The crisis of academic history revisited

Abstract

Recently, Tim Nuttal l and John Wright publ i shed two art icles 1 dealing with academic h i s to ry ' s declining status, bo th in South Africa and overseas . The authors provide an analysis of the d i lemmas of the profess ion, not only in South Africa but overseas as well, while s imul taneous ly providing us wi th a su rvey of much of the re levant l i terature . As such they offer us an ar t iculate and s t imulat ing ' s ta te of the ar t ' synthes is of c o n t e m p o r a r y h i s to r ians ' v iews about their p rofess ion and its changing public image over the pas t th i r ty years . My su rvey will a t t empt to summar i se the more sal ient aspec ts of these two art icles briefly, t rea t ing them as essent ia l ly two par t s of the same a r g u m e n t . I wou ld t hen like to ques t i on some of the i r bas i c assumpt ions . My focus will deal p r imar i ly wi th the decline of academic h is tory in the West as a whole, r a the r than specifically wi th South Africa. As the authors r ight ly point out, h i s tory pr ior to the n ine teenth century was largely a l i te rary discipline. Only f rom 1870 did separa te h i s to ry depa r tmen t s begin to funct ion at Wes te rn European and American universi t ies , 2 al though the seminar , a l ready f rom the second quar te r of the n ineteenth century, had become a defining charac ter i s t ic of the h is tory profession. 3 From about the 1960s, on the other hand, the h i s to ry profess ion began to be ser iously a t tacked, usher ing the decline in the s ta tus of academic his tory, so evident in the West during the pas t th i r ty years . Linked to this was the ' pos tmodern i s t ' challenge to the t radi t ional 'modern i s t ' h is tor ical concept . This concept c laimed tha t the pas t could be object ively conceived, leading to a b road consensus of opinion,