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Review of
Historiography of 19th century whites
C K Adams: Manual of Historical Literature (1st edn was 1882)
One-volume survey of White History as seen from the 19th century 10 Nov 2012Astonishing guide to the white view of history as revealed by printed material: 'Brief descriptions of the most important histories in English, French and German.' 'White' is my word, not his, but it's justified as Adams has nothing whatever on China and Japan; almost nothing on Africa - not even Mungo Park; mostly just Mill (and an opponent, Malcolm) on India. Adams' source was partly the Astor Library in New York. Possibly as a result there is nothing on Jews, except treated as a religion in the exchangeable belief-system sense. And there's almost nothing on Islam - a bit on the Crusades - and nothing on either's sacred texts. The idea that Islam was the destroyer of the Roman Empire, as opposed to 'barbarians' such as the Goths, is omitted; so is Byzantium. All of this was presumably typical of educated whites in the English-speaking world.
The publication date of 1882 (the 3rd edition, 1888, seems to have been a big seller) positions it before the Jewish penetration into the world of ideas. This was the worldview of people in the 1800s. Pick your favourite: Twain? Lincoln? Victoria? Brunel? William Morris? Generals? Bishops? Industrialists? Labourers? All must have had views of the past influenced by the books described in Adams. He naturally has a tendency to neglect older books, but many survive the winnow, obviously including Greek and Roman writers. And there's a lot on states in the USA. Subjects and topics are seen through historical authors: Tacitus, Gibbon, Grote, Michelet, Ranke; ... Baker on Turkey, Bryce's 'Holy Roman Empire', Bullfinch on Chivalry; Carlyle on Cromwell; Geffken on Church and State; the great sensation made by Paolo Sarpi's book on the Council of Trent and Louis Blanc's memoirs; Fuller on the Church in Britain (Coleridge thought Fuller one of the very best writers of English); Gregorovius on Rome; Waitz on German Constitutional history (but only to the 12th century). Authors are viewed by historical authors: biographies of Franklin, Walter Scott, Voltaire. So are legal systems, constitutions, elections, criminal law. Where there's no single dominant author, Adams produces selections of titles, on, for example, Cicero, Russia, small nations of Europe, Whigs, Alexander Hamilton, Sparta—there must be several thousand topics, and any examples I give here can't help but be inadequate. Where events merge chronologically, Adams gives pages of 'suggestion to students and readers', recommending numerous books, more or less in time sequence, selected for their stylistic qualities and viewpoint.
Interesting to see embryonic attempts at scientific history, for example by Buckle, Herbert Spencer, and Comte. Adams must have puzzled over science and industrialism, which are not identified as topics. Economics features as paper money and lists of prices and e.g. Cobden. Empires are treated as though they are simple to understand. (Seeley's Expansion of England is in). There is some sense of anthropology's influence - races of India, general histories of the human race, histories of the evolution of civilisation.
And interesting to look for omissions. One of these (already mentioned) is the misunderstanding of tribal belief systems, treating anything that can be called a religion as set of picturesque verbal beliefs unrelated to the world. Such items as the Talmud, Quran, and 'muti' no doubt sit well in elegant libraries. Adams doesn't begin to adumbrate future panics related to Germany: Fichte and Hegel are omitted, and Engels and Marx, though Bismarck is.
Thoroughly indexed. The contents list is about half the length of the index, i.e. too long and detailed, so the layout of the book isn't very clear—it needs an added condensed list of contents. There are no illustrations.
Quite a remarkable overview of nineteenth century mentality. Adams wrote some introductory material, interesting, though you have to be in the mood for immersion in ideas about the past, and the problems of presenting them.