another quote I really liked:
"I was drinking about a fifth and a half of whiskey every day. Sometimes homemade, sometimes what I could buy. It was the only way I could kill. I had friends who were Japanese and I kept thinking every time I pulled the trigger on a man or pushed a flamethrower down into a hole: What is this person's family gonna say when he doesn't come back? He's got a wife, he's got children, somebody." (21)
Another interviewee, Betty Basye Hutchinson, said this:
It's only the glamour of war that appeals to people. They don't know real war. Well, those wars are gone forever. We've got a nuclear bomb and we'll destroy ourselves and everybody else." (130)
I wrote at the end of her interview:
people didn't want the bad parts of war, the soldiers coming back with burns and everything. The bad thoughts of war had been pushed into the backs of people's minds.
John H. Abbott:
First paragraph of his interview:
"We were ready for a war. We'd had a long depression. people needed a change, and a war promised to make things different. Get off those bread lines. Build another bomber for peace. They just changed the slogans. (Laughs.) That was the most popular war we ever have had. People sang, danced, drank--whooppee, the war." (163)
"These gasoline stickers for rationing that you had on your windshield had a little note on it: Is this trip really necessary? We'd scratch out 'trip' and write 'war': Is this war really necessary?" (164)
"My older brother tried mightily to get into the military. He tried every way he could. They wouldn't accept him because he was too short and too underweight. He was very gung ho. While I was sitting in solitary at the reformatory, my brother wrote me from Los Alamos. He was working on a device which would shorten the war and save lives. Later on, I heard there was an explosion at Nagasaki and Hiroshima. That's what my brother was working on to shorten the war and save lives. (Laughs.)" (166)
He went to jail numerous times for not wanting to be drafted... "I felt like I was some sort of criminal. All I was doing is saying I refuse to murder people. Hey, everybody else wants to murder, but I refuse to." (168)
"I told the warden at El Reno as soon as I got there, 'If you're interested in reforming me or rehabilitating or changing me, you must explain to me why you got these guys in here who have been convicted of murder and why you've got me in here, too, because I refused to murder people.' " (169)
"All prisons are the same. All wars are the same. In war, both sides are trying to kill each other over a 'principle.' And the principle Thou shalt not kill got lost in the shuffle.
What about Hitler [asks Terkel]?
What about Hitler? He was one person. They were all doing what Hitler said. What do all prisoners do? They do what the warden says. The only power Hitler had was the power the people gave him. I felt the whole world had gone absolutely mad, crazy. They were in love with war... It didn't make any sense. To me, neither did World War One or World War Two or any other war." (170)
Admiral Gene LaRocque:
RACE
"We'd thought they were little brown men and we were the great big white men. They were of a lesser species. The Germans were well known as tremendous fighters and builders, whereas the Japanese would be a pushover. We used nuclear weapons on these little brown men. We talked about using them in Vietnam. We talked about using our military force to get our oil in the Middle East from a sort of dark-skinned people. I never hear about us using the military to get out oil from Canada. We still think we're a great super-race." (186)
"After the war, we were the most powerful nation in the world. Our breadbasket was full. We enjoyed being the big shots. We were running the world. We were the only major country that wasn't devastated." (186)
John Houseman, "Actor-producer. During World War Two, he had worked for the Office of War Information (OWI). It was the overseas branch, known as The Voice of America.":
"Little by little, as we began to win victories, just before the invasion of France, the Voice of America became, quite rightly, the voice of the military. The invasion was a very delicate operation, and the army wanted certain things said to the civilian population." (350)
Telford Taylor "He was chief American prosecutor a twelve of the thirteen Nuremberg trials.":
"Why did they [the men being tried] do these things? Because it had become the thing to do. People most of them were followers. Moral standards are easily obliterated... The safe way to be comfortable in life is that way: following orders." (465)
"Most of our heros have been ordinary people. The ordinary man is capable of enormous heroism and enormous bestiality. That's the hard lesson of Nuremberg. It's very easy to blame Nazism on the bestiality of these people. If a thousand people are killed by an earthquake, it's a terrible thing, but it's not tragic. There's no tragedy because there's no human element in it. It doesn't teach you any lesson except to watch out for earthquakes. the hard lesson of the tragedy is that ordinary people can be brought into a condition to do these things. That's much more dangerous." (466)
I agree with him and I don't... hmm I'll think about this one.
