Postmodern Theory of History: A Critique

Trygve R. Tholfsen
Teachers College, Columbia University

1. Among the more striking spinoffs of postmodernism in the past

fifteen years or so has been an arresting theory of history. On the
assumption that "the historical text is an object in itself, made entirely
from language, and thus subject to the interrogations devised by the
sciences of language use from ancient rhetoric to modern semiotics" , 1

postmodernists have set out to enlighten historians about their

discipline. From that perspective, they have emphasized the intrinsic
fictionality of historical writing, derided the factualist empiricism that
purportedly governs the work of professional historians, dismissed
the ideal of objectivity as a myth, and rejected the truth claims of
traditional historiography. Historians have been invited to accept the
postmodern approach as a means to critical self reflection and to the
improvement of practice.

Some postmodern theorists have taken a more overtly anti-histori-

cal line that bears directly on important questions of theory and prac-
tice. Rejecting the putative "autonomy" claims of professional histo-
riography, they dismiss the notion of a distinctively "historical" mode
of understanding the past. On this view, the study of origins and de-
velopment is of limited analytical value; and the historicist principle
of historical specificity or individuality is the remnant of a venerable
tradition that has been displaced. It follows that historians ought to
give up their claim to special authority in the study of the past. This
article will concentrate on the postmodern rejection of the notion that
the past has to be understood "historically."

1
Hans KELLNER, "Introduction: Describing Re-Descriptions" in Frank
ANKERSMIT and Hans KELLNER (eds.), A New Philosophy of History,
Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1995, p. 9.
[Memoria y Civilización 2, 1999, 203-222]
204 Trygve R. Tholfsen

On the whole, historians have been cool to the postmodern project,

albeit without adopting the narrowly polemical posture assumed by
Geoffrey Elton and Gertrude Himmelfarb . More recently, Richard
2

Evans has written the sort of even-handed but critical survey of the
voluminous literature that probably represents the views of most
historians . At this juncture then, as Dominick LaCapra has
3

suggested, we may be in a position "where a more informed dialogue

or debate between approaches... to history is possible," avoiding
"either automatic defenses or dismissals of recent theoretical
tendencies" . This article is intended to contribute to that sort of
4

dialogue by setting forth as precisely as possible what appear to be

the flaws in the postmodern dicta that historians have been asked to
accept as accurate descriptions of their discipline. It deals with
particular judgments advanced by postmodernists and touches only
marginally on the elaborate theoretical structures that are said to
sustain their conclusions.

We can take as a point of departure LaCapra's apt comment that

"history requires both as solid an empirical basis as the evidence
allows and theoretically informed conceptualization that provides
interpretive insight into facts and deepens the questions the historian
poses to the past" . This is especially true at the moment, after
5

decades of historiographical and methodological proliferation. The

question at issue, however, is the value of postmodern theory for his-
torians.

In considering that question we run into a practical problem that

should be noted at the outset. There is no single, authoritative version
of the theory. Rather, we find recurring themes, assumptions,

2
See, for example, G. R. ELTON, Return to Essentials: Some Reflections
on the Present State of Historical Study, Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press, 1991; Gertrude HIMMELFARB, On Looking into the Abyss, New
York, Knopf, 1994.
Richard J. EVANS, In Defence of History, London, Granta Books,
3

1997. See also Joyce APPLEBY, Lynn HUNT, and Margaret JACOB (eds.),
Telling the Truth About History, New York, Norton, 1994.
Dominick LACAPRA, review of Keith WINDSCHUTTLE, The Killing
4

of History, American Historical Review, 103, 1998, p. 149.

Ibidem.
5
Postmodern Theory of History: A Critique 205

attitudes and dicta, expressed in multiple variants. Hence

"postmodern theory of history" is an ideal type construct that
embraces even more variation than usual. In this article I draw most
of the illustrative material from the work of three disparate historians
who have expounded postmodern themes with notable rhetorical and
intellectual force: Dominick LaCapra, Robert Berkhofer and Allan
Megill . Other recent formulations, some of them intended for
6

