THE PURSUIT

OF HISTORY

JOHN TOSH

FIFTH EDITION

The Pursuit of History

The Pursuit

of History

Aims, methods and new directions in the

study of modern history

FIFTH EDITION

John Tosh

PEARSON EDUCATION LIMITED

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First published 1984

Second edition 1991

Third edition 1992

Fourth edition 1996

Fifth edition published in Great Britain 2010

© Pearson Education Limited 1984, 2010

The right of John Tosh to be identified as author

of this work has been asserted by him in accordance

with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

ISBN: 978–0–582–89412–9

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Tosh, John.

 The pursuit of history : aims, methods, and new directions in the study of

modern history / John Tosh. – 5th ed.

 p. cm.

 Includes index.

 ISBN 978-0-582-89412-9 (pbk.)

1. Historiography. 2. Great Britain–Historiography. I. Title.

 D13.T62 2010

 907.2'041–dc22

2009043558

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Contents

Preface to the Fifth Edition viii

Publisher’s Acknowledgements xii

1 Historical awareness 1

2 The uses of history 29

3 Mapping the field 58

4 The raw materials 88

5 Using the sources 119

6 Writing and interpretation 147

7 The limits of historical knowledge 175

8 History and social theory 214

9 Cultural evidence and the cultural turn 246

1 0 Gender history and postcolonial history 274

1 1 Memory and the spoken word 303

Conclusion 330

Index 335

For Nick and Will

Preface to the Fifth Edition

The word history carries two meanings in common parlance.

It refers both to what actually happened in the past and to

the representation of that past in the work of historians. This

book is an introduction to history in the second sense. It is

intended for anyone who is sufficiently interested in the subject to

wonder how historical enquiry is conducted and what purpose it

fulfils. More specifically, the book is addressed to students taking

a degree course in history, for whom these questions have particular relevance.

Traditionally history undergraduates were offered no formal

instruction in the nature of their chosen discipline; its timehonoured place in our literary culture and its non-technical

presentation suggested that common sense combined with a sound

general education would provide the student with what little orientation he or she required. This approach leaves a great deal to

chance. It is surely desirable that students consider the functions

served by a subject to which they are about to devote three years

of study or more. Curriculum choice will be a hit-and-miss affair

unless based on a clear grasp of the content and scope of presentday historical scholarship. Above all, students need to be aware

of the limits placed on historical knowledge by the character of

the sources and the working methods of historians, so that at an

early stage they can develop a critical approach to the formidable

array of secondary authorities that they are required to master. It

is certainly possible to complete a degree course in history without

giving systematic thought to any of these issues, and generations

of students have done so. But most universities now recognize

that the value of historical study is thereby diminished, and they

Preface t o the F ifth E dition i x

therefore provide introductory courses on the methods and scope

of history. I hope that this book will meet the needs of students

taking such a course.

Although my own research experience has been in the fields of

African history and gender in modern Britain, it has not been my

intention to write a manifesto for ‘the new history’. I have tried

instead to convey the diversity of current historical practice, and

to situate recent innovations in the context of mainstream traditional scholarship, which continues to account for a great deal

of first-rate historical work and to dominate academic syllabuses.

The scope of historical studies is today so wide that it has not

been easy to determine the precise range of this book; but without

some more or less arbitrary boundaries an introductory work of

this length would lose all coherence. I therefore say nothing about

the history of science or environmental history, and there are

only passing references to the history of the body and the history

of consumption. In general I have confined my choice to those

themes that are widely studied by students today.

Even within these limits, however, my territory is something

of a minefield. Anyone who imagines that an introduction to the

study of history will express a consensus of expert opinion needs

to be promptly disabused. One of the distinguishing features of

the profession is its heated arguments concerning the objectives

and limitations of historical study. This book inevitably reflects

my own views, and it is appropriate to declare them at the outset.

The salient points are: that history is a subject of practical social

relevance; that the proper performance of its function depends

on a receptive and discriminating attitude to other disciplines;

and that the methods of academic history hold out the promise

not of ‘truth’ in an absolute sense, but of incremental growth in

our knowledge of the past. At the same time, I have tried to place

these claims – none of which is of course original – in the context

of recent debate among historians, and to give a fair hearing to

views with which I disagree.