Philip Morrison, a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project:
"We heard the news of Hiroshima from the airplane itself, a coded message. When they returned, we didn't see them. The generals had them. but then the people came back with photographs. I remember looking at them with awe and terror. We knew a terrible thing had been unleashed. The men had a great party that night to celebrate, but we didn't go. Almost no physicists went to it. We obviously killed a hundred thousand people and that was nothing to have a party about. The reality confronts you with things you could never anticipate." (514)
"This is the legacy of World War Two, a direct legacy of Hitler. When we beat the Nazis, we emulated them. I include myself. I became callous to death. I became willing to risk everything on war and peace. I followed my leaders enthusiastically and rather blindly." (516)
"We fought the war to stop fascism. But it transformed the societies that opposed fascism. They look on some of its attributes. All these cliches, all these slogans: Total War. No Appeasement. No More Pearl Harbor." (516)
"It took me only one lesson to learn the mistake. I don't know what the future holds. But I do know we're beginning to understand the climate, beginning to understand the oceans, beginning to understand the cell and the nucleus of the cell. We're beginning to understand things we didn't understand before. It is simple not possible to have war and nation states in the old way, with this kind of knowledge and this kind of technology. It cannot work into the next century." (517)
Marnie Seymour, wife of Harry Seymour who worked at Oak Ridge (Manhattan Project):
"They all seemed to know what they were doing, but what they couldn't figure out was how they were going to defuse this blockbuster bomb. Nobody knew the damage it was going to do. Even Oppenheimer had no idea. I don't think they ever thought about it being used against anybody." (519)
"These postwar babies feel that they will not live out their lifetime to expectation. I have one boy who's become a master carpenter. He's not making any provisions, even at thirty-four. He takes off and wanders at leisure. As for getting married or buying a home, he doesn't think there's any future. He's just one of the thousands of young people who grew up ducking under their desks in atomic-bomb drills at school. Why would they think there's a future? All their lives they've heard about the bomb being dropped. That's a sad way to live." (522)
My note below this quote: their parents were the ones who CREATED the bomb! I don't really understand this.
Sections from Hard Times by Studs Terkel: week 5::
I just finished reading the week 5 reading, some parts of the book,
Hard Times, written by Studs Terkel. This was extremely readable!
What I got out of this week's reading was that the Depression wasn't all black and white. Everyone who lived in America during the Depression thought totally different things during the same time period. I had thought EVERYONE was poor and everything was horrible. Not really, the richer people weren't that affected by the Depression... and the poor people lost their farms, their houses, money. Terkel interviewed people from totally different backgrounds with totally different jobs during the time.
A common theme from the interviews of the poorer people were that there was some kind of connection, bond. "The hard times put farmers' families closer together... Sympathy toward one another was manifest. There were personal values as well as terrible hardships." (220) Oscar Heline, an Iowa farmer, said.
It seemed like there was more of a bond between the poorer people than the rich people. I think it was because they really had nothing to lose... The rich people (and more powerful people) still had some money (and power) which they needed to keep. Through these interviews it felt like the rich people had to be own their own and they were all against each other.
Another thing that was interesting to me was that it wasn't all black and white concerning who liked FDR or Hoover better. There was a real mix of who people liked during this time.
Also, it was puzzling and interesting to see what people remembered, what people thought were important, what they were doing at the time, and what they thought of other people.
I definitely enjoyed reading these interviews because I know that I love seeing into people's lives and the details and events that changed their lives.
Perils of Prosperity: "Revolution in Morals" chapter - week 4::
Now that I've read the whole chapter I notice that the first sentence really sums up everything that's discussed in this chapter:
"The disintegration of traditional American values--so sparply recorded by novelists and artists--was reflected in a change in manners and morals that shook American society to its depths." (158)
There was "the new woman" who "...wanted the same freedom of movement that men had and the same economic and political rights. By the end of the 1920's she had come a long way." (159)
There was the women's suffrage, women could vote! This was discussed on page 160. "The literature of the time reflects the growing male sense of alarm..." (161)
"By the turn of the century, women were demanding more of marriage than they ever had before and were increasingly unwilling to continue alliances in which they were miserable." (161)
Divorce rates went up since now marriage depended more on the two people in the relationship and not just what they were DOING. page 162
"As the family lost its other social functions, the chief test of a good family became how well it developed the personalities of the children, and parents, and distrustful both of their own instincts and of tribal lore, eagerly sought out expert advice to avoid the opprobrium of having raised unhappy children." (162)
behavorists were popular now!
"To inculcate the proper attitudes at an early age, Watson warned parents, 'Never hug and kiss them, never let them sit in your lap.' " (163)
BUT! Then there was Sigmund Freud!
"In the years after the war, psychology became a national mania. Books appeared... People talked knowingly of 'libido,' 'defense and mechanism,' and 'fixation,' confused the subconscious with the unconscious, repression with suppression, and felt with the tortuously difficult theories of Freud and of psychoanalysis as though they were simple ideas readily grasped after a few moments' explanation." (164)
People had so many misinterpretations of Freud's ideas. They wanted it to be EASY to understand.
