What To Look For In A History Book

There are many reasons to read, but from a historian’s perspective there is one major incentive – books are THE major way ideas are communicated to other historians.   Books allow historians the space and time to develop complicated arguments about the past, as well as provide a method of explaining their evidence to their readers (footnotes). 

Before diving into our reading, first I’d like to examine what we’re looking for in the book.  For our purposes, I’d suggest that there are three important elements: the thesis, major turning points, and sources. 

Generally, each book will have a thesis, and in history that thesis usually revolves around “change over time.”  A historian might be analyzing the entire span of the nineteenth century or maybe just the Civil War, but the beginning of a historian’s thesis can often be described as “From (year) to (year) something happened.”  Historians often have a special focus they are examining, so the “something” in question might be that “the United States moved from a slave economy to an industrial economy.” Figuring out the basic timeframe and key issue of the book helps set the parameters for the thesis.  While these are the key elements of the thesis, they are not the entire thesis – the final piece answers the difficult “so what?” question.  Why does it matter that the US shifted from a slave to industrial economy?  A complete thesis will offer that explanation – “From 1800 to 1900 the United States shifted from a slave to industrial economy, but failed to adequately guarantee democratic participation for all Americans.” (I just made this up off the top of my head to serve as clear illustrations of a thesis; it is not meant as a thought out argument, just an example of what a historical thesis looks like.) As you can see, the thesis makes a claim that something is changing over time – a book then explains in great detail why that change took place.  Throughout the book, the author highlights what they believe are the key instances and turning points that made that change possible. For a thesis such as the one I imagined, the author might propose events such as the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Chinese Exclusion Act, and Plessy v. Fergusson as possible turning points in their story.

As a teacher, I’ve primarily worked at an engineering school and often use an analogy to help “math people” understand history.  Consider the formula ∆/t and realize that historians are in some ways telling the story of a line graph.  While this does not mean history moves in a clear, constant direction, I think this analogy generally holds true.  The historian describes the conditions at the beginning of this line, the various points that cause the line to rise and fall, the conditions at the end of the line, and why this line graph matters.

In order to generate their thesis, historians must have evidence.  The type of evidence a historian uses will shape the argument they make.  If a historian was interested in examining the idea of how a shift from a slave economy to an industrial economy “failed to adequately guarantee democratic participation,” what sources might they use?  Some might want to know how the federal government changed and look at political speeches, Congressional debates, or campaign posters.  Another scholar might want to examine how ideas of democracy were popularized among the public and study short stories, plays, or songs that promoted particular notions of democracy.  Other scholars might want to study how “ordinary” people thought about democracy and study diaries, letters, newspaper articles, or interviews.  Using different types of sources changes the perspectives being studied and impacts the structure of the argument and thesis.

While the thesis and sources help historians structure their own argument, their arguments do not exist in a vacuum.  There is a fourth important piece of information you MAY want to consider is the other scholars the book is debating; historians call this the “historiography.” This admittedly might be less interesting to novice readers and is not vital to capturing the key ideas from the book, but still shapes a book’s significance; I leave it to your discretion as to whether you’d like to explore historiography. For those interested, consider that historians are inspired by other writers and sometimes borrow methods and approaches from them; they also often disagree with one another.  If a historian’s book from twenty years ago argued that the shift from a slave to industrial economy made men full participants in the country’s economy and therefore equal, that background context provides additional meaning to the book’s argument.

Now that we know that historians are looking for the thesis, reasons for change over time, and sources (maybe the historiography, too), it should be easy to identify the key ideas of each book. The first few weeks of reading academic histories will be daunting.  But, challenge yourself and stick with it. By the end of the year you should be able to break down a new book’s big ideas and hopefully even compare them to other books you’ve read. I’ll be back tomorrow with some examples of how to put this plan in action.