This book explores a number of general propositions about

history and historians, rather than providing a point of entry

into any one field or specialism. But since I anticipate that most

of my readers will be more familiar with British history than any

other, I have relied for my illustrative material mostly on that

field, with some additional examples from Africa, Europe and the

United States. The book is meant to be read as a whole, but I have

x THE PURSUIT O F HISTORY

included a certain amount of cross-referencing in the text to assist

the reader who wishes to pursue specific themes.

The book is intended to take the reader from first principles

through to some of the latest debates about the direction historical study is taking. Chapter 1 considers what it means to think

historically. Chapter 2 reviews the debate about whether history

has any use beyond human curiosity about the past. Chapter 3

seeks to categorize the many and varied kinds of study that sail

under the banner of ‘history’. Then follow two chapters (4 and

5) that itemize and analyse written primary sources. Chapter 6

examines the different kinds of writing through which historians

communicate their findings. Chapter 7 reviews the intense debates

that have arisen about the truth claims of history, paying special

attention to Postmodernism. The remainder of the book describes

a number of specific approaches to history, all informed to a

greater or lesser degree by theory. Chapter 8 considers Marxism

and other kinds of social theory; Chapter 9 evaluates the contribution of cultural sources and the broader reorientation known

as the ‘cultural turn’. Chapter 10 deals with gender history and

postcolonial history. Finally, Chapter 11 considers the relationship between history and memory, including oral history.

Anyone familiar with previous editions will want to know

what is different about this one. There are substantial changes.

My survey of the main themes of history has been reorganized

and placed earlier in the book (Chapter 3). There are sections on

global history (Chapter 3) and comparative history (Chapter 6).

The ever-widening scope of cultural history is more fully explored

in Chapter 9. In the previous edition postcolonialism was mentioned in passing, but now receives half a chapter (Chapter 10).

The treatment of women’s and gender history has been brought

together in one place (also Chapter 10). I have recast my coverage

of oral history, linking it more closely with the recent scholarship

on memory (Chapter 11). At the same time, these additions have

not resulted in a longer text, since my goal remains to provide a

succinct introduction to the discipline. The flip side of innovation is that yesterday’s themes may count for less today. I have

therefore made excisions. The chapter on quantitative history has

been dropped, but the topic briefly appears in Chapters 5 and 8.

Marxist history has been cut down to size, though it remains an

important theme (Chapter 8). Oral tradition (as distinct from oral

Preface t o the F ifth E dition x i

history) has likewise been trimmed (Chapter 11). Elsewhere I have

updated the text and the reference material at numerous points.

In ranging so far beyond any one person’s experience of

research and writing, this book is more dependent than most

on the help of other scholars. Earlier editions record my intellectual debts. This latest edition has benefited from the advice of

Peter Edwards, Carrie Hamilton, Paula Hamilton, Karen Harvey,

Krisztina Robert, John Seed and Caroline White.

I am particularly grateful to Seán Lang: he devised the student

aids in the fourth edition, and I have incorporated them here in

the same house style, with some additions.

John Tosh

May 2009

Publisher’s

Acknowledgements

The publisher would like to thank the following for their kind

permission to reproduce their photographs:

Page 4 Bridgeman Art Library Ltd: Capitol Collection, Washington,

USA / The Bridgeman Art Library; Page 14 Getty Images: AFP.

Page 18 Getty Images: Hulton Archive; Page 40 TopFoto: Image

Works; Page 62 Getty Images: Time & Life Pictures; Page 64

Mary Evans Picture Library; Page 80 Bridgeman Art Library

Ltd: Private Collection / The Bridgeman Art Library; Page 90

Getty Images: Time & Life Pictures; Page 94 akg-images Ltd;

Page 111 Mary Evans Picture Library; Page 123 Bridgeman Art

Library Ltd: Private Collection / The Bridgeman Art Library;

Page 128 Photographers Direct; Page 137 Paul Shawcross;