undergraduates, are less nuanced . The fullest exposition of the

7

conceptual foundations of postmodern theorizing about history is to

be found in the writings of Hayden White and Frank Ankersmit , 8

6
Dominick LACAPRA, "Rethinking Intellectual History and Reading
Text" in D. LACAPRA and Steven L. KAPLAN, (eds.), Modern European
Intellectual History: Reappraisals and New Perspectives, Ithaca, Cornell
University Press, 1982; Idem, History and Criticism, Ithaca, Cornell Univer-
sity Press, 1987; Idem, "History, Language and Reading: Waiting for
Crillon" in American Historical Review, 100, 1995, pp. 799-828. Robert
BERKHOFER, Beyond the Great Story: History as Text and Discourse,
Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1995. Allan MEGILL, '"Grand Narra-
tive' and the Discipline of History" in F. ANKERSMIT and H. KELLNER
(eds.), op. cit., pp. 151-73.
7
See, for example, Alun MUNSLOW, Deconstructing History, London,
Routledge, 1997; Keith JENKINS, Re-Thinking History, London, Routledge,
1991; On 'What Is History?': From Carr and Elton to Rorty and White,
London, Routledge, 1995; Idem (ed.), The Postmodern History Reader, Lon-
don, Routledge, 1997. These works draw extensively on Hayden White. See
also Patrick JOYCE, "The Return of History: Postmodernism and the Politics
of Academic History in Britain" in Past and Present, 158, 1998, pp. 207-
235. Joyce emphasizes the value of the application of postmodern theory to
historical practice.
8
Although questions have been raised about whether White should be
characterized as a postmodernist (notably by Wulf KANSTEINER, "Hayden
White's Critique of the Writing of History" in History and Theory, 32, 1993,
p. 274), it is clear that he has exercised an enormous influence on the move-
ment. He has been aptly described as "the progenitor of 'the new philosophy
of history'" by Frank ANKERSMIT, "Bibliographical Essay" in F.
ANKERSMIT and H. KELLNER (eds.), op. cit., p. 280. The books that have
earned White that title are familiar: Metahistory: The Historical Imagination
in Nineteenth-Century Europe, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press,
1973; Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism, Baltimore, Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1978; The Content of the Form: Narrative Dis-
course and Historical Representation, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University
206 Trygve R. Tholfsen

whose work has recently been subjected to a rigorous philosophical

critique .
9

If we take a bird's-eye view of postmodern theorizing about his-

tory, we find a number of interconnected flaws that severely limit its
analytic value. First and foremost, its negative orientation —the
preoccupation with exposing the "mythology of the discipline,"
defined in terms of an archaic scientistic empiricism— narrows the
scope of the analysis. Having demolished the truth claims of history
to their satisfaction, postmodern theorists stop right there, leaving a
host of critical questions untouched. Thus, the rich resources of the
"linguistic turn" have been brought to bear only within narrow limits
imposed by extraneous assumptions. Second, the demythologizing
impulse also contributes to the casual dismissal of the problem of
understanding the past "historically" and obviates the need for argu-
ment in support of the anti-autonomy thesis. That is, attempts to
describe a distinctive historical mode of understanding can be dis-
posed of as self-serving disciplinary ideology. Third, although there is
no logical connection between the fictionality thesis and the anti-
autonomy thesis, the former performs a significant rhetorical
function. Having constructed a "research paradigm" that caricatures
the theory and practice of professional historiography, postmodern
theorists can plausibly suggest that such a methodology is of no
special value in the study of the past. Thus, postmodernism provides a
redescription of history that not only removes its cognitive character

Press, 1987. For Ankersmit's contribution to postmodern theory of history,

see his History and Tropology: The Rise and Fall of Metaphor, Berkeley,
University of California Press, 1994; Idem, "Statements, Texts and Pictures"
in F. ANKERSMIT and H. KELLNER, op. cit., pp. 212-40.
9
Chris LORENZ, "Can Histories Be True? Narrativism, Positivism, and
the 'Metaphorical Turn,'" in History and Theory, 37, 1998, pp. 309-329, is a
brilliant analysis of the "deep presuppositions" underlying the theories of
Hayden White and Frank Ankersmit. John H. ZAMMITO, "Ankersmit's Post-
modernist Historiography: The Hyperbole of 'Opacity'" Ibidem, pp. 330-46
carefully develops the theme stated in the subtitle; Perez ZAGORIN,
"History, the Referent, and Narrative: Reflections on Postmodernism Now",
in Ibidem., 38, 1999, pp. 1-24, is a critical discussion of a wide range of
postmodern theorizing about history, with particular reference to its anti-
realism and narrativism.
Postmodern Theory of History: A Critique 207

but also its specifically historical traits. Finally, the narrow focus of
postmodern theorizing means that it falls far short of what we have
come to expect of theory and philosophy of history. As Chris Lorenz
has said, "historical narratives constitute truth-claims that must be
elucidated and not annihilated by philosophy of history . 10

Postmodernism has swept the critical questions off the table.

Postmodern theory is unable to deal adequately with questions

concerning the methodological implications of the historicity of hu-
man life, because it embodies a constricting formalism. The assump-
tion that the fundamental characteristics of historical writing are de-
termined by the literary forms intrinsic to it blocks out empirical
examination of historiographical practice and the paradigms that
actually guide it. In particular, postmodernists assume that since his-
torians make extensive use of narrative, their work is governed by
imperatives inherent in that genre. Hence history may be redescribed
by showing the presence of characteristics dictated by the narrative
form. When narrative is identified with fiction, this sort of formalist
redescription supports the familiar postmodern emphasis on the fic-
tionality of history. Lorenz has noted the claim, made by Hayden
White and Frank Ankersmit, among others, that "historical narratives
have a metaphorical structure and therefore no truth-value" . In addi-
11

tion, the description of historical writing primarily in terms of such

generic literary forms necessarily excludes the distinctively
"historical" element in historians' approach to the past. That is, narra-
tive as such is not specifically adapted to the study of the past. What
matters is the use to which historians put narrative, within complex
paradigms whose development began with the Enlightenment, as his-
torians devised ways of dealing with phenomena of the historical
world. But the conceptual structure of postmodern theory of history
inhibits a recognition of these historiographical characteristics. There
is point to Peter Ghosh's vehement rejection of the notion that "the
kernel of historical writing must be found in its exemplification of