POPULARITY!
Then America wanted SEX SEX SEX!
"The vast popularity of Freud in America... alarmed many psychoanalysts. They realized that the popularity had been achieved less through an understanding of Freud than through a belief that he shared the American conviction that every man had the right not merely to pursue happiness but to possess it." (166)
My comment next to this quote was: WOW! the public want it for their own happiness. My history prof told us this when he gave us this week's assignment, "Although you may not recognize modern America in everything you read, I think many things will surprise you with their familiarity." YES. I absolutely see many similarities. Morphing into my cynical self, I think that many Americans want and need happiness. They want to buy it and get all of it for themselves. But yes.. back to my "normal" self, I don't think that's with all people in America and not in the 20's either, but this author thought it was a big part of this time in America.
SEX SEX SEX!! ADVERTISING!
"In the attempt to work out a new standard of relations between men and women, Americans in the 1920's became obsessed with the subject of sex... The newspaperman Frank Kent returned from the tour of the country in 1925 with the conviction that 'between the magazines and the movies a lot of these little towns seem literally saturated with sex.' "(168)
Not only do Americans want happiness, they want sex too!
Page 168, tabloids started!!
"Not even the tabloids exploited sex with the zeal of Hollywood; it was the movies which created the American love goddess.... Movie producers found that films like
The Sheik drew large audiences, while
Sentimental Tommy or epics like
America played to empty houses. When it was apparent that sex was infinitely more profitable than the prewar sentimental-patriotic Faustian, the country got a steady diet of movies like...[movies about sex]." (168)
"Taboos about sex discussion were lifted; women talked freely about inhibitions and 'sex starvation.' Speech became bolder, and men and women told one another off-color stories that a short while before would have been reserved for the Pullman smoker." (169)
"The woman who once was shocked by everything now prided herself, observed a writer in
Harper's, on the fact that nothing at all shocked her; 'immunity to the sensation of 'recoil with painful astonishment' is the mark of our civilization.' " (170)
The author goes on to discuss that everything just got more open and easy going.. "Parental control of sex was greatly lessened..." (170)
Dancing! page 170
There was more sexual experimentation page 171
"Not only the American woman but the American girl was reputed to be freer with her sexual favors than she had ever been before..." (171)
"They [women] dressed more freely; they wore bathing suits which revealed more than had ever been revealed before.
Excerpts from The Great War and Modern Memory, Paul Fussell - week 4
I haven't been keeping up with this blog. From now on I will. I decided to create this blog (and keep it up) because at the end of the quarter I'm turning in a paper on my thoughts and comments of all the readings in this seminar. So, if I want to have anything to write about I need to keep up with this blog (or at least write about the articles SOMEWHERE).
So, for Monday I'm reading a couple of different things. The reading I just finished is about the Great War (World War I), page 7-18 and 69-74 from Paul Fussell's The Great War and Modern Memory. Something I've learned very quickly in this seminar is that I don't like reading about war. I know there are tons of people who like it, well maybe not like but enjoying finding out about history through readings about war, but I just don't like it. Hmm why don't I? I guess I don't because most of the time I don't know who is who (who is whom?), I can't keep track of which side is winning or being written about that moment, and most of all I just hate war. I can't figure out which side is the "good side" because there is never a clear answer because there are bad (and good) parts of every group. The first part of this reading was about the major "battles" in the War and the significance of each. Much of the descriptions of each battle was about how many men died on both sides (Germany vs. Britain, France, and at the end the US). In Fussell's explanations the number of deaths were very important. Something I thought Fussell did very well was including real thoughts from men during the war. After reading some of the personal thoughts of people in the war I could understand what was happening a whole lot more. I remember Barbara Tuchman said that she never ever used long words in her books. I notice that many many writers say extremely complicated things just so it looks good. But I don't care how it LOOKS, I want to be able to understand what they're writing about! And yeah, I know it's adult reading and everything and there will be words and phrases I don't know, but don't use words that even my dad doesn't know! I'm reading this stuff to understand it and develop my knowledge of the certain topic, not to get more confused and frustrated with it and then not want to read anything more about whatever I'm reading about.
However, I'm getting off on another tangent, back to this reading.
Towards the end when Fussell was discussing how during and after the Great War, many many people thought that every war would never end. Here are some parts I liked:
"At the front, as might be expected, views were considerably darker. It was there, in dugouts and funk-holes, that they built of what were called the Neverendians could be found. R. H. Mottram remembers one pessimistic officer who, in the summer of 1917,
roughed out the area between the 'front' of that date and the Rhine,... and divided this by the area gained, on the average, at the Somme, Vimy and Messines. The result he multiplied by the time taken to prepare and fight those offensives, averaged again. The result he got was that, allowing for no setbacks, and providing the pace could be maintained, we should arrive at the Rhine in one hundred and eighty years." (72)
I liked this quote because it made it more obvious what the men were feeling and what I should know about the war to be able to understand what happened.
