The Politics of Size: Representation in the United States, 1776-1850 Book

Kelley's book traces Western historiography, first presenting the twin-faced idea of Herodotus and Thucydides, and then using this two-sided approach as a basic template for examining all other western historians through the present day. What emerges is a half-decent reference book for the basic conceptualizations used by several of the main contributors to the western canon, but like much "intellectual history," Kelley uses a lot of words without actually saying very much. He goes to great pains to be somewhat inclusive and well-rounded in his depiction of these historians, so much so that they cease to become really distinct. After reading this book, I'd have a really hard time telling you how Plutarch is all that different from Gibbon, other than in superficial ways.

The Herodotus/Thucydides split, for Kelley, tends to fall into a generality. The Herodotean school is concerned with social history, associated with more "ground up" approaches and the everyman, where the Thucydidean school is the more straight-ahead political and military history, usually narrower in scope. He also asserts that all history is in some sense the making of myth -- the synthesis of events into stories for some purpose. For some, like Plutarch, the stories might be meant to teach personality traits. For Thucydides, it could be to analyze political and military realities. For the reformation era historians, it could be to justify their religious affiliation as related to the "true" or "correct" origins of their faith. This use of history as justification is also seen in nationalistic or politically driven writers. Some history is meant to be predictive of future events, or to demonstrate the "correct" approach society should take given certain situations.

All of these approaches inform historians in some way or another, and Kelley implies -- or at least raises the question -- that access to more and more documentary sources does not necessarily obviate these biases. And bias isn't necessarily a bad thing -- all these approaches to history are forms of myth making for one purpose or another. The problem with the book is that the really big questions inherent to Kelley's material stay under the surface and between the lines. He lightly implies heavy questions about the nature of time, perception, and history, yet never weighs in on these questions or even address them directly.

There's some interesting food for thought here, but it's not engaging enough to really provoke new thought in the reader, outside of a few perhaps minor points. In that sense, its a good sourcebook for quick references to various important historians in the western canon, but, if thats what you're using this book for, you'd be better of using a source like Wiki to get a quick rundown of the people you're looking for. There are even strange omissions here. For example, Diodorus gets significant facetime, yet Arrian goes unmentioned. All in all, its not a bad read, but there are probably better sources out there that cover this same ground.