Page 139 Corbis: Hulton Archive; Page 154 TopFoto: Topham

Picturepoint; Page 169 akg-images Ltd; Page 176 Corbis: James

Leynse; Page 225 Mary Evans Picture Library; Page 237 Alamy

Images: ICP; Page 250 Bridgeman Art Library Ltd: Guildhall

Library, City of London / The Bridgeman Art Library; Page 252

Getty Images: Hulton Archive; Page 255 Getty Images: Hulton

Archive; Page 275 Corbis: Bettmann; Page 284 TopFoto: Topham

Picturepoint; Page 288 Bridgeman Art Library Ltd: Louvre, Paris,

France / Giraudon / The Bridgeman Art Library; Page 295 Getty

Images: Popperfoto; Page 310 Getty Images: AFP; Page 311 Getty

Images: Huton Archive; Page 318 TopFoto: J White; Page 320

TopFoto: Image Works

All other images © Pearson Education

Picture Research by Alison Prior.

Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders and we

apologise in advance for any unintentional omissions. We would

be pleased to insert the appropriate acknowledgement in any subsequent edition of this publication.

chapter one

Historical awareness

This chapter looks at the difference between memory, whether

individual or collective, and the more disciplined approach towards

the past that characterizes an awareness of history. All groups have

a sense of the past, but they tend to use it to reinforce their own

beliefs and sense of identity. Like human memory, collective or

social memory can be faulty, distorted by factors such as a sense

of tradition or nostalgia, or else a belief in progress through time.

Modern professional historians take their cue from nineteenthcentury historicism, which taught that the past should be studied

on its own terms, ‘as it actually was’. However, this more detached

approach to the past can put historians in conflict with people who

feel their cherished versions of the past are under threat.

‘Historical awareness’ is a slippery term. It can be regarded

as a universal psychological attribute, arising from the

fact that we are, all of us, in a sense historians. Because our

species depends more on experience than on instinct, life cannot

be lived without the consciousness of a personal past; and

someone who has lost it through illness or ageing is generally

regarded as disqualified from normal life. As individuals we draw

on our experience in all sorts of different ways – as a means of

affirming our identity, as a clue to our potential, as the basis for

our impression of others, and as some indication of the possibilities that lie ahead. Our memories serve as both a data bank and

a means of making sense of an unfolding life story. We know

that we cannot understand a situation without some perception

of where it fits into a continuing process or whether it has happened before. The same holds true of our lives as social beings.

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

All societies have a collective memory, a storehouse of experience

that is drawn on for a sense of identity and a sense of direction.

Professional historians commonly deplore the superficiality of

popular historical knowledge, but some knowledge of the past is

almost universal; without it one is effectively excluded from social

and political debate, just as loss of memory disqualifies one from

much everyday human interaction. Our political judgements are

permeated by a sense of the past, whether we are deciding between

the competing claims of political parties or assessing the feasibility

of particular policies. To understand our social arrangements, we

need to have some notion of where they have come from. In that

sense all societies possess ‘memory’.

But ‘historical awareness’ is not the same thing as social

memory. How the past is known and how it is applied to present

need are open to widely varying approaches. We know from personal experience that memory is neither fixed nor infallible: we

forget, we overlay early memories with later experience, we shift

the emphasis, we entertain false memories, and so on. In important

matters we are likely to seek confirmation of our memories from

an outside source. Collective memory is marked by the same distortions, as our current priorities lead us to highlight some aspects

of the past and to exclude others. In our political life especially,

memory is highly selective, and sometimes downright erroneous.

It is at this point that the term ‘historical awareness’ invites a more

rigorous interpretation. Under the Third Reich those Germans

who believed that all the disasters in German history were the fault

of the Jews certainly acknowledged the power of the past, but we

would surely question the extent of their historical awareness. In

other words, it is not enough to invoke the past; there must also be

a belief that getting the story right matters. History as a disciplined

enquiry aims to sustain the widest possible definition of memory,

and to make the process of recall as accurate as possible, so that

our knowledge of the past is not confined to what is immediately

relevant. The goal is a resource with open-ended application,

instead of a set of mirror-images of the present. That at least has

been the aspiration of historians for the past two centuries. Much

of this book will be devoted to evaluating how adequately historians achieve these ends. My purpose in this opening chapter is to

explore the different dimensions of social memory, and in so doing

to arrive at an understanding of what historians do and how it

differs from other sorts of thinking about the past.

