Truth, Justice, and the American Way

I did decide to stop reading the Shakespearean Whodunits.  Alas, they just aren't well written enough! But I may go back to them in the future, so I'm hanging on to the book.

I'm about 2/3 done with Telling the Truth about History, and so far it's pretty interesting, though a bit slow-going for the bus because it requires more concentration that the typical narrative. It's argument is that history as a subject has undergone changes over the centuries, especially since the 18th century in Europe (and by transfer, America), where the "Enlightenment," as it was called, made it possible for people to study the world around them without the restrictions of (mostly Christian) religious doctrine, and that those changes have brought us to a place where unchecked relativism (this was in 1994) is undermining the power of science to help us understand our world and ourselves.

The Enlightenment's promotion of empiricism developed science into what the authors call Hero-Science, a discipline that rescued learning and knowledge of the universe from the dark ages of the past when people were not encouraged to describe the physical world as it was, when people like Galileo could not publish his findings about the true nature of the heavens without serious consequences from the religious establishment.

The belief in science as heroic continued to dominate Western thinking well into the fifties, when nuclear science and its terrifying power started to change people's attitude toward science.  Perhaps science wasn't as heroic as they thought; maybe the applications of scientific inquiry and experimentation and discovery required intervention from humans, some restrictions placed on how far and how fast science could progress. According to the authors, how this relates to history is this: at the turn of the 19th century, when history was becoming a legitimate subject for school study (along with English), Hero-Science was also predominant, so scientific principles and the scientific method were applied to the study of history, with the result that history became the search for factual truth rather than a collection of stories about the past.

You may think that this is how history has always been taught--it's certainly the way I learned it in school--but it is in fact an invention of the 19th century.  Dickens' character Thomas Gradgrind is only a slightly exaggerated figure--many a teacher of the past believed that memorizing the dates and places and "facts" of battles, territorial conquests, and political contests was the proper way to study history. A great example of that is in one of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books: as a high school student trying to get a teaching certificate in 1880s South Dakota, young Laura is expected to memorize a long, fact-filled account of American History and recite it in front of her classmates. Even today, though we no longer go in for recitation, this fact-digesting-and-regurgitating method of studying history is employed by public school teachers.

Since the 1960s, however, that approach to pedagogy has changed.  Now there is a much more skeptical eye trained on the past; the civil rights era taught us how many people's stories had been left out, how many facts of the past (some sad, some sordid) had been ignored or actively obliterated. The drive to include those stories and facts changed the discipline of history to something more akin to social history.  And once included, the voices of some of those previously left out of the official history (minorities and women, for instance) made for a much less heroic account.  The standard, monochromatic story of our nation's founding, development, and attainment of greatness slowly becomes a bit tarnished, disappointing and, in some instances, frightening. 

Multiculturalism remains controversial, but there's no mistaking its impact on how we see ourselves and our past as a country. One result, for instance, is that we are now ambivalent about Columbus Day: once seen by many as a celebration of the founding of our country, it's now also seen as marking the beginning of the end for indigenous Americans.

According to Appleby et al, all this has brought us to where we were in 1994, the year Telling the Truth About History was published.  The understanding that the history we all learned in school is incomplete and therefore wrong led us to think that all history heretofore written by the dominant groups of our society--mostly white, male, Protestant, Anglo-Saxon, middle-class folk--must be discarded as biased and even harmful.  The authors believe this sea-change has happened, but they also believe that this new way of looking at mainstream teaching has gone too far, that truth can still be obtained from scientific inquiry, even considering the biases of those who do the investigations and tell us about them.  This is where I am in the book right now.  I'm looking forward to learning about how we can have it both ways: both truth and justice, if you will, in the American way of learning.

I'll let you know how it turns out.  Until next time . . .

History Writ Large and Small

I finished Julie Andrews' autobiography (with some judicious fast-forwarding) this week and found it to be quite entertaining for the most part. I'd recommend it for light reading.

After Ms. Andrews' book, I decided to start reading one of the volumes of short stories entitled Shakespearean Whodunits. The premise is interesting (as I pointed out in my last post), but the writing is only so-so. I've read several of them now, and I must say I'm not overwhelmed. I may decide to cut this adventure short and move on to the next book.

The next book on my list is one I've had a while: Telling the Truth About History.  It's a scholarly work, apparently, by a team of historians, the first of whom is Joyce Appleby (one of the "A" team).  It got a pretty good review in the NY Times when it came out in 1994: "Truth by Consensus."

I think it will be interesting, but I'll let you know.

Julie's Home

I've been reading Julie Andrews' autobiography, Home, this week.  The version I actually owned was given to me by my mother, who'd read it.  It was in large type for her, but unfortunately, I can't read large type without hurting my eyes and my head, so I decided to take Ms. Andrews' book out of the library and read it that way.  (I sent the large type book back to my mother, who won't mind reading it again.)

I wasn't sure I would like it (I don't usually go for celebrity autobiographies), but I must say it's pretty good, despite being somewhat episodic in format.  Once in a while I have to skip over parts that are a bit too detailed for my interest (when she's listing the show business pals she had at certain times and places, for instance).  But for the most part I'm involved in her struggles and her successes.  The part about enduring the bombings during WWII is very informative.  Also interesting are her stories about her career.  She doesn't mind recounting her failures and mistakes--I like that about her.  It makes her seem more like a real person.