Here's another part I liked:
"German prisoners interviewed by Philip Gibbs after the Somme battles agreed:
'How will it end?' I asked [a German doctor].
'I see no end to it,' he answered. 'It is the suicide of nations...'
I met other prisoners then and a year afterward who could see no end of the massacre.' "(72)
Back to page 71 with this (the title of this section is: "Will it Ever End?")...
"One did not have to be a lunatic or a particularly despondent visionary to conceive quite seriously that the war would literally never end and would become the permanent condition of mankind. The stalemate and the attrition would go on infinitely, becoming, like the telephone and the internal combustion engine, a part of the accepted atmosphere of the modern experiences. Why indeed not, given the palpable irrationality of the new world?" (71)
This last section, Will it Ever End?, was the most interesting to me. I like knowing about the effect something has on the society and the people living during the time. That's why I like reading historical diaries or journals, fiction or nonfiction. I'd rather read about one person's experience during an important time than the step by step stuff that went on. However, I do understand that I should take the time to know about what happened overall, like who won which battle and what different people on both sides thought about whatever was happening. I want to know the dates that wars started and ended so I can know what people are talking about when they say, oh 1914 was a horrible time or something like that. But I guess I just want to know, I don't want to have to take the time to understand. I'm like that with a lot of things (like learning languages). But I guess I have to do it the "hard" way and actually read, the reading is actually getting pretty interesting... onto the 1920's!
History by the Ounce - Barbara W. Tuchman - week 1
This is the second essay that I'm supposed to read for tomorrow's class. I continue to believe that Tuchman has a very conversational tone which makes her essays very readable.
She uses a whole lot of imagery in her writing. She's saying 'pretend you're in 1914 and you see the crowds of people coming at you. you see Churchill.' I know that doesn't make much sense but it does to me.. but all she talks about HAS to be true. she gets her information from primary sources. she even uses novels and memoirs because she feels that since the people writing these memoirs and novels were THERE so obviously, they'll know more than someone who wasn't there at that specific historical event of some kind.
Here are quotes and areas I found interesting:
"However persuaded the historian may be of the validity of the theories he conceives, if they are not supported and illustrated by corroborative detail they are of no more value as history than Pooh-Bah's report of the imagined execution."(top of page 34)
continued.. "It is wiser, I believe, to arrive at theory by way of the evidence rather than the other way around, like so many revisionists today. It is more rewarding, in any case, to assemble the facts first and, in the process of arranging them in narrative form, to discover a theory or a historical generalization emerging of its own accord. This to me is the excitement, the built-in treasure hunt, of writing history." (3rd paragraph on page 34)
I understand this may seem weird or stupid, but I know this quote is important but I don't fully comprehend it and exactly get why... here it is:
"I am a disciple of the ounce because I mistrust history in gallon jugs whose purveyors are more concerned with establishing the meaning and purpose of history than with what happened. Is it necessary to insist on a purpose? No one asks the novelist why he writes novels or the poet what is his purpose in writing poems. The lilies of the field, as I remember, were not required to have a demonstrable purpose. Why cannot history be studied and written and read for its own sake, as the record of human behavior, the most fascinating subject of all? Insistence on a purpose turns the historian into a prophet--and that is another profession." (top of page 35)
I'm not sure exactly how to answer her questions. I know she's not asking me to and I don't need to answer them but I want to! I don't fully understand what purpose is in the question, "Is it necessary to insist on a purpose?" like I want to write a historic book on World War II because I know a lot about it (not that I do)? But that doesn't make sense... ugh. I'm going to talk this over with my dad after I finish this post. Okay, moving on...
"Corroborative detail will not produce a generalization every time, but it will often reveal a historical truth, besides keeping one grounded in historical reality." (second full paragraph on page 35)
Tuchman discusses a piece of historical corroborative detail she found... "It illustrates the society, the people, the state of feeling at the time more vividly than anything I could write and in shorter space, too, which is an additional advantage. It
epitomizes, it crystallizes, it visualizes. The reader can see it; moreover, it sticks in his mind; it is memorable." (bottom of 2nd full paragraph on page 35)
Tuchman talks about something someone said in history and then says "--it was a case of detail not merely corroborating but revealing an aspect of history." (top of page 36) I made a note: that's what you're really looking for. not just truth but it reveals an aspect of history.
"When I come across a generalization or a general statement in history unsupported by illustration I am instantly on guard; my reaction is, 'Show me.' " (3rd full paragraph page 36) So she's saying she needs support and evidence for everything mentioned in a historic book.
