Good Female Historians

[Adrian II]

There are few good historians. To me, good historians are those who carefully dissect their subject, then put it together again in the form of a great story, informed by much ‘telling’ detail and respectful of alternative viewpoints, thereby inviting further reflection, reading and research on the part of the reader.

All these qualities of the historian are essentially art forms. Even analysis is an art form, although we like to rationalise its fantastic and subconscious aspects. Remember the chemist Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz. One day, whilst researching the molecular structure of benzene, he had a dream of a snake biting its own tail. From that dream he developed his ‘ring’-theory of benzene, a huge break-through in organic chemistry.

There are even fewer good female historians. I could cite obvious historical and sociological reasons for the underrepresentation of women in historiography and there may be other, less obvious reasons, possibly even genetic in nature. Ladies may take comfort in the fact that there are many more bad male historians than bad female ones.

However this may be, I would like to discuss the good ones. What makes them good? Do they have unique qualities that (most) male historians lack?

Exhibit One

Barbara Tuchman, well-known to all English-speaking history buffs. The proud Tower, her portrait of pre-WWI Europe, is always with me because of the strong imagery she evokes of the main events and the personalities involved. Her portraits of Senator Thomas Reed and Georges Clemenceau, her sketch of the German Emperor giving vent to his suppressed homosexuality by dancing in his little ballerina costume, all those images still stick many years after I last read the book. The book says a lot about World War I, precisely because it evokes a world that had no idea of the impending doom, of the terrible devastation to come in a couple of years. Most male authors I know treat this era as a prelude to war, they look at it from the perspective of that war. Only Tuchman has the sensitivity to perceive its essential innocence.

Is that because she is a woman and doesn’t have an axe to grind, doesn’t have anything to prove because war is essentially a male business?

Exhibit Two

In another thread someone mentioned C.V. Wedgewood’s book The Thirty Years War (1938) as being a good read. I agree - but why is it a good read? As far as I recall, it is a good read because it strikes a careful balance between the ‘heroic’ military developments on the one hand and the rest of German society (and its horrible, senseless suffering at the hands of armies) on the other. She describes a full cycle of self-destruction in human society: heroism grows out of despair, performs great feats, then turns into hatred and finally ends in cruelty and senseless slaughter. Does it take a woman to see through this mechanism, see through the male mythology of war and perceive the cycle for what it is?

Exhibit Three

My all-time favourite: Régine Pernoud.

I remember at the end of a working group on the Middle Ages at university, I told my professor that I didn’t understand why in the course of some war a particular earl had taken the side of a particular king, who was his liege lord, instead of another one who was also his liege lord. His answer was: ‘Why don’t you stop by the library, pick up Lumière du Moyen-Âge by Pernoud and read Chapter One?’ I did, it was an eye-opener and I’ve been a fan of hers ever since.

In that Chapter Pernoud says that there is only one perspective from which we can understand the Middle Ages. It’s neither the old perspective of the Three Orders (Chivalry, Clerics, Peasants), not the modern perspective of a division between the privileged (one percent of society) and the underprivileged (the rest). The only useful perspective is the family. That’s what made people throughout the Middle Ages tick, from the lowest of peasants to the most exalted of Kings and Popes. She goes on to develop that theme in the rest of her book and it is one of the most convincing texts I have ever read.

How did she develop this perspective? Isn’t it a typical example of ‘female’ emotionalism to stress the family above all else? I would say it’s not. I think a lot of male historians are more emotional and more likely to believe in ideological explanations (such as the Three Orders) and in mythologies of honour and heroism and chauvinism and nationhood. She wrote the book in 1944, mind you – as if she wanted to tell her compatriots: okay guys, we’ve had four years of slaughter and murderous ideology, now let’s get real, let’s skip the patriotic bull and take a fresh and honest look at ourselves and accept that we are, first and foremost, herd animals.


So, what’s up with female historians? Are they special?

Oyez, oyez, .org patrons! Show us your exhibits and prove me right or wrong!

[Hurin_Rules]

I'm not sure if I'd agree with your argument--seems a bit too close to essentialism if you ask me--but I'd add Janet Nelson to my list of favorites. She's great for the early medieval period.

[Adrian II]

I'm not sure if I'd agree with your argument--seems a bit too close to essentialism if you ask me--but I'd add Janet Nelson to my list of favorites. She's great for the early medieval period.

Hurin Rules, you're an expert in the field so please bear with me. My question is not 'Name your favourite female historian'. It is 'Tell us what makes (a) particular female historian(s) so good'. Why is Janet Nelson good for the Early Medieval period? What did she write that caused a heads-up, and why?

