Book Review

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Book Review | The Journal of American History, 86.1 | The History Cooperative

The Truth of History. By C. Behan McCullagh. (New York: Routledge, 1998. viii, 327 pp. Cloth, $75.00, isbn 0-415-17110-5. Paper, $24.99, isbn 0-415-17111-3.)

Sometimes it seems that there are two types of historians in the world: those who love to reflect endlessly on the theoretical and philosophical problems of the discipline, and those who regard such rumination as navel gazing and a waste of time—even a downright impertinence. One could wish things were otherwise and that the philosophy of history could break out of its imprisonment in esotericism and its consignment to philosophy departments in order to establish a more fruitful relationship with the historical discipline's actual practitioners. By the same token, one could also wish that conventional "working" historians were not so dogmatically resistant to theory. But there is little professional incentive for them to risk such reflection since it generally only disturbs the flow of "normal science." There are precious few of us—only, say, the likes of J. H. Hexter, Paul Conkin, David Hackett Fischer, or John Lukacs—who have the brilliance and range to write history of both sorts, and thereby to illustrate the excitement and insight that emerge when theory and practice intersect meaningfully. . . .

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