10
Chris LORENZ, op. cit., p. 326.
" Ibidem, p. 309.
208 Trygve R. Tholfsen

deep, ahistorical literary forms —which is a kind of annihilation for

the historian" .
12

Postmodernists suggest that their view of history flows directly

and necessarily from the "linguistic turn" in the human studies. They
chide historians for their anti-theoretical stance in refusing to recog-
nize that literary theory has "impugned the very basis of traditional
historical practice" . In actuality, however, postmodern theory repre-
13

sents only one version —nihilistic, anti-historical, and neo-

Nietzchean— of the linguistic turn. In work done in traditional phi-
losophy of history —by Paul Ricoeur, Louis Mink, and Jörn Rüsen,
for example— the new linguistic-rhetorical theory has been applied
more constructively to elucidate problems in the field .14

In what follows I turn first (section 2) to the fictionality theme and

the attack on the truth claims of professional historiography, which
are said to rest on the sort of factualist empiricism that flourished
early in this century. That theme is linked rhetorically to the rejection
of the supposed "autonomy" claims made by professional historians
(discussed in section 3), in the sense that the "research paradigm"
attributed to them cannot sustain a claim to special authority in the
study of the past.

2. Historians of a postmodern persuasion assume that their conclu-

sions rest on the solid foundation of an omnicompetent literary-lin-
guistic-rhetorical theory. From that vantage point they confidently
expose the "mythology" of professional historiography, impugn the
"research paradigm" that supposedly governs its work, and
demonstrate the intrinsic fictionality of historical writing. Hans Kell-
ner, a literary theorist, illustrates how postmodernism disposes of the
truth claims of history. In his introduction to A New Philosophy of
History, he "redescribes" history in such a way as to empty it of any

Peter GHOSH, "Laid Down by Ranke" in London Review of Books, 20,

12

October 15, 1998.

Robert BERKHOFER, op. cit., p. 2.
13

Louis MINK, Historical Understanding, Ithaca, Cornell University

14

Press, 1987; Paul RICOEUR, Time and Narrative, I, Chicago, University of

Chicago Press, 1984; Jörn RÜSEN, Rekonstruktion der Vergangenheit,
Gottingen, Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1986.
Postmodern Theory of History: A Critique 209

cognitive content. Kellner contends "that history can be redescribed

as a discourse that is fundamentally rhetorical and that representing
the past takes place through the creation of powerful, persuasive
images which can be best understood as created objects, models,
metaphors or proposals about reality." In this vein, he reminds his
readers that "philosophers have shown less interest in the truth-value
of the historical statement and have turned to the narrative as a whole,
which will have a truth more akin to the truth of a novel or a painting
than to that of a syllogism" . While postmodern historians may not
15

subscribe to every detail of Kellner's theory of representation, they

accept the formalist assumption that since history takes the form of
narrative, its output must be characterized as fictional or
metaphorical. Within that theoretical framework, these historians
have set out to demonstrate the inadequacy of the positivist empiri-
cism and the "research paradigm" that they ascribe to professional
historiography.

Robert Berkhofer's full scale exposition of "history as text and

discourse" is especially valuable because it is so explicit and detailed.
His book develops a major postmodern theme that he had stated
unequivocally some years before: "Contemporary literary theory
defies the very intellectual foundations of current professional
historical practice by denying the factuality that grounds the authority
of history itself' . In his book Berkhofer elaborates on this thesis,
16

contrasting the views of "literary and rhetorical theorists" with the

naive conception of truth espoused by historians who believe that
"the bare facts... constitute the truth of a history..." He derides what
he characterizes as "the explicit factual message historians claim as
the core of historical understanding." Over against this caricature of
current historiographical theory and practice, Berkhofer suggests that
in some instances "aesthetic, stylistic, or other criteria might consti-
tute the proper bases for determining the truthfulness of a history."
Thus, allegorical and analogical truths, for example, "must be judged
by the moral, political or other criteria appropriate to the higher her-

15
Hans KELLNER, op. cit., pp. 1-2.
16
Robert BERKHOFER, "The Challenge of Poetics to (Normal) Histori-
cal Practice" in Poetics Today, 9, 1988, reprinted in Keith JENKINS (ed.),
The Postmodern History Reader, p. 139.
210 Trygve R. Tholfsen

meneutics that establish the greater or ultimate meanings of histories

and history for readers" . On this view, professional historians, resis-
17

tant to the "higher hermeneutics," are bogged down in a fruitless

examination of the documents.

