Carr writes: “when we take up a work of history, our first concern should be not with the facts which it contains but with the historian who wrote it” (Carr, pg. By crafting a well thought out worldview we can then apply it forward. And I would argue that if you don't take the time to craft a rigorous worldview of what you believe, someone will do it for you.Į.H. In other words, each of us should craft a worldview, one that draws on specific or particular experiences, and these can be personal, familial, cultural, national or international experiences. This is more art than science it is an exercise that every one of us should carefully think about, because we are going to do it anyway.
And in drawing lessons, we can then apply these to future situations. Because generalization is drawing lessons from the specific details. And while this is very important in history (historians love their dates!), it is the generalization part that is essential. This takes the form of dates and specifics. By particularization, Gaddis means detail. Gaddis writes that crafting history is finding the artful balance between “particularization” and “generalization” (The Landscape of History, pg. This is where developing an understanding of history is essential. But each individual's conception of the present and the future is grounded in how that individual understands the past. You act in the present to make tomorrow better. Everyone acts in the present moment in a way that they hope will make their future better, even if that means something as simple as not getting hit by a car, or something as serious as pursuing a graduate degree. And while Gaddis is a very respected historian writing about serious historical topics like the Cold War and authoring magisterial biographies of important American intellectuals like George Kennan, his definition of history is basic life advice for every human on the planet. Writing in Surprise, Security, and the American Experience, Gaddis writes that "we act in the present with a view to shaping the future only on the basis of what we know about the past" (Gaddis, pg.
John Lewis Gaddis offers my favorite definition of history. On a site that investigates the uses and misuses of history and throws the term around with reckless abandon, it may be useful for me to define what I mean when I use it.
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