4 8 THE P U R SUI T O F H I S TOR Y

It is hard not to detect a fundamental conservatism in these

attitudes: if history is defined to exclude anything that smacks

of ‘relevance’, it is less likely to call into question the dominant

mythologies of today or suggest radical alternatives to current

institutions. This explains why ‘relevant’ historical enquiry attracts

charges of irreverent muckraking.35 There can be little doubt that

conservatives are disproportionately represented in the ranks of

the historical profession. As noted earlier, the triumph of historicism during the nineteenth century owed much to the strength of

the conservative reaction to the French Revolution. It remains

the case that the study of the past often attracts those who are

hostile to the direction of social and political change in their

own day and who find comfort in an earlier and more congenial

order. This outlook has been marked in English local history: the

writings of W.G. Hoskins, a formative influence on this field, are

suffused with a nostalgic regret for the passing of the old English

rural society.36

Disclaimers of social relevance are not, however, usually

couched in explicitly conservative terms. They are more commonly

defended on the grounds that ‘relevant’ history is incompatible

with the historian’s primary obligation to be true to the past,

and with the requirements of scholarly objectivity. This argument

has a wide currency among academic historians, being supported

by many who are not conservative in other respects but who see

their professional integrity at stake. But whether grounded in a

conservative attitude or not, the denial of practical relevance is

unduly cautious. It is entirely understandable that the original

champions of the new historical consciousness should have distanced themselves from topicality, because they were only too

aware how severely their subject had suffered at the hands of

prophets and propagandists in the past. But the battle for scholarly standards of historical enquiry within the profession has long

since been won. Practical purposes can be entertained without

sacrificing standards of scholarship – partly because professional

historians are so zealous in scrutinizing each other’s work for

bias.

Relevant fields of historical study

Historians should, of course, strive to be true to the past; the

question is, which past? Faced with the almost limitless evidence

The uses o f his t ory 4 9

of human activity and the need to select certain problems or

periods as more deserving of attention than others, the historian

is entirely justified in allowing current social concerns to affect

his or her choice. International history originated in the 1920s as

a very positive contribution by historians to the new – if shortlived – ethos of internationalism. The notable broadening of the

scope of historical enquiry during the past fifty years is largely

the result of a small minority of historians responding to the

demands of topicality. The crisis in America’s cities during the

1960s brought into being the ‘new urban history’, with its stress

on the history of social mobility, minority group politics and

inner-city deprivation. African history was developed at about

the same time in Africa and the West by historians who believed

that it was indispensable both to the prospects of the newly

independent states and to the outside world’s understanding of

the ‘dark continent’. More recently, women’s history has grown

rapidly as traditional gender roles have been modified in the

family, the workplace and public life. In each of these areas the

door has been opened to alternative possibilities, to paths not

taken, and to conditioning factors whose influence still weighs on

the present. In none of these areas has historical enquiry simply

confirmed the obvious. As Harold James has put it, ‘history has

a peculiar legitimacy when it tells us something unexpected about

current problems’.37

Obviously new areas of history which proclaim their relevance run the risk of being manipulated by ideologues. But the

responsibility of historians in these cases is clear: it is to provide a

historical perspective that can inform debate rather than to service

any particular ideology. Responding to the call of ‘relevance’

is not a matter of falsifying or distorting the past but rather of

rescuing from oblivion aspects of that past that now speak to us

more directly. Historians of Africa, for example, should be concerned to explain the historical evolution of African societies, not

to create a nationalist mythology, and one of the consequences of

five decades of research and writing is that it is now much easier

to distinguish between the two than it used to be. Our priorities in

the present should determine the questions we ask of the past, but

not the answers. As will be shown later in the book, the discipline

of historical study makes this a meaningful distinction. At the

same time, it is a fallacy to suppose that the aspiration to reconstruct the past in its own terms carries the promise of objectivity:

crisis in America’s cities

The mid-1960s saw serious

rioting in a large number

of American cities. The

riots began in 1965 in

the Watts district of Los

Angeles, where young

working-class blacks

were protesting against

the poverty and squalor

in which they lived, but

soon spread across the

whole nation. The country

erupted in further violence

after the assassination of

Dr Martin Luther King in

1968.

dark continent

The standard Victorian

nickname for Africa. It

referred both to the colour

of Africans’ skin and to

the fact that so little

was known in the West

about the interior of the

continent.