reflections on the revolution in france sparknotes

And “ the contents of our cabinet are neither fixed nor accessible at will“. He further explains that recent research has questioned the vision of individual memory on which it draws. He calls such an understanding as ‘ storage model of memory history‘ (p.14). Trouillot states that history as the remembrance of important past experiences is misleading. Rather, the difference is in the range of narratives that specific collectives must put to their own tests of historical credibility because of the stakes involved in these narratives” (p.14). And he concludes by saying “ it is not that some societies distinguish between fiction and history and others do not. “ while it can point to hundreds of stories that illustrate its general claim that narratives are produced, it cannot give a full account of the production of any single narrative” (p.13). Trouillot also points at a dilemma the constructivist view of history has.

Just like the given example, it is questionable to classify historical narratives as “fiction” because they do not fit the Western way of renewing historical narratives with the findings of new documents.

But we know that all languages have grammar. He states how Western colonizers initially thought that the language of the colonized did not have an intelligent structure because there were no grammar books around. Trouillot criticizes Western scholarship by mentioning how non-Western societies are classified as fundamentally non-historical. “ Whereas the positivist view hides the tropes of power behind a naive epistemology, the constructivist one denies the autonomy of the sociohistorical process.” (p.6). And the constructivist view of history is one form of it. On the other hand, the belief that history is merely another form of fiction is an antique one. At best, history is a story about power, a story about those who won.” (p.5). According to this viewpoint, “ power is unproblematic, irrelevant to the construction of the narrative as such. He further explains how the positivist position dominated Western scholarship, and historians were no exception. Trouillot claims how professionalization of the (history) discipline is partly premised on believing that the more distant the sociohistorical process from its knowledge, the easier the claim to a “scientific” professionalism. Others, lean towards a “constructivist” point of view by stressing the overlap between the historical process and its narratives. Some, by being influenced by positivism, distinguish between the historical process and the narratives about it. He further mentions how there are various theories of history with different tendencies. The former suggests the sociohistorical process, while the latter speaks about our knowledge of that process. For him, history means both ‘what happened’ and ‘what is said to have happened’. Trouillot mentions how we participate in history both as actors and narrators.

Reflections on the revolution in france sparknotes