Third Reich

The technical term for

the National Socialist

(Nazi) regime in Germany,

1933–45. Reich (roughly

‘Empire’) was used to

denote the original

medieval German Empire

and the unified German

Empire (the Second

Reich), which lasted from

1871 to 1919.

Historical awareness 3

I

Social memory: creating the self-identity of a

group

For any social grouping to have a collective identity there has

to be a shared interpretation of the events and experiences that

have formed the group over time. Sometimes this will include

an accepted belief about the origins of the group, as in the case

of many nation-states; or the emphasis may be on vivid turning

points and symbolic moments that confirm the self-image and

aspirations of the group. Current examples include the vital significance of the Edwardian suffrage movement for the women’s

movement, and the appeal of the ‘molly house’ sub-culture of

eighteenth-century London for the gay community in Britain

today.1

 Without an awareness of a common past made up of such

human detail, men and women could not easily acknowledge the

claims on their loyalty of large abstractions.

The term ‘social memory’ accurately reflects the rationale of

popular knowledge about the past. Social groupings need a record

of prior experience, but they also require a picture of the past that

serves to explain or justify the present, often at the cost of historical accuracy. The operation of social memory is clearest in those

societies where no appeal can be made to the documentary record

as a corrective or higher authority. Pre-colonial Africa presents

some classic instances.2

 In literate societies the same was true for

those largely unlettered communities that lay outside the elite,

such as the peasantries of pre-modern Europe. What counted for

historical knowledge here was handed down as a narrative from

one generation to the next, often identified with particular places

and particular ceremonies or rituals. It provided a guide for

conduct and a set of symbols around which resistance to unwelcome intrusion could be mobilized. Until quite recently popular

memory in a largely illiterate Sicily embraced both the Palermo

rising of 1282 against the Angevins (the ‘Sicilian Vespers’) and

the nineteenth-century Mafia as episodes in a national tradition

of avenging brotherhood.3

But it would be a mistake to suppose that social memory is

the preserve of small-scale, pre-literate societies. In fact the term

itself highlights a universal need: if the individual cannot exist

without memory, neither can society, and that goes for large-scale

Edwardian suffrage

movement

The movement in the

period before the First

World War to obtain

the parliamentary vote

(‘suffrage’) for women.

It is best known for

campaigns of the militant

suffragettes, although it

was the more moderate

suffragists who finally

obtained votes for women

in 1918.

molly house

An eighteenth-century

covert meeting house

for homosexual men.

Molly houses remained

little known until Mark

Ravenhill’s play Mother

Clapp’s Molly House

(2001) was staged to

widespread acclaim at the

Royal National Theatre in

London.

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

technologically advanced societies too. All societies look to their

collective memories for consolation or inspiration, and literate

societies are in principle no different. Near-universal literacy and

a high degree of residential mobility mean that the oral transmission of social memory is now much less important. But written

accounts (such as school history books or popular evocations of

the World Wars), film and television perform the same function.

Social memory continues to be an essential means of sustaining a

politically active identity. Its success is judged by how effectively

it contributes to collective cohesion and how widely it is shared

by members of the group. Sometimes social memory is based on

consensus and inclusion, and this is often the function of explicitly national narratives. It can take the form of a foundation

myth, as in the case of the far-seeing Founding Fathers of the

American Republic, whose memory is still invoked today in order

to shore up belief in the American nation. Alternatively, consensual memory can focus on a moment of heroism, like the story of

foundation myth

A story, usually muchtreasured, about the

foundation of a group or

people. One of the most

famous is the biblical

story of the Creation.

Nations often have semi-

‘official’ versions of their

origins, usually involving

national hero figures,

but foundation myths

can be found in schools,

army regiments and even

companies. ‘Myth’ need

not imply that the story

is entirely false, merely

that it has developed into

a simplistic, usually rosy,

version of events.

