| dc.description.abstract | Leopold von Ranke dreamed of extinguishing the Self and finding patterns in the past independent of historians. But in 1914 European intellectuals disavowed the pattern of progress, and historians stopped talking about patterns and direction in history. From then on historians dealt only in fact, the bedrock of their inductive discipline. But facts make sense together, not apart, and in eight chapters this study demonstrates that history consists of little else except patterns, whether true or false, and explains what the beholder's share in them means. After an introduction, the study discusses the most basic connections historians make, sequences in time and place, then it illustrates the way they speak of synchronous events in terms of one another, juxtaposing them to uncover further patterns. Chapter Three examines the role of metaphor in human thought. In "The Pattern Hunters" the chief pursuit of historians is broached, using Hegelian historiography as a cautionary tale and Marxist pattern hunting as food for reflection. In Chapter Five, C. S. Lewis mounts an assault on several cherished patterns. Next the role of memory in deduction is inspected. To say that the past cannot be deduced, insisting one must go instead to primary sources, is at once to mask the problem addressed in this study and to create a myth about the Self and the Sources both. Whether by induction or some other process, one must notice the traces left from the past, and this task is discussed in Chapter Seven. Traditional histories, it is said, leave one "unconscious of the deeper realities," so Chapter Eight returns to the chief pursuit, describing various engines alleged to be behind history, and discusses the way old patterns are dismantled to reveal hidden patterns beneath them. The study ends with this proposal: when one reflects on how individuals fit into their times, the creatures who make history do indeed make better sense, but it is because no Self ever fits perfectly that the changes which constitute history occur. The historian's task is to understand a world he cannot see or hear or feel, and he does it amazingly well. | |
