This book should take its place on the crowded shelf of those volumes that have addressed the question, described the practice, or defined the nature, of history; that have asserted the use, endorsed the pursuit, or imagined the future of this academic endeavour; that have insisted on its rethinking, undertaken its deconstruction, or gone once more unto the breach in defence of this humanistic discipline.
On the one hand, it is odd that there should be so many such books, since most working historians would agree that the methods and materials of their craft are fairly simple and straightforward, and that the work of history is to augment our knowledge and enhance our understanding of the past. The historical books that matter are the ones that present the specialised research of professional historians; the what-is or why-study history books are mere historiography.
On the other hand, these books do reflect the state of the specialisations, and the shape of the debates that go on among and between them. They are themselves source materials for a history of the discipline. We can read them to get a sense of the interpretive trends and turns that plot the progress of the profession. The differing opinions of E. H. Carr and G. R. Elton can be comfortably accommodated within a survey course; Keith Jenkins’ two books and new journal have no doubt encouraged the broadening of offerings and the diversifying of hiring. But if historians simply get on with their teaching and research without considering what they are doing and why, or whether they will be able to keep doing it, they might be surprised that historiography has come to this.
Why Study History? raises not so much an academic as an existential question. It might be argued that some of the more recent historiographical trends – those typically deplored as ‘postmodern’ – are what have brought history to this crisis; but I will not take that up here. It is just the sort of argument we cannot afford to indulge in, if we are afraid that unless we can get enough students, our programs will be shut down and we ourselves turned out. This consideration is what should make this book of interest to Classicists.
This is the first published volume in the London Publishing Partnership's Why Study? series, which is intended to address and assuage the concerns of prospective students that a particular course of study promises a sufficient return on investment. There is not at present a Why Study Classics? volume in preparation, but it would surely not come amiss. Marcus Collins and Peter N. Stearns insist that history is practical; that those who choose to study it do enjoy it; and that it prepares them for a wide range of satisfying and remunerative careers. They begin by addressing the misconception that under current conditions, only businesslike and technological courses of study are viable and advisable. The study of history is not so obviously and instrumentally connected to the jobs that follow from it, which may not be as immediately lucrative as some others; but students of history will have skills and knowledge that are wanted in the working world.
Collins and Stearns make the case for the study of history with an earnestness that takes the edge off the desperation. They have plenty of pertinent and persuasive data, and beyond insisting that history is rather than is not practical they reaffirm everything that the most convinced and committed historian would want to say or want said about their profession. Thus, we read that ‘the study of history is really about gaining habits of mind, not winning prizes for factual retention’, and that ‘the world today simply can't operate without historians and historical training’.
But the book is aimed at those who would study history rather than those who are already doing so. The historical examples they adduce are straightforward and familiar, and the philosophical speculation does not venture much beyond a confirmation of Santayana's claim that those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it. Their survey of the sorts of history one might study covers everything from the old-fashioned to the up-to-the-moment: from Intellectual and Diplomatic to Environmental and Digital History. Collins is British, and Stearns American; and they want to be as encouraging and informative as they can to those who might study history in either a British or American university. It is interesting to see how differently history is done on either side of the Atlantic; but given the book's stated aim and intended audience this means that any given reader will have to get through or around a fair amount of irrelevant content. Nevertheless, wherever and however history might be studied, ‘students choosing history, and the anxious parents of those students, can rest assured that a history focus is a solid career move’.
It is good that we have this book; and that it is a book of this sort. The nature, practice, pursuit, or future of history does depend on there being people who want to study it. Those who have studied it may be keen to teach it, but we cannot assume that the students will come; nor should we assume that those who do intend to enter our line of work. Everything has a history, and so those who study it should be able to do anything. It is in the best interest of the discipline, both intellectually and institutionally, to make history truly practical where it might otherwise become merely instrumental.
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