Like other historians of a postmodern persuasion, Berkhofer con-

tends that the factualist empiricism which he deplores constitutes the
foundation of the research paradigm that dominates professional his-
toriography. At its core is "professionally accepted methods for ob-
taining facts about the past from surviving evidence or sources." It
rests on the postulate of transparency, which holds that the documents
provide the historian with a direct view of past reality. Historians are
constrained by the simplistic epistemology that underlies their
methodology: "The presupposition grounding normal historical prac-
tice is, therefore, that historians' works are accurate representations
of an actual past, ideally as photographs are popularly thought to be
of their subjects or at least as maps are of their terrain, in a more fre-
quently use analogy." In order to drive home his point that the es-
tablished historiographical paradigm has outlived its usefulness and is
in the process of being superseded, presumably with the help of post-
modern theory, Berkhofer refers to "the paradigm of normal history."
The analogy to Thomas Kuhn's concept of "normal science" suggests
that professional historians are wedded to the sort of routinized
methodology that invites a paradigm shift. On this view, the paradigm
of "normal history," concerned primarily with extracting facts from
sources, does not deal with "how those facts are combined into a
larger expository synthesis" . So described, professional historiogra-
18

phy cannot claim special authority in the study of the past.

Writing from a deconstructionist perspective, Dominick LaCapra

has developed a number of postmodern themes in a series of essays
dating from as early as 1982. At the very outset he mounted a critique
of "documentary history," based on a simplistic factualist empiricism.
He did not mince words: "Indeed a belief that historiography is a
purely documentary or descriptive reconstitution of the past may be
prone to blind fictionalizing because it does not explicitly and

17
Robert BERKHOFER, op. cit. pp. 71-73.
18
Ibidem, pp. 28-29, 34-38, 64.
Postmodern Theory of History: A Critique 211

critically raise the problem of the role of fictions (for example, in the
form of models, analytic types, and heuristic fictions) in the attempt
to represent reality." Such "documentary historiography... tries to
exclude interpretation or to see it only in the guise of bias or
subjectivity." Just which historians subscribe to this odd view of
"interpretation" we are not told.

A few years ago LaCapra again deplored the defects of

"documentary history" and reminded historians that language is not
"a purely transparent medium that may simply be looked through (or
bracketed) in the interest of (re)presenting the object or findings of
research." Language so described "poses problems for the historian
(or other analyst) and signals the manner in which the observer is
constitutively implicated in the object of research." At this point La-
Capra adds a Freudian twist to the postmodern line: "Freud framed
this problem in terms of transference, and transference involves... the
tendency of the analyst-analysand relation to repeat typically inappro-
priate parent-child relations..." LaCapra commends to the historian
Freud's mode of handling these problems by attempting "to recall
them in memory and critically work through them." Toward the end
of his essay, he characterizes such working-through as "the goal of a
controlled dialogic exchange with the past" . Whatever the utility of
19

such a Freudian approach, it reinforces the postmodern tendency to

concentrate on matters of fictionality and subjectivity to the neglect
of concrete problems of historical conceptualization.

In an elegant essay Allan Megill presents a number of postmodern

themes without an elaborate theoretical apparatus, which is simply
presupposed. Since the contours of "a new philosophy of history"
have been well established, he sets forth a few salient principles in an
ingenious framework and asks historians to recognize their validity.
In the postmodern mode, Megill urges historians to "confront, in an
explicit way, the fictionality implicit in all works of history." But he
seeks a more subtle and flexible treatment of the "history/fiction
dualism." That dualism has been of limited analytical value —subject

Dominick LACAPRA, "Rethinking Intellectual History and Reading

Texts" in D. LACAPRA and S. L. KAPLAN (eds.), op. cit., p. 79; "History,
Language and Reading...", pp. 803-804, 828.
212 Trygve R. Tholfsen

to polemical misuse by contending forces— and needs to be

"complexified." To that end, he distinguishes between two kinds of
fictionality: the "literary" and the "fictive." The former denotes works
of fiction. The latter is intended as a softer and presumably more
acceptable notion: "By the 'fictive' I mean all those dimensions
wherein works of history diverge from truth in its sense as correspon-
dence to empirical reality." This formulation locates Megill firmly in
the postmodern camp, despite his disclaimer that he is simply dis-
cussing an issue that cannot be resolved. In this sentence, for exam-
ple, he in effect dismisses Max Weber's handling of the difficult
problem of constructing concepts capable of yielding a good descrip-
tion of historical phenomena . Since history cannot escape such
20

"fictive fictionality," its truth claims are necessarily rather limited.