I made a note saying: great thing/technique to do while writing on this next quote: "Imagining myself to be my own reader--a complicated
fugue that goes on all the time at my desk--my reaction is of course, 'Show me.' The next two sentences I do." (top of page 37)
"Even if corroborative detail did not serve a valid historical purpose, its use makes a narrative more graphic and intelligible, more pleasurable to read, in short more readable. It assists communication, and communicate is, after all, the major purpose." (first full paragraph on page 37)
I think this is very important because it sums up a lot of what she says:
"History written in abstract terms communicates nothing to me. I cannot comprehend the abstract, and since a writer tends to create the reader in his own image, I assume my reader cannot comprehend it either... Certainly many serious thinkers write in the abstract and many people read them with interest and profit and even, I suppose, pleasure. I respect this ability, but I am unable to emulate it." (right after above quote on page 37)
I made another note: she fits in details that reflect personalities or something else.
And she discusses her cool notecard technique again.
WORDS.
"... I will only mention that the independent power of words to affect the writing of history is a thing to be watched out for. They have an almost frightening autonomous power to produce in the mind of the reader an image or idea that was not in the mind of the writer. Obviously, they operate this way in all forms of writing, but history is particularly sensitive because one has a duty to be accurate, and careless use of words can leave a false impression one had not intended." (page 38, second paragraph)
She goes on to say that many people got the wrong impression of Guns of August.
"One more hint before I leave it: For me the problem lies in the fact that the art of writing interests me as much as the art of history (and I hope it is not provocative to say that I think of history as an art, not a science). In writing I am seduced by the sound of words and by the interaction of their sound and sense... Unhappily, after finishing the paragraph [she had written a really nice sounding sentence], I was forced to admit that the incident in question had not irretrievably bent the twig of events. yet I hated to give up such a well-made phrase. Should I leave it in because it was good writing or take it out because it was not good history? History governed and it was lost to posterity (although, you notice, I have rescued it here). Am I writer first or am I historian? The old argument starts inside my head. yet there need not always be dichotomy or dispute. The two functions need not be, in fact should not be, at war. The goal is fusion. In the long run the best writer is the best historian." (bottom of page 38)
I included this whole thing in because I love it. it's a good question that everyone needs to answer (the writer or historian Q). This goes exactly with making documentaries or any videos, need to just keep what really makes sense and not if it only has great composition or a great angle.
"The most effective ounce of visual detail is that which indicates something of character or circumstance in addition to appearance." (middle of page 39)
"Novelists have the advantage that they can invent corroborative detail... they make up physical qualities to suit. The historian must make do with what he can find, though he may sometimes point up what he finds by calling on a familiar image in the mental baggage of the reader." (page 39) But be careful with this, the reader needs to KNOW and have an image in their head of the word or person. If not, then it doesn't work at all!!
"Perhaps this illustrates the distinction between a major and a less gifted novelist which should hold equally true, I believe, for historians. Ideas alone are not flesh and blood. Too often, scholarly history is written in terms of ideas rather than acts; it tells what people wrote instead of what they performed... If, however, one checks what they said and wrote against what actually was happening, a rather different picture emerges." (page 40) I think writers do this because it's just EASIER than doing what Tuchman does with all her research.
she recommends using novels for sources as well.
"I do not know if the professors would allow the use of such sources in a graduate dissertation, but I see no reason why a novelist should not supply as authentic material as a journalist or a general. To determine what may justifiably be used from a novel, one applies the same criterion as for any nonfiction account: If a particular item fits with what one knows of the time, the place, the circumstances, and the people, it is acceptable; otherwise not. For myself, I would rather quote Proust or Sackville-West or Zola than a professional colleague as is the academic habit. I could never see any sense whatever in referring to one's neighbor in the next university as a source. To me that is no source at all; I want to know where a given fact came from originally, not who use it last. As for referring to an earlier book of one's own as a source, this seems to me the ultimate absurdity." (page 41)
Many many points in this previous one. Reread it to fully understand!
