David Armitage (1) (1965–)

Pubblicato in open access nel 2014 dagli storici statunitensi David Armitage e Jo Guldi, The History Manifesto ha innescato un intenso dibattito internazionale, a dimostrazione dell’importanza cruciale del tema affrontato: quale ruolo pubblico ha la storia nel mondo contemporaneo? La disciplina può ancora essere rilevante nella formazione delle classi dirigenti? Gli storici hanno qualche possibilità di scuotere “le tranquille certezze dei cittadini, dei responsabili politici e dei show more potenti”? Per rispondere a queste domande, il manifesto di Armitage-Guldi si articola lungo tre concetti chiave: in primo luogo, l’identificazione della longue durée come prospettiva metodologica in grado di condurre la storia fuori dallo stato di subalternità disciplinare, politica e accademica in cui sarebbe caduta; in secondo luogo, la condanna senza riserve della “microstoria” e dello short-termism, individuati come principali responsabili dell’emarginazione della storia dal discorso pubblico e politico; infine, l’assunzione metodologica dei big data come sorgente rivivificante per una storiografia transnazionale e trans-temporale in grado di affrontare in chiave anti-teleologica e anti-deterministica i cogenti temi della disuguaglianza economica, del cambiamento climatico e della governance internazionale.

Ma quale livello di attendibilità hanno queste assunzioni? Davvero la storia è in crisi? E questa crisi ha realmente i tratti delineati dall’History Manifesto? Partiamo dal primo punto, la fortuna (o meno) della longue durée. Come hanno dimostrato Deborah Cohen e Peter Mandler nell’aspra recensione pubblicata sull’“American Historical Review” (AHR Exchange), i dati di Benjamin Schmidt su cui si fonda l’assioma iniziale di Armitage-Guldi – la crisi della storia come frutto dell’abbandono della “lunga durata” da parte degli storici – non sembrano affatto supportare le conclusioni dei due autori dell’History Manifesto. Anzi. Lo studio di Schmidt sugli archi cronologici di circa ottomila tesi di dottorato pubblicate negli Stati Uniti a partire dal 1880 mostra un aumento costante delle lunghezze temporali a partire dalla metà degli anni sessanta. E nessuna inflessione emerge negli anni duemila, laddove invece – secondo Armitage e Guldi – si sarebbe dovuto registrare un “ritorno” alla lunga durata. Cohen e Mandler hanno inoltre tentato di verificare questa tendenza analizzando le recensioni pubblicate dall’“AHR” in otto anni campione nel corso di ottant’anni, scegliendo rispettivamente quattro anni inclusi nella long-horizon history di Armitage-Guldi (1926, 1936, 1956 e 1966) e altri quattro in quella che gli autori del manifesto hanno definito come l’era dello Short Past (1976, 1986, 1996, 2006). E anche in questo caso i risultati sono chiari: dopo il 1975, gli anni coperti dagli oltre 1100 libri recensiti sono aumentati con continuità, e la mediana è più che raddoppiata dal 1966 al 1986. A conclusioni simili è pervenuta Claire Lemercier per il caso francese, a partire da una base dati rappresentata dalle tesi di dottorato catalogate dal Conseil National des universités. Prendendo in esame non soltanto le date presenti nei titoli (1939-1945, ad esempio), ma anche le designazioni più generali (ad esempio, Ancien régime oppure époque coloniale), Lemercier ha ricostruito un quadro molto più sfumato e complesso, in cui soltanto il 20 per cento dei lavori copre un arco cronologico inferiore.

Se dunque uno spettro si aggira davvero per la nostra epoca, esso non sembra avere le sembianze del breve termine. Le evidenze quantitative – tanto care ai due autori – vanno in tutt’altra direzione. Ma cosa s’intende per “breve termine”, fonte – secondo Armitage e Guldi – di tutti i mali in cui sarebbe piombata la disciplina a partire dal 1968 fino almeno al 2000? Senza alcuno scavo nella storia della storiografia nei decenni centrali del Novecento, l’History Manifesto invoca le politiche identitarie degli anni settanta, o la rivolta edipica delle giovani generazioni di storici contro i “padri” troppo coinvolti nelle istituzioni, o ancora la contrazione del mercato del lavoro universitario, per attaccare una “microstoria” definita in termini assai vaghi, quando non ridicolizzata come studio iper-sofisticato di un esemplare particolare del passato o scavo archivistico fine a se stesso. Fino a generalizzazioni che suonano così: “A parte poche eccezioni, le classiche ricerche condotte negli anni settanta, ottanta e novanta si concentravano su un particolare episodio: l’individuazione di uno specifico disturbo psicologico, ad esempio, oppure l’analisi di una particolare sommossa di lavoratori”. Quasi che i lavori di Natalie Zemon Davis, di Robert Darnton, o di Joan Wallach Scott fossero riducibili a meri scavi di eventi di modeste dimensioni, e non costituissero invece fondamentali mutamenti di prospettiva, tanto