The primary component of postmodern theory of history, then, is a

misdescription of professional historiography, which is characterized
as committed to a crude factualist empiricism that is embodied in a
research paradigm whose scope is limited to extracting "facts" from
documents. That direct assault on the truth claims of history, in turn,
is reinforced by a formalist approach that assumes that historical
writing is governed by the literary forms, notably narrative, that it
necessarily employs. That assumption, central to the assertion of the
intrinsic fictionality of history, requires the imposition of generic,
trans-historical concepts in the description of historiographical theory
and practice. Such concepts, however, have no place for the specifi-
cally "historical" aspects of historiographical paradigms.

Such ahistorical formalism is spelled out at some length by Berk-

hofer. On this view, historians construct the real world "through the
forms they use to give their texts the appearance of history." It
follows that "to the extent that history is a story, ultimately it obeys
the conventions of story-telling." Historians' understanding of inter-
pretation is inadequate because it "neglects the conventions
governing its own construction." From this perspective, the task of
the theorist is not to inquire into historical practice and its operative
assumptions, but rather to uncover the dominant literary forms and

Allan MEGILL, '"Grand Narrative'..." pp. 171-72. Emphasis in the

20

original.
Postmodern Theory of History: A Critique 213

the "representations" that they require. Hence Berkhofer aims to

describe "what historians must presuppose about the past in order to
conceive it as history." Narrativization is the primary instrument of
history so conceived: "normal historical practice uses narrative
structuring... to transform the past into history." It follows that the
salient features of historical practice are dictated by "narrative logic
in some form" . 21

As re-described by postmodernism, the "research paradigm" of

professional historiography is a very crude instrument indeed. It
clearly is of no special value for the study of the past.

3. Along with the denial of the truth claims of professional histo-

riography, postmodernism also rejects the notion that there is a dis-
tinctively historical mode of understanding or that the past needs to
be understood "historically." Whereas the fictionality thesis has been
asserted with considerable theoretical elaboration, however, the anti-
autonomy dictum has been issued more casually, as if its validity had
long been self evident. Some such assumption has been present in the
postmodern canon from the beginning. On the first page of Meta-
history Hayden White anticipated, in manner and in substance, what
was soon to become orthodox doctrine: "Continental European
thinkers have cast doubt on the value of specifically historical
'consciousness'" . More recently, Allan Megill has launched an
22

aggressive attack on the belief in an "autonomously historical" mode

of understanding. He expressed his doubts about the claim made by
"'professional' or 'disciplinary' historiography... to a peculiarly
authoritative role in the understanding of the past.. ."25

Defining the problem in terms of "autonomy," however, skews the

debate at the very outset. In brief, since history is intrinsically inter-
disciplinary, it cannot be "autonomous" in any strict sense of the term
and professional historians do not make such an extreme claim.
Historiography as such does not possess self-sufficient analytical
instruments of its own. From Thucydides to Ranke and beyond

21
Robert BERKHOFER, op. cit., pp. 71-73, 36-38.
22
Hayden WHITE, Metahistory, p. 1.
23
Allan MEGILL, op. cit., pp. 151-53, 165.
214 Trygve R. Tholfsen

historians have drawn on the intellectual resources available in their

culture. What has been argued, however, especially in the historicist
tradition, is that the historicity of the human world requires that the
past be approached with methodological concepts and principles that
are adapted to "historical" phenomena. Moreover, it has also been ar-
gued, notably by Wilhelm Dilthey and Max Weber, among others,
that historians necessarily draw on the social sciences in their study
of the past. Central to any "critique of historical reason" is a full
description of the relationship between history and the social
sciences.

Megill, however, takes a hard line that yields a crude picture of

professional historiography. On the assumption that historians are
making a transparently false claim to "autonomy," he urges the
"partial dedisciplinization" of history and "multidisciplinary inter-
action of a transformative sort." The second of the "prescriptive
postulates" that he commends to historians reads: "The Hybri-
dization Postulate: Always establish residences outside the
discipline"™. Thus, Megill advocates a totalizing interdisciplinarity
that eliminates the specifically "historical" aspect of the paradigms of
professional historiography. By a somewhat convoluted route, Berk-
hofer arrives at a similarly anti-historical position. On the
(questionable) assumption that contextualism is "the primary mode of
historical understanding," he points out (correctly) that historians
share this notion with other disciplines. From these premises, he
draws the odd conclusion that historians "cannot even claim that they
alone seek to place things in the context of their times, although this
claim is the supposed differentia of the discipline" . While historians
25

make no such a monopolistic claim, they will argue that the relation
between time and historical inquiry is a problem that needs to be
explored.

While recognizing considerable variation in formulation, it can

fairly be said that there is general agreement on two distinctive as-
pects of the "historical" approach to the study of the past, both of
them connected with the dimension of time in the human world: a

24
Ibidem, p. 169. Emphasis in the original.
25
Robert BERKHOFER, op. cit., pp. 31-34.
Postmodern Theory of History: A Critique 215

sensitivity to time-bound, zeitspezifisch phenomena and an interest in

processes of continuity and change over time. The historicist tradition
refers to the interconnected principles of individuality and develop-
ment. So defined, history stands in a relationship of tension and com-
plementarity with the generic and synchronic orientation of the social
sciences.