"As to newspapers, I like them for period flavor perhaps more than for factual information... It is absolutely essential to take nothing from a newspaper without following the story through for several days or until it disappears from the news. For period flavor, however, newspapers are unsurpassed." (page 42)
"Women are a particularly good source for physical detail. They seem to notice it more than men or at any rate to consider it more worth reporting." (top of page 43)
"In the end, of course, the best place to find corroborative detail is on the sport itself, if it can be visited..." (page 43, second paragraph)
Last paragraph is good:
"The desire to find the significant detail plus the readiness to open his mind to it and let it report to him are half the historian's equipment. The other half, concerned with idea, point of view, the reason for writing, the "Why" of history, has been left out of this discussion although I am not unconscious that it looks in the background. The art of writing is the third half. If that list does not add up, it is because history is human behavior, not arithmetic." (last paragraph on page 44)
In Search of History, Barbara W. Tuchman - week 1
I'm in a Honors Institute history seminar (History 34) this quarter and this week (due Monday) we're supposed to read three essays written by the famous historian and writer,
Barbara W. Tuchman. These essays are all from
Practicing History, a group of selected essays that Tuchman wrote. The first one, In Search of History, is about how Tuchman writes about history and mainly just her ideas about history and how writers should engage readers... I've come up with some points and quotes that I want to talk about this coming Monday in the second meeting of the seminar.
She thinks history is better and more interesting when it's told as the truth instead of making it up.
To write history or any kind of topic you, the writer, have to be excited and passionate about the subject. You have to be in love with it. When you show this through your writing (which is sometimes very hard to do) is when you know you will engage and entice your readers.
page 14 (I've put a star near the part)--
"Like any person in love, [Professor C. H. McIlwain, one of her college professors] wanted to let everyone know how beautiful was the object of his affections. He had white hair and pink cheeks and the brightest blue eyes I ever saw, and though I cannot remember a word of Article 39, I do remember how his blue eyes blazed as he discussed it and how I sat on the edge of my seat then too..."
page 14 (near the bottom)--
"Although I did not know it or formulate it consciously at the time, it is this quality of being in love with your subject that is indispensable for writing good history -- or good anything, for that matter."
She talks about how her vivid ideas and images for her thesis were all in her head but she had an extremely hard time getting them onto paper so other people could read them! page 16 (middle area) -- "The experience was terrible because I could not make the piece sound, or rather read, the way I wanted it to." bottom of this paragraph -- "Enthusiasm had not been enough; one must also know how to use the language."
page 16 (middle bottom) --
"...I discovered that an essential element for good writing is a good ear."
page 16 (near the bottom) --
"Too many writers do not listen to the sound of their own words."
page 17 (second to last paragraph) --
"To write history so as to enthrall the reader and make the subject as captivating and exciting to him as it is to me has been my goal since that initial failure with my thesis. A prerequisite, as I have said, is to be enthralled one's self and to feel a compulsion to communicate the magic. Communicate to whom? We arrive now at the reader, a person whom I keep constantly in mid. Catherine Drinker Bowen has said that she writes her books with a sign pinned up over her desk asking, 'Will the reader turn the page?' "
On the bottom of page 17, Tuchman writes about the duties a writer of history has. "The first is to distill [or condense]. [The writer] must do the preliminary work for the reader, assemble the information, make sense of it, select the essential, discard the irrelevant -- above all, discard the irrelevant -- and put the rest together so that it forms a developing dramatic narrative... To offer a mass of undigested facts, of names not identified and places not located, is of no use to the reader and is simple laziness on the part of the author, or pedantry [a person who makes a show of knowledge; a formal uninspired teacher] to show how much he has read."
Tuchman says, and I agree with her, that it takes longer to figure out what to cut out and discard than to just include and what about everything you find and think about. As you can tell, in this blog post, I want to make sure I have the "best" information in here because if I just put in everything I'd be rewriting Tuchman's article -- which I don't think is very productive! I also don't really need everything here because I only want to show you, the reader, what I thought was the most important and relevant to what I'm thinking about. But this takes a whole lot more time than just typing up everything! Tuchman states on page 18 (at the top), "To discard the unnecessary requires courage and also extra work, as exemplified by Pascal's effort to explain an idea to a friend in a letter which rambled on for pages and ended, 'I am sorry to have wearied you with so long a letter but I did not have time to write you a short one.' "
Tuchman thinks of herself... "I think of myself as a storyteller, a narrator, who deals with true stories, not fiction." (page 18, second paragraph) I believe that whenever I write anything that's not fiction I should be thinking of myself as a storyteller and narrator who is working with true stories as well. This is probably one of the key ways Tuchman keeps all of her books, essays, and articles with her very conversational tone (like a story). I feel like one of the most important duties of a writer of any subject is to engage the reader (you'll find a couple quotes above about that) and I am totally hooked when it feels like the writer is sitting right next to me and having a conversation with me. I know I learned the best by talking and conversing with others and I know that reading these essays isn't truly like talking back and forth with someone, but it sure feels like it because of Tuchman's tone that she keeps throughout the essay.
