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Dead Certainties

Simon Schama’s Dead Certainties is quite a bold work when viewed through the lens of History, as a discipline. Love it or hate it, this book is a thoughtful and intentional statement made in regards to the valuing of narrative in the telling of histories-- and that statement is powerful. I think he makes a good argument and a convincing product. As good and convincing as it may be, it is not without its faults.

The story is actually two separate but tangentially related stories taking place in the northeast part of North America. The first, of General Wolfe in the Battle of Quebec. I’m going to stop right there because, to my knowledge, this book never actually calls the battle by name. Of course, no one at the battle would have known what it was to be called later but this, to me, is one of the flaws of this narrative presentation. So much emphasis is placed on the individual, their direct circumstances and trains-of-thought, that one can get lost in the greater picture. It, at times, makes it difficult to see the forest through the trees-- which is his point, I believe-- but the presentation remains unsatisfying. Regardless, his prose does evoke vivid visualizations that immerse the reader in a time.

“Men returned to camp unmanned, with stories of slivers of wood pushed up the penis and behind the nails and more than ever they came to feel they were being sacrificed to some vanity of the General and his thirst for reputation.” (p. 10)

This is not only graphic but presents the relatable concept of feeling being taken advantage of for another’s means. One doesn’t have to have been enlisted and placed under command of a narcissist to grasp the general concept.

“Painfully aware that he was losing the authority of his command, each day watching his force being eaten up by sickness, boredom, and desertion, Wolfe increasingly kept his own counsel and brooded sourly on the disappointment of his hopes.” (p. 11)

This, too, evokes an image, or archetype, of a person that, presumably, every other human has come into contact with at some point. The dour, worrisome, miserable wretch who lacks self-esteem and willpower-- not the ideal general. This proves Schama’s point. This is not the image of General Wolfe that people remember. (Though to be fair, far fewer people remember him now than shortly after 1771.) They remember the painting The Death of General Wolfe and the narrative that it created and perpetuates.

“What had he done to Wolfe, his memory, his history? The success of the painting, in all its fanciful inventions and excesses of poetic license, had been such that when British children of future generations grew up drilled in the pieties of imperial history, it was West’s scene they imagined rather than any more literal account. Art had entirely blotted out mere recall, let alone evidence.” (p. 37)

Schama then moves onto another story (or stories), one that I found, eventually, far more interesting. The tale of George Parkman, his “pedestrian”-ness, his physique, physiognomy, and his strong will.

“He abstained while others indulged, he walked while others rode, he worked while others slept...His face, with its long nose and pointed chin pulled forward by an underbiting jaw, looked as though it had been sharpened into the shape of the crescent moon...It was the face that spoke of direction and urgency, like the face of a ticking watch.”

And the tale of John Webster, a perhaps more complex character than Parkman. Or perhaps just presented as such, since Parkman’s own voice is much more sparse (if existent at all) in this book than others recollections and representations of him. Webster is portrayed as pitiful, selfish, and contemptible and yet someone that the reader can’t help, at times, feel sympathetic for.

Despite their presentations, the trial of John Webster is used as a metaphor for historical thought and perspectives on the use of narrative and I feel it was the most poignant and powerful device of the story.

“...related in so many ways, in so many narratives whose tracks crossed and recrossed, deviated and turned back on themselves but which, finally, came together in one broad highway, how could an alternative path to the truth be established? Yet, somehow that had to be done. The defence had to produce a version of history that was as compelling, as moving, as vivid and as persuasive as the one the court had heard told and retold...Sohier had to turn storyteller.” (p. 234)

This, to me, essentially describes the approach of many history books whose extensiveness tends to meander until their story has the appearance of totality. Additionally, the defense, the prosecution, the Chief Justice, the jury and the perspectives of various nearby regions are all, I assume, representing different perspectives within the discipline of history as well representing the perspectives of those outside of the discipline in relation to how ours is perceived. This representation is a concise capsule of our historical problem: We are up our own asses about ‘true representations’ of the past when in actuality there is no singular great story, and the public’s understanding and perspective on the production of history is not rooted in erudition but rather simply in stories-period. Additionally, as is often the case with a good trial, people are entertained. There is spectacle. Whether we want to admit it or not, spectacle is part of what makes learning about the past fun and, dare I say it, entertaining. As historians, if we do not entertain but include every possible detail then we risk burying our work where only graduate students can find it. However, in order to entertain (and seek mass appeal, perhaps outside of the discipline) then we risk losing factual accuracy (or academic prestige) but as discussed earlier, according to Berkhofer, there are no true facts to lose accuracy on. There are some things that will never be known. Dead Certainties is a great, and worthy, experiment and demonstrates the complexities inherent in writing any history. However, as a piece of entertaining literature, which is the medium Schama has chosen to tell this story -rather than a historical monograph, I give it a 6 out of 10.

Anthony Sosa

Historical Methods

HIST 5339.001

Dr. Christopher Morris

11-5-18

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