wagers

In his presidential address before the American Historical Association in December 1985, William H. McNeill argued that the relationship between myth and history was much closer than most professional historians would be comfortable acknowledging. In an essay that almost has a postmodern ring, he observed that historians have faithfully reflected larger collective urges for attachment and identity. They have done so partly by producing what McNeill called "mythistory," a form of knowledge about the past that relies on the techniques of professional historical scholarship but also draws inspiration from perspectives that offer idealized visions of a community and endow its historical accounts with meaning. He conceded that professional methods had enabled scholars to overcome certain prejudices, such as those arising from overtly confessional historiography, that often infected scholarship of earlier generations. And he adopted an upbeat tone, suggesting that myths were not necessarily reducible to unprincipled propaganda, but rather that they had the potential to guide societies toward the realization of noble ideals. Yet he did not compromise on his main point, the claim that all historical scholarship, no matter how professional or technically proficient, is mythistory in that it draws on some vision of the human community that is not susceptible to documentation in the archives.1 1 This view of things raises problems that go well beyond scholarship. While holding out the possibility that mythistory might inspire the pursuit of high ideals, McNeill also acknowledged the point—which developments both before and since 1985 have definitively confirmed —that myth-informed history has equally strong potential to fuel maniacal and murderous violence. The power of myths to promote tendentious or distorted understandings of the past and even to inspire the production of historical fabrications is all too evident in both popular and professional historical accounts of all lands and peoples without exception. Yet the production of parallel mythistories that stroke the collective psyches of national, ethnic, racial, religious, and other groups, while also nourishing their memories of supposed past injustices and encouraging hatred of their perceived oppressors, is a formula for disaster in a world oversupplied with appallingly effective technologies of destruction. 2 How might it be possible to move beyond historical scholarship that takes glorification of the national community or some other exclusive constituency as its principal purpose? In his discussion of mythistory, McNeill proposed a remedy for the various narcissistic, clashing mythistories that fuel conflicts by emphasizing the glory and righteousness of some chosen people against its enemies. Without denying either the power or the considerable value of local identities and solidarities, he called for an approach to the past that focuses on the entire human community rather than its national, ethnic, racial, or religious components. "Instead of enhancing conflicts, as parochial historiography inevitably does, an intelligible world history might be expected to diminish the lethality of group encounters by cultivating a sense of individual identification with the triumphs and tribulations of humanity as a whole. This, indeed, strikes me as the moral duty of the historical profession in our time. We need to develop an ecumenical history, with plenty of room for human diversity in all its complexity."2 3 Thus McNeill held out an attractive vision of an ecumenical world history with the potential to foster such lofty ideals as cross-cultural understanding and global peace. But how might it be possible to go about constructing an appropriate and persuasive ecumenical history? Alas, the discipline of history in general and the subfield of world history in particular have not found reliable routes to this destination. Historians thus far have discovered no Archimedean point from which a neutral or totally objective vision of the global past is attainable. It is possible in many cases to demonstrate more or less definitively the historical truth or falsity of certain factual information, but there is no generally recognized method or convention leading to any generally accepted distillation of meaning from analyses of the past. Indeed, recent critical scholarship has argued powerfully that history is a form of situated knowledge, that some set of political or ideological principles informs all historical studies. Professional historical scholarship as we know it was born under the signs of the nation and the empire, and its birthmarks help to account for both its subject matter and its methods. Even the most careful, conscientious, restrained, self-critical, or reflexive scholarship makes assumptions about the world and the way it works that influence historians' choices of topics, themes, and methods of analysis, not to mention their constructions of significance and meaning of the past. 4 The result is an intellectual impasse: historical scholarship inevitably reflects some set of political or ideological influences, which by definition will not enjoy general approval; yet in order to validate its truth claims and enhance the credibility of its bid to serve larger social purposes, history depends upon a reliable intellectual foundation that enjoys widespread if not universal respect. Otherwise it runs the risk of degenerating into propaganda, or at least of arousing suspicion that it has degenerated into propaganda. Neither logic nor linguistic precision nor ever more careful scholarship alone will open a way beyond this impasse. Rather, resolution of the problem will require the placing of an intellectual and moral wager, akin to Pascal's famous wager on the existence of God, that scholarship and education in a certain kind of world history will lead to a sophisticated understanding of the world and its development through time, and possibly also to the formation of wisdom and the cultivation of values conducive to responsible global citizenship.3 5 In one way or another, no doubt, all historical study involves an intellectual wager. The implicit gamble is that analysis of a certain issue employing certain methods at a certain level of generalization on the basis of certain evidence and reasoning will yield a coherent, persuasive, and meaningful account of past human experience. The risk is that some set of problems with the conception, methodology, scale, evidence, or reasoning of the study will compromise its value or even render it worthless. 6 World history is perhaps an even riskier proposition than most other kinds of historical study. The issues of conception, methodology, scale, evidence, and reasoning are less widely tested and quite possibly less reliable for purposes of global historical analysis than they are for more conventional approaches to national, political, social, economic, or cultural history. At the same time, the stakes in world history are higher than they are in many other fields of study. To the extent that visions of world history shape the values of voters and policy makers, the stakes include intellectual influence with potentially enormous implications for global governance, peace, and security—or lack thereof. With stakes so high, it is imperative to wager on an ecumenical world history rather than some more parochial alternative. 7 The wager is necessary because there are already several other players in the game, and some of their positions carry implications that run from the actively unhelpful to the downright dangerous. Because of its claims to general knowledge, and perhaps more importantly because of its increasing prominence in educational curricula, world history has recently become a principal target for interests pressing various political and ideological views. In their efforts to elaborate some larger political, social, ideological, or moral implications of world history, commentators from both the right and the left have staked out positions that lead right back to the problems McNeill sought to transcend in his essay on mythistory—sometimes by reverting to a parochial historiography and sometimes by encouraging the construction and production of a world divided into hostile, noncommunicating blocs. A discussion of their positions, along with my running commentary and critique, will provide a context for further consideration of world history's larger social and moral implications.