What's also very cool in what Tuchman says is that she not only has a conversational tone but she never invents anything ("I do not invent anything, even the weather." (page 18, 4th paragraph)). Obviously, if it's nonfiction, it's real. But somehow Tuchman makes this real (and maybe not very interesting??) stuff extremely readable and engaging. How?? "The art, if any, consisted only in selecting it and ultimately using it in the right place. Selection is what determines the ultimate product..." She goes on to discuss why she only finds her information from primary sources which is an important point as well; but what I'm trying to get at is that she said that "selection [and placing] is what determines the ultimate product."
At the bottom of page 19 I made a note with an arrow pointing to the last paragraph saying 'more history in the history!' Tuchman says on page 19 (bottom), "Nothing can compare with the fascination of examining material in the very paper and ink of its original issue." She goes on to say that she has found unexpected bits of history in these letters, maps, diaries, and messages.
This essay is half a guide for writing history (what you need, like notecards (page 20), what you need to do (go to actual historical places (page 20)), what you need to use (primary sources, multiple ones because it's obvious that there will be bias (middle of 19), how you do it (ordering, selection, and placing of all the history found, page 18)). The other half is for telling her personal story of how she writes history and why she enjoys it so much. She also discusses the difficulties she's had with writing and why it's so important to follow the guidelines she discusses (which is above here).
You can really tell what she likes about history. "Research is endlessly seductive; writing is hard work. One has to sit down on that chair and think and transform thought into readable, conservative, interesting sentences that both make sense and make the reader turn the page. It is laborious, slow, often painful, sometimes agony. It means rearrangement, revision, adding, cutting, rewriting. But it brings a sense of excitement, almost of rapture; a moment on Olympus. In short, it is an act of creation." (middle of page 21). I find this paragraph sort of odd. This is where she is extremely conversational. The reader, me, has to read through this whole paragraph to get her point about writing. Tuchman couldn't just say "I really enjoy writing about history" she needed to take us through her thought process because you then can understand that she thinks writing is extremely hard to do but still "...it brings a sense of excitement... In short, it is an act of creation." So her feelings about writing are very mixed and by having this very conversational tone, we can see that her emotions are mixed.
Tuchman also discusses the difficulties in writing history. "One of the difficulties in writing history is the problem of how to keep up suspense in a narrative whose outcome is known." (bottom of page 21) Her solution... "I found that if one writes
as of the time, without using the benefit of hindsight, resisting always the temptation to refer to events still ahead, the suspense will build itself up naturally." (top of page 22) "I wrote as if I did not know who would win, and I can only tell you that the method worked. I used to become tense with anxiety myself, as the moments of crisis approached." (middle of page 22)
"Prefabricated systems make me suspicious and science applied to history makes me wince" (bottom of 22). I can only guess that Tuchman would not like the saying "history repeats itself."
Tuchman describes the "why??" here: "To find out what happened in history is enough at the outset without trying too soon to make sure of the "why." I believe it is safer to leave the "why" alone until after one has not only gathered the facts but arranged them in sequence; to be exact, in sentences, paragraphs, and chapters. The very process of transforming a collection of personalities, dates, gun calibers, letters, and speeches into a narrative eventually forces the "why" to the surface. It will emerge of itself one fine day from the story of what happened. It will suddenly appear and tap one on the shoulder, but not if one chases after it first,
before one knows what happened. Then it will elude one forever. It the historian will submit himself
to his material instead of trying to impose himself
on his material, then the material will ultimately speak to him and supply the answers." (top of page 23) So don't go running after your work trying to find the "why." That's great advice but it's awfully hard. I also want to know why I'm writing what I'm writing; why am I including this sentence? I think that's so important to know while writing anything that you want to hold together. However, I'm trying to get away from this habit of mine by blogging and writing more loose and story-like pieces. I agree with Tuchman when she says that the "why" will get out when it wants to and has the ability to. I wrote many blog posts for my English 34 seminar last quarter that didn't really come together until BAM! a great idea that totally connected everything I had just previously discussed. It's so hard to just let go and write and put the pieces together without knowing why to include something over something else. It's hard, but it's definitely worth it.
I figure I should include the last paragraph of Tuchman's essay because it really helps connect everything she discusses throughout her essay (and makes it BAM!).
"As, in this way, the explanation conveys itself to the writer, so will the implications or meaning for our time arise in the mind of the reader. But such lessons, if present and valid, must emerge from the material, not the writer. I did not write to instruct but to tell a story. The implications are what the thoughtful reader himself takes out of the book. This is as it should be, I think, because the best book is a collaboration between author and reader."
Hmmm.. I guess this mainly goes with writing about history or something else with facts because then there is actually material. I don't really know what to think of this last paragraph. It's odd and funny how she says "I did not write to instruct but to tell a story" since I feel as if many parts of this essay feel kind of like a guidebook to writing about history--which I totally don't mind, I like instruction manuals-- but she's saying she doesn't write to instruct! Well, I guess she means she doesn't write in her books to instruct since this isn't a part of her books, it's a Phi Beta Kappa Address at Radcliffe College in April 1963... so yeah, I shouldn't base this on what she says she does. I checked out Guns of August and the Zimmerman Telegraph from the library and I'm planning on reading them and I'll make sure to see if all she says she does in this essay she actually does in her writing!