Foundation myth: the Declaration of Independence by America’s ‘Founding Fathers’ in 1776 remains an iconic

moment in American history of immense symbolic importance. American school history books still present it in

resolutely heroic terms. (Bridgeman Art Library/Capitol Collection, Washington, USA)

Historical awareness 5

Dunkirk in 1940, which the British recall as the ingenious escape

that laid the foundations of victory (see Chapter 11 for fuller

discussion).

Social memory of past oppression

But social memory can also serve to sustain a sense of oppression,

exclusion or adversity, and these elements account for some of

the most powerful expressions of social memory. Social movements entering the political arena for the first time are particularly

conscious of the absolute requirement of a past. Black history in

the United States has its origin in the kind of strategic concern

voiced by Malcolm X in the 1960s. One reason why blacks were

oppressed, he wrote, was that white America had cut them off

from their past:

If we don’t go into the past and find out how we got this way, we

will think that we were always this way. And if you think that you

were in the condition that you’re in right now, it’s impossible for

you to have too much confidence in yourself, you become worthless,

almost nothing.4

The purpose of much British labour history has been to sharpen

the social awareness of the workers, to confirm their commitment to political action, and to reassure them that history is ‘on

their side’ if only they will keep faith with the heroism of their

forebears. The historical reconstruction of working people’s experience was, as the inaugural editorial of History Workshop Journal

put it, ‘a source of inspiration and understanding’.5

 Working-class

memories of work, locality, family and politics – with all the pride

and anger so often expressed through them – were rescued before

they were pushed out of popular consciousness by an approved

national version.

The women’s movement of the past thirty years has been if

anything more conscious of the need for a usable past. For feminists this requirement is not met by studies of exceptional women

such as Elizabeth I who operated successfully in a man’s world;

the emphasis falls instead on the economic and sexual exploitation that has been the lot of most women, and on the efforts

of activists to secure redress. According to this perspective, the

critical determinant of women’s history was not nation or class,

but patriarchy: that is, the power of the household head over

his wife and children and, by extension, the power of men over

History Workshop

A collaborative research

venture set up by a group

of left-wing historians

led by Raphael Samuel

(1934–96) at Ruskin

College, Oxford, to

encourage research and

debate in working-class

and women’s history.

patriarchy

A social system based on

the dominance of fathers,

and, by extension, of men

in general.

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

women more generally. Because mainstream history suppresses

this truth, what it offers is not universal history but a blinkered

account of half the human race. These are the themes which, to

quote from the title of a popular feminist text, have been ‘hidden

from history’.6

 As one American feminist has put it:

It is not surprising that most women feel that their sex does not have

an interesting or significant past. However, like minority groups,

women cannot afford to lack a consciousness of a collective identity,

one which necessarily involves a shared awareness of the past.

Without this, a social group suffers from a kind of collective amnesia,

which makes it vulnerable to the impositions of dubious stereotypes,

as well as limiting prejudices about what is right and proper for it to

do or not to do.7

For socially deprived or ‘invisible’ groups – whether in a majority

such as workers and women, or in a minority such as blacks in

America and Britain – effective political mobilization depends on

a consciousness of common experience in the past.

Historicism – liberating the past from the present

But alongside these socially motivated views of the past has grown

up a form of historical awareness that starts from quite different

premises. While social memory has continued to open up interpretations that satisfy new forms of political and social need, the

dominant approach in historical scholarship has been to value the

past for its own sake and, as far as possible, to rise above political

expediency. It was only during the nineteenth century that historical awareness in this more rigorous sense became the defining

attribute of professional historians. There were certainly important precursors – in the ancient world, in Islam, in dynastic China,

and in the West from the Renaissance onwards. But it was not

until the first half of the nineteenth century that all the elements of

historical awareness were brought together in a historical practice

that was widely recognized as the proper way to study the past.

This was the achievement of the intellectual movement known as

historicism, which began in Germany and soon spread all over the

Western world (the word comes from the German Historismus).

The fundamental premise of the historicists was that the

autonomy of the past must be respected. They held that each age