In various ways, postmodernism dismisses the distinctively

historical concern with particularities of time and place. Megill does
so by assigning a primary role to the generalizing disciplines in the
study of the past. That is, his proposal for the "partial
dedisciplinization" of history presumes the lack of any special
competence in the analysis of the time-bound specificity created by
processes of continuity and change over time. Dominick LaCapra also
makes short shrift of the claim that historians have a special interest
in this area: "The purely documentary view of history often coincides
with a historicist definition of the historical that identifies the object
of study as changing 'particulars' in contrast with extratemporal or
synchronic types or universals." LaCapra disposes of this "venerable
view" simply by remarking that it "ignores the historical process of
repetition with variation or change," and then moves on to different
topics in the rest of the paragraph . In the postmodern mode, a
26

sweeping judgment is presented as an aside, whose validity is self-

evident. Berkhofer takes a formalist approach, treating "uniqueness"
as the "wishful postulation" of a flawed methodology:
"Contextualism presumes and therefore produces uniqueness as its
chief explanatory or interpretive mode.. ." 27

The postmodern dismissal of the developmental dimension of his-

torical thought is expressed succinctly in Frank Ankersmit's comment
that phenomena of the past ought to be studied "independently of
their origins" . On this theme a line from Jean-Francois Lyotard has
28

become a mantra for a good deal of postmodern discourse about his-

* Dominick LACAPRA, "Rethinking...", p. 79.

27
Robert BERKHOFER, op. cit, p. 35.
28
Frank ANKERSMIT, "Historiography and Postmodernism" in History
and Tropology, p. 177.
216 Trygve R. Tholfsen

tory: "I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives" . It

is reflected in the titles of Megill's essay and Berkhofer's book. Such
grand narratives or great stories, the foundation of professional histo-
riography, we are told, have been discredited. With varying degrees
of explicitness, it is suggested that developmental analysis of any sort
is tainted by its association with metanarratives now seen to be
flawed.

Megill makes extensive use of the concept of "grand narrative," a

term that he has borrowed from Lyotard "with reservations and modi-
fications." He takes a dim view of "the grand narratives that have
prevailed in Western historiography" and which claim to offer "the
authoritative account of history generally." In elaborating on this
interpretation, Megill attributes to historians the "ontological assump-
tion... of ultimate world unity." Professional historians, he suggests,
"have generally held that every particular work of history ought to
orient itself to history generally —that is, to a single history, which I
shall here designate as History." He maintains that a belief in a single
History remains fundamental to professional historiography. Megill
also argues that the widespread belief in a "single History," embodies
some of the characteristics of Rankean "universal history," whose
limitations he explores. Megill concludes, in one of four "prescriptive
postulates," that historians should renounce the "aspiration towards
'total history'" .
30

The first thing to be said about the "universal history" thesis is that
contemporary historians do not in fact subscribe to the assumption of
"ultimate world unity" in any of its variations. Historians have drifted
away from that position during the last half of this century. In that
connection it should be noted that in illustration of a secular version
of Ranke's universal history Megill quotes J. B. Bury's splendid 1902
lecture, "The Science of History." Like other postmodernists, Megill
tends to cite historians remote from the present. He also makes the
postmodernist point that the current belief in universal history "has an
important epistemological consequence," in that it "allows historians

Jean-Francois LYOTARD, The Postmodern Condition, Minneapolis,

29

University of Minnesota Press, 1989, p. xxiv.

Allan MEGILL, op. cit., pp. 151-153, 157-60, 168, 264 n.3.
30
Postmodern Theory of History: A Critique 217

to maintain that the historical account is an objective representation,

connected to the standpoint of History itself' . As every31

undergraduate student of history knows, Bury's lecture is an eloquent

statement of the late Victorian faith in the objectivity of scientific
history. The contention that historians today continue to subscribe to
Bury's views on universal history and objectivity is part of the
mythology of postmodernism. Finally, it can be said that the
Lyotardian line functions to discredit the commonsensical develop-
mental views embodied in historical practice. That is, anyone who
wants to understand the French Revolution or the Holocaust or the
Victorian family has to examine the historical process that produced
the phenomenon and the context in which it occurred. That
proposition does not rest on metaphysical assumptions about the
totality of History.

Berkhofer also puts a Lyotardian spin on his account of the defi-

ciencies of professional historiography. In normal history, he writes,
"the Great Past is the Great Story and nothing but the Great Story."
His main point is the element of "wishful postulation" that underlies
the Great Story. Thus, "the paradigm of normal history presumes that
there existed a 'whole' or 'total' past that can be understood and
constituted as history, even if only in the mind of a God or his secu-
larized successor, an Omniscient Historian, according to narrative
logic in some form." In addition, "the Great Story is no less a predi-
cation or presupposition of the normal history paradigm than the
Great Past" . Here the anti-developmental thesis is expressed in
32

rigidly formalist terms. The historian is obliged to follow a "narrative

logic" that dictates certain postulations about the past and manner in
which it must be approached.