I made many marks on this essay (which I photocopied, ugh I HATE it when people write in library books or any book that's not theirs!!!) about what I enjoyed and what I didn't know or understand. Many of the parts I didn't understand where names that she dropped that I just don't know (yet) or books that I haven't heard of (yet). Here are some of the words or names of people or books:
G. A. Henty - page 13
"Then came a prolonged
Dumas period, during which I became so intimate with the
Valois kinds, queens, royal mistresses..." - page 13
Conan Doyle's
The White Company - page 13
Jane Porter's
The Scottish Chiefs - page 13
"What Radcliffe
did give me, however, was an
impetus..." - page 14
Anglo-Saxon - page 14 (I thought this
was English...)
"But his contempt for zeal was so zealous, so vigorous and learned, pouring out in a great organ
fugue of
erudition, that it amounted to enthusiasm in the end and held not only me, but all his listeners, rapt." - page 14
Sir Charles Webster - page 15
" 'His presentation is not
vitiated historically by efforts at expository simplicity.' "- page 16
One of Emerson's poems, second line -
"Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face," - page 17
Catherine Drinker Bowen - page 17
vis-a-vis (accent on 'a') - page 17
"The first is to distill." - page 17
"Narrative, it has been said, is the lifeblood of history." - page 17
"To offer a mass of undigested facts, of names not identified and places not located, is of no use to the reader and is simple laziness on the part of the author, or pedantry to show how much he has read." - page 18
Pascal - page 18
"The historian is continually being beguiled down fascinating byways and sidetracks." - page 18
Macaulay - page 18
"Leopold von Ranke, the great nineteenth-century German historian" - page 18
"wie es eigentlich gewesen ist, what really happened, or, literally, how it really was." - something von Ranke said- page 18
"... they are helpful but pernicious." - page 19
"I plunge as soon as I can into the primary sources: the memoirs and the letters, the generals' own accounts of their campaigns, however tendentious, not to say mendacious, they may be." - page 19
Sir John French - page 19
Aesop - page 19
Secretary of State Robert Lansing - page 19
the National Archives - page 19
"...[I] measured the great width of the Meuse at Liege [accent on 'e'], and saw how the lost territory of Alsace looked to the French soldiers who gazed down upon it from the heights of the Vosges." - page 20
"I was looking for documents in the case of Perdicaris, an American--or supposed American--who was captured by Moroccan brigands in 1904" - page 20
"Something in that awful gulf between perfect plans and fallible men..." - page 21
Joffre - page 22
Gallieni - page 22
"This brings me to a matter currently rather moot--the nature of history." - page 22
"Today the battle rages, as you know, between the big thinkers or Toynbees or systematizers on the one hand and the humanists, if I may so designate them--using the word to mean concerned with human nature, not with the humanites--on the other. The genus Toynbee is obsessed..." - page 22
"When history, wickedly disobliging, pops up in the wrong places, the systematizers hurriedly explain any such aberrant behavior by the climate."
"As Sir Chales Oman, the great historian of the art of war, said some time ago, 'The human record is illogical... and history is a series of happenings with no inevitability about it.' " - page 22
Leon Trotsky - page 22
"More recently an anonymous reviewer in the Times Literacy Supplement disposed of the systematizers beyond refute. 'The historian,' he said, 'who puts his system first can hardly escape the heresy of preferring the facts which suit his system best.' " - page 22
"That sounded to me like one of those bits of malice one has to watch out for in contemporary observes; it did not ring true." - page 23
"Messimy, the French War Minister" - page 23
"The same thing happened with Joffre's battle order on the eve of the Marne." - page 23
Tuchman wrote in one of her books this about what Joffre said, "After the first thirty days of war in 1914, there was a premonition that little glory lay ahead." - page 24
Introduction to this blog
I've created a blog for my History 34 Honors Seminar this quarter (um, how many blogs have I made?!? I think I'm addicted...). This seminar meets every Monday and we discuss articles and essays that the professor, Dr. Robert Pierce, picks. Most of the history is from the 20th Century. I'm planning on writing up comments about some of the articles or essays since there is a final paper due about our comments about all of the things we read throughout the quarter. I figure that I shouldnt' wait until the night before it's due to start thinking about what I want to say about each piece. We also discuss what we have read the previous week so I want to make sure I have some points that I want to talk about. So, hopefully, this continues and we'll see where it goes!
