John H. Arnold. History: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

In his little book History: A Very Short Introduction, medievalist John H. Arnold seeks to present the audience with a concise and informative read on what history is, where it came from, and why it is worth studying. Drawing on the great historians and a few inquisitors, this book is written for readers from many disciplines, from ancient to modern, from political to social and economic historians. The whole book is entertaining, written in lively prose that energizes and encourages the reader, but hidden within is a curious cynicism, a contradiction that questions the purpose of history even as a simple love of the profession tumbles forth.

Rightly so, Arnold kicks off his book with the question: what is History? It is a number of things, most importantly a process that carries on, as well as what the past was and what historians write about it. The reader is drawn in with a riveting inquisition story that culminates in the murder of a priest named Dejean. Arnold is perfectly happy to speculate about the murder’s meaning, and even more pleased to use the mystery as a springboard into History. Arnold suggests three reasons for studying history: pure enjoyment, as a thinking tool, and to gain a greater understanding of ourselves – where we came from and how we might behave differently. These drives are explored through an examination of the historians throughout time: the politically minded king, Nabonidus, the Greeks Herodotus and Thucidides, Augustine and his Six Ages of Man, William Malmesbury, and the rise of the Antiquarians. Each player had something to add, be it attempted objectivity (Herodotus and Ranke), bombastic rhetoric and composition (Life of Edward the Confessor), criticism and suspicion (William of Malmesbury), fact-finding (the Antiquarian collectors, notably William Camden), and the desire for relevance (the Enlightenment); all brought together in the monolithic work of Edward Gibbon.

The structure of the book is straightforward and helpful. Moving from the “what” and the “history” of history, Arnold moves into the “how to,” wherein he walks burgeoning historians through the methods used to build simple questions into researchable titans. Although it is an unoriginal approach and will be familiar to the student of history, Chapter 4 does an excellent job of introducing the art of exploring sources to the new historian. Arnold is a skillful writer, building his case with greater complexity, eventually launching into the mentalité school of history, seeking to unravel, through seemingly simple and one-dimensional accounts, the mental state of the historical subjects. Finally, he tackles Truth and its place within the historical profession. The whole journey is made colorful by numerous well-chosen pictures and the occasional definition box that tackles important terms and ideas that, if so directly addressed, would interrupt the flow of the book.

It is in the examination of Truth that Arnold falters. Throughout the book is the optimistic claim that historians “never fabricate ‘the facts’” as opposed to literature. Arnold acknowledges that history will never be perfect, but admonishes the reader to not “discount histories, because they are imperfect, but to engage with them as the true stories they can only be.” One might write this off as simple good cheer, but its frequent appearance is unsettling. “Historians must stick with what the sources make possible, and accept what they do not. They cannot invent new accounts, or suppress evidence that does not fit with their narratives.” That may be true, but historians are people too, with human prejudices and the right to make their own decisions – to omit and invent. Historians have made up a great many accounts, some of them practical forgeries, and many also just fabricated lies. This has been happening ever since the Egyptians scratched out the names of unpopular pharaohs from monoliths. It occurred again in the greatest cover-up in history, when the Roman guards returning to the high priests after Christ’s resurrection were told to say nothing and propaganda was fed to the public at the first opportunity. Historians are fully capable of doing the same thing, in spite of the evidence.

In addition, Arnold finally gives his own opinion about the importance of history in a surprisingly sarcastic statement, that if history “presents us with lessons to be learnt, I have yet to see any example of anyone paying attention in class.” He qualifies this statement by suggesting that if history had a purpose and was composed of discernable patterns, then historians could predict the future. Very trite, this, and very uninformed. One need look no further than America’s Founding Fathers to see a group of men looking back to the best and the brightest of the ancient thinkers to craft the best government available to man. And in light of the present financial crisis, one need only consider America’s Great Depression and Germany’s Weimar Republic to get an idea about where the economy might be headed. Arnold expresses this understanding to a certain degree, but reinforces his own stand with “to imagine that there are concrete patterns to past events, which can provide templates for our lives and decisions, is to project onto history a hope for certainty which it cannot fulfill.” It would seem that Arnold is unfamiliar with Human Nature.

On the whole, Arnold’s History is a serviceable and engaging book. His own biases color the work, it is true, and the young historian must be on the lookout for these disconcerting opinions. But when it comes to educating oneself on the study of history, one could do worse than reading this very short introduction.

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