LaCapra's comments on Ernst Cassirer's study of the Enlighten-

ment illustrate the postmodern impatience with even the most basic
forms of specifically historical conceptualization. Thus, he notes
traits that have rightly been considered Cassirer's strengths, "his em-
phasis on structure and his ability to find order in seeming chaos," but

31
Ibidem, p. 159.
32
Robert BERKHOFER, op. cit., pp. 38, 64. For a discussion of the Great
Story theme see the critical review by Thomas L. HASKELL, in History and
Theory, 37, 1998, pp. 347-369.
218 Trygve R. Tholfsen

questions "the extent to which the order thus found is limited or even
specious." In the next sentence LaCapra makes it clear that he is not
merely noting flaws in an interpretation of the Enlightenment, but is
dismissing a central component of historical analysis: "The point of
this remark is to suggest that the imposition of 'order and perspicuity'
—in one of Gibbon's favorite phrases— upon the historical record is
misleading and that the objective of the historian should rather be to
explore critically the ways in which the interaction between order and
its contestatory 'others' takes place"". If LaCapra's remarks are taken
at face value, they deny the historian a whole battery of concepts,
such as the Enlightenment, that are essential to handling the
dimension of time in the human world. The historian simply cannot
do without the sort of ideal-type construct used by Cassirer. LaCapra
has put the historian in a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose situation. On the
one hand, the historian is chided for writing a narrowly factualist
"documentary history." On the other hand, he is directed not to im-
pose an illusory "order and perspicuity" on the past.

Allan Megill has provided a glimpse of his own "theory of

historiography," appended as a concluding afterthought to a useful
bibliographical article on the work of Jörn Rüsen . He takes as "the
34

point of entry to the revision of Rüsen's disciplinary matrix" the no-

tion of "topic," as expounded in classical rhetoric. While Megill's
rather dense exposition —in contrast to his usual prose style— does
not lend itself to brief summary, it illustrates the direction in which
postmodern attitudes can carry an able historian. In contrast to
Rüsen's concrete engagement with historical practice and theory,
Megill's reliance on a single concept drawn from rhetoric leads to an
extremely abstract treatment, remote from the world of history and
historiography. Even the familiar topics of fictionality and objectivity

Dominick LACAPRA, "Rethinking Intellectual History...", p. 56. Ernst

CASSIRER, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment, Princeton, Princeton
University Press, 1951. For a perceptive commentary on LaCapra's views,
see John H. ZAMMITO, "Are We Being Theoretical Yet? The New
Historicism, the New Philosophy of History and Practicing Historians" in
Journal of Modern History, 65,1993, 783-814.
Allan MEGILL, "Jörn Rüsen 's Theory of Historiography between
34

Modernism and Rhetoric of Inquiry" in History and Theory, 33, 1998, pp.
39-60.
Postmodern Theory of History: A Critique 219

are untouched. Megill has sketched a theory of historiography in

which concrete historical practice has disappeared in a rhetorical
morass. In this instance, as in others, postmodernism fosters a dis-
course that obscures the questions that need to be explored.

4. In sum, there is good reason for historians to have been wary of

the historical theorizing of postmodernism. They have been asked to
accept a pervasively anti-historical theory on the grounds that it will
not only dispel disciplinary myths and misconceptions but also im-
prove their practice. Unlike traditional theory and philosophy of his-
tory, however, it does not attempt to clarify methodological and con-
ceptual problems, but rather seeks to expose self-serving myths that
supposedly mask the inherent fictionality of historical writing. Post-
modern theorizing proceeds on the tenuous formalist assumption that
the application of linguistic-rhetorical theory to the literary forms that
historians necessarily employ will automatically produce an illumi-
nating re-description of historical writing. In actuality, however, the
end product of postmodern discourse has been a tendentious
misdescription of professional historiography.

Because postmodern theory has been applied primarily to his-

torians of the nineteenth century, it has remained curiously out of
touch with contemporary historiography. Thus, its conception of the
belief in "objectivity" and factuality imputed to "professional
historiography" is a construct extrapolated from the ideal of scientific
history that took shape in the second half of the nineteenth century,
when the "great narratives" of which we hear so much also
flourished. In fact, one might easily get the impression that the ideas
of J. B. Bury —stripped of their eloquence— represent the methodo-
logical and epistemological principles of professional historians
today.

Some years ago Jörn Rüsen urged historians to engage in reflec-

tion on "the basic principles of their branch of science" and to for-
mulate for themselves a conception of "the nature and task of histori-
cal studies... by means of which they can venture into dialogue with
the human sciences on their relationship to one another." The aim of
such reflection is a statement of "the principles of historical
knowledge which are normative for history as an academic disci-
220 Trygve R. Tholfsen

pline" . No one has done more to explore these perennial questions

than Rusen himself, drawing on the "linguistic turn" as well as Ger-
man historicism and analytical philosophy. As suggested above,
however, historians who wish to reflect on these matters will not get
much help from postmodernism, because its anti-historical posture
entails the dismissal of the very questions that Rusen has posed about
the distinctive characteristics of the discipline.