One thing that has struck me from reading this story is that Julia never had any other work but entertaining.  She grew up in a family of entertainers and just accepted her role in the family business with no complaints; in fact, she was happy with it.  There was no speculating on what she was going to do when she grew up--she was already doing it, from the age of eight or so.  Even as a child she worked hard at learning to sing, dance and act and those efforts helped her to succeed later on.

She counters the professional stories with the stories of her troubled family, mostly her mother and stepfather, who ended up as alcoholics she had to support.  But there were plenty of joys with her family as well, and she makes a point not to criticize her family members too much.  She just matter-of-factly describes what they did and said and how it affected her and others in her family.

Right now I'm at the part where she's making her Broadway debut with The Boyfriend, followed by My Fair Lady.  She's a hit, something that seems to surprise her.  I sometimes wonder if she was as humble as she makes herself out to have been, but I suspect that she was.

I didn't know much about Julie's career before Mary Poppins, so this is all new information to me.  Probably what makes it most interesting, however, is getting to know her, something she makes possible with the way she writes the book.

So, I'll likely finish Home this week.  Then it's on to the next, which I think will be Shakespearean Whodunits, edited by Mike Ashley, which is a collection of mysteries (in two volumes) based in part on Shakespeare's plays.  Each writer starts with a play and then comes up with a mystery that relates to the plot.  It's an interesting premise, but the writers are not well known, so I'm not sure I'm going to like them yet.

But I will let you know, of course, one way or the other.

Staying Alive

I'm enjoying reading How to Stay Alive in the Woods, but the amount of technical information the author is conveying is starting to overwhelm me. I think I will set this one aside and relabel it Reference, since it seems to be something one reads in order to learn something specific, and not to enjoy for its own sake.

I must say, though, that the man is a very good writer (if a bit on the formal side, stylistically speaking).  So it makes sense, as I read in Chapter 14, "Choice of Clothing, that Angier left his job as an editor when first venturing out into the wilderness.  The chapter begins with these words, which tell a lot about the man's philosophy, expressed as it was well before the back-to-nature movement of the 1960s:

The necessaries of life are food, shelter, warmth, and clothing.  When we have obtained these, it is claimed, there is an alternative to struggling for the luxuries.  That's to adventure on life itself, our vacation from humbler toil having commenced.

With such philosophy not everyone will agree, although I was fortunate enough to find no reason for disputing it when I went to the wilderness to live, and it may at least answer the questions of a few to note that we have never regretted the decision not to waste what are called the best years of life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable freedom during the least valuable part.  (145) 

I think my husband would agree with Bradford's choice to spend his youth in exploration rather than piling up cash for retirement (although I daresay Angier probably made plenty of money from his books). The idea does have a certain appeal, even now, in the "least valuable part" of my life.  Perhaps it's not too late to take to the woods?  Some people believe it won't be long before we're forced to do so, when the economy or the government or the environment or the infrastructure collapses.

For now, though, I'm moving on to Julie Andrews' biography, Home: A Memoir of My Early Years.  It got a pretty good revew from the NY Times, so I think I'll enjoy it.  But I intend to keep Angier's very useful book around for when I may need it.

Until next time!

Back to Nature

The book I'm currently reading is a classic in the back-to-nature genre: How to Survive in the Woods, by Bradford Angier. So far it's very interesting, though I think it's intended to be more of a reference work than something you'd read through once.  Mr. Angier is an excellent writer, clear and pithy.  His explanations of how to kill and eat various wild animals are straightforward and informative, without seeming deliberately violent or gory.

More later on this fascinating book, first published in 1956.

Skipping from Alexie to Angelou

Well, I didn't end up reading Dr. Amatuzio's book because it was about people who believe they communicate with the dead. That's not my cup of tea, but I would've been willing to give it the benefit of the doubt if it had been well written.  It was not, however, so I put it into the donation pile and moved on.

The next book on the list was Maya Angelou's famous autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.  It's the story of her life from early childhood through adolescence.  She was born in 1928, thus the story tells of what life was life for an African American during the 1930s and 40s.  I've been meaning to read it for many years, so I was really happy to finally be starting it.

It's a very well written book--exciting, interesting, and thought provoking.  Maya talks about hardships as well as joys.  There are a great many passages, of course, that deal with the sorrow of race relations during the first half of the twentieth century, but also many colorful, poignant and disturbing stories about the people she knew and lived with in the segregated society of Stamp, Arkansas as well as the integrated society of California.  I'm learning a lot about her friends and relations, and learning to love or despise or feel sorry for them as she does.  Her grandmother, whom she calls "Momma" throughout the book, is an especially wonderful person: courageous, wise, kind and strong; Ms. Angelou makes me wish I had known her.  She must miss her terribly.

The title of the book comes from a Paul Dunbar poem: "Sympathy."  It's a fitting title, I think. See if you agree.  Here's the poem: Sympathy.

I'm about 3/4 through with the book, but I already know it's great, and I highly recommend it.