john lewis gaddis the landscape of history

Gaddis suggests that knowing the grammar of history, that is, the content of past events, merely gives us the rules of the game yet each game, although played by the same rules, presents its own unique context in which we apply our own skills in conjunction with the knowledge of the rules to perform to our maximum ability. In discussing this purpose of history, Gaddis provides several illustrations. To accumulate experience is not to endorse its automatic application, for part of the historical consciousness is the ability to see differences as well as similarities.”, “It is to interpret the past for the purposes of the present with a view to managing the future, but to do so without suspending the capacity to assess the particular circumstances in which one might have to act, or the relevance of past actions to them. Gaddis provides a much better definition, I think, of the historian’s task: But I, at least, have never been satisfied by this answer, yet I have remained a firm defender of the value of learning and knowing history. The justifying answer most often given is that we learn about the past so that we won’t repeat it in the future. The responsibility of each subject to justify itself in the curriculum is perhaps inevitable, but history seems often to be one that requires the most questioning, even in classical Christian education. Recently I have been reading John Lewis Gaddis’ excellent work, The Landscape of History, and Gaddis helpfully addresses both the purpose of studying history and the method of the historian.

John lewis gaddis the landscape of history