But postmodern theorists have difficulty even acknowledging such

questions, since substantive issues fall outside the boundaries set by
formalist presuppositions. Thus, the historicist thesis that the his-
toricityI'GeschichtlichkeitlZeitlichkeit of the human world requires the
construction of specifically historical concepts lies beyond the reach
of postmodern theory. The old saw that epistemology presupposes
ontology cuts no ice with postmodernists. Yet it is precisely in the
course of their inquiry into concrete phenomena of the past that
historians have developed analytical concepts and principles adapted
to their subject matter. Without much theorizing about the dimension
of time in human life, historians have developed and refined tech-
niques for handling specifically historical aspects of the past. Hence
critics of postmodernism have remarked that it would have benefited
from closer contact with historiographical practice and with the theo-
retical discourse based on it.

Another presupposition that limits the effectiveness of postmodern

theorizing about history is a simplistic conception of the relation
between theory and practice. Postmodernists envisage their task as
the application of an all-powerful theory to historiography while
preaching the gospel to benighted historians. With his usual conci-
sion, Allan Megill expresses this view of theory in one of the
prescriptive postulates that he commends to his fellow historians:
"The Theory Postulate: Always theorize." In the postmodern mode,
theory is assigned total hegemony. Historians are told that they "can
awaken universal interest only insofar as their work addresses theo-
retical issues." Thus, an account of the Gunpowder Plot "can have
interest only insofar as it raises issues of a theoretical sort, detached

Jörn RÜSEN, Studies in Metahistory, Pretoria, Human Sciences Re-

35

search Council, 1993, pp. 161-162.

Postmodern Theory of History: A Critique 221

from the specific events of 1605" . Megill does not fudge his argu-
36

ment. In a few sentences, he annuls the practice and theory of pro-

fessional historiography.

Postmodernism obscures the intricate and symbiotic relationship

that has prevailed between history and theory. On the one hand,
theory has been enriched by a close examination of historical practice
and its presuppositions. On the other hand, historiography has bene-
fited from the conceptual and analytical refinement provided by
theory. Henk de Jong has expressed the hope that "historical theory...
will turn out to be a valuable help and guide to the practical histo-
rian" . We might even hope for a synergistic relationship, as in the
37

case of Max Weber. The immediate danger, however, as de Jong puts

it, is that the theory propounded by "postmodern relativists" may be
"obstructive" to historical practice.

Postmodernism is obstructive to theory as well as practice, not

only because of its anti-historical orientation, but also because of its
neo-Nietzschean view of reason and rationality. In his superb essay
review, de Jong examines Riisen's critique of "the Nietzschean,
postmodern view of historical writing." While noting that Rüsen is
well aware of the merits of postmodernist and aestheticist
narrativism, he welcomes Riisen's defense of historical rationality
against the Vernunftfeindschaft of postmodernism. Rüsen takes his
stand on methodological rationality, that is, on the rules, methods,
and procedures established by the discipline of history . Since this
38

36
Allan MEGILL, "'Grand Narrative'...", p. 172.
37
Henk DE JONG, "Historical Orientation: Jörn Riisen's Answer to
Nietzsche and his Followers" review of Jörn RÜSEN, Historische Orien-
tierung, Cologne, Bohlau, 1994, in History and Theory, 36, 1997, pp. 270-
288.
38
Ibidem, pp. 276-285. See "Die Rationalität der Geschichtswissenschaft"
in Jörn RÜSEN, Historische Orientierung, pp. 69-203. Writing in 1990,
Rüsen was dismayed by the "post-modernen Irrationalisierung" of the his-
torical consciousness. While noting that theorizing is an essential component
of historical studies, he suggested that when it is misused -for example to
determine the particular historical character of facts before they are fully re-
searched- then theorizing becomes a Hure des Verstandes. Ibidem, p. 100;
idem, Studies, p.43.
222 Trygve R. Tholfsen

article has emphasized the postmodern hostility to "historical

thinking," Riisen's defense of a sophisticated version of what used to
be called "the historical method" is very much to the point, with the
obvious proviso that his work provides the best available account of
the "historical consciousness" in all its complexity .39

One of the controlling myths of postmodernism is the notion that

historians are philosophically and theoretically innocent, wedded to a
primitive empiricist epistemology. Yet if we examine the comments
of historians in the 1980's and 1990's —chiefly in articles and re-
views— we find a much higher level of theoretical sophistication
than in any previous generation. Once the distraction of post-
modernism has dissipated, historians will achieve further advances in
practice and theory.

See, for example, Rekonstruktion der Vergangenheit.