Edit
Oh, and I'm not making an argument, I'm asking a question.

[frogbeastegg]

Henrriette Layser, 'Medieval Women: A Social History of Women in England 450-1500'

It's a slender book by a frog's standards; 337 pages total including index, title pages and other 'junk'. It's the same size as a standard fiction book. It's got a title which, while descriptive of the contents, makes me cringe. The cover picture of my version's quite nice though, and it's nicely bound and on good paper. It was cheap, less than £10. But those two redeeming factors aside on first inspection this is not a what I would call a promising book; it's bound to be scanty on detail and evidence, TV historian style claptrap.

I got it for two reasons 1)I'm writing fiction set in medieval England and I want it to be as accurate as possible. 2)I was developing a bit of a curiosity about the non-military aspects of English medieval history and I couldn't find many books on the subject to choose from.

Within two days of receiving the book I read it cover to cover. In the months since I've re-read chunks over and over. That first read through told me everything I needed to know, much of what I wanted to know, and shed loads of great stuff I didn't even consider existing before. One book, almost everything I needed and much, much more. What's even more amazing is that I remembered much of it right from that first read. Leyser can write. She reads beautifully, she is always clear, she makes everything easy to understand and very memorable, and she gives out her evidence and references exactly as needed. I was never left feeling I needed to look something up, flip back a few pages, or go consult another book. She knows her stuff and it shows. She does go against some of the old, standing accepted ideas but she provides evidence and very good reasoning whenever she does so. She is concise; she does not ramble. She covers every single subject and mini subject; when I finished the book I was not really left wondering "But what about ...?", although perhaps she does not give as much on queens and princess as she might. That's the one subject everyone else seems to cover in loads of detail, so it's easily forgivable. She is not screaming PC nonsense every page. It’s the past; it works as it works, and she doesn’t try to dress it up.

I've read other authors on the same topic now, both male and female. Not a single one has managed to match Leyser; they all misstep somewhere. Some ignore half the subject, others give very little of their evidence, and every other book leaves me feeling I need to go and consult others to fill the gaps.

A few other names I'll toss out for potential discussion are
May McKisack ('The Fourteenth century' in the Oxford History of England series)
Alison Weir (numerous; got her 'Eleanor of Aquitaine')
Else Roedahl ('The Vikings')
I've not read any of these cover to cover, only snippets as and when needed, but they are, I gather, all very highly thought of. One day I’ll do the cover to cover thing, one day ...

EDIT: Here you go, here's the book on amazon.

[Adrian II]

I've read other authors on the same topic now, both male and female. Not a single one has managed to match Leyser; they all misstep somewhere. Some ignore half the subject, others give very little of their evidence, and every other book leaves me feeling I need to go and consult others to fill the gaps.

I am pleased to learn that you were so completely satisfied with a single book's content. As for the topic, I fear we are stuck between a rock and a hard place. We should expect no quarter from the boys with the Osprey-toys; they are too busy winning past wars and dreaming dreams of innocent slaughter and guilty revenge. Meanwhile, elsewhere in this thread, the stake is being built in expectation of my conviction on grounds of 'essentialism'. You will excuse my timely retreat. Until we meet again!

[sheelba]

Lyn Mcdonald

She examines the western front with humanity. She is not concerned with attacking the generals, or musing over countersfactuals. By letting the paricipants tell as much of the story themselves, she conjures a harsh, brutal world, were people struggle to remain human. Writing from an English perspective, her Germans are fellow human beings in the same situation. The point seems to be that the western front was a tragedy. Not "the cause of the war..", or "the consequences of the war was a tragedy". But this human activity. War is devoid of glamour.

She also writes movingly of issues such as nursing and medical activities in war.

I don't know if this makes her a good female historian. But she is female, and is a good historian.

Gitta Sereny - Albert Speer: his Battle with Truth.

It has been a long time since I read this book. She spent 18 years researching it. Countless interviews. A stunning work. All the evidence is presented and the reader is allowed to come to his/her own conclusion. I found it almost unbarable.

[Hurin_Rules]

Ok, I understand what you're saying Adrian.

I like Nelson and also Rosamond McKitterick because they are medievalists first and women's/gender historians second (like me :) ) . Many women's historians come from a background of gender studies, but don't really have the technical skills of other medieval historians. This means they work almost exclusively with texts that have already been edited, translated, published, etc. While their work is useful, and particularly to non-medievalist historians, they often leave the medievalist unsatisfied because they're not bringing much new to the table. Nelson, however, can see the significance of sources not just to women's or gender history but to other fields of history; she's as likely to write an article on ideas of holy war as she is on conceptions of motherhood. And that, to me, makes her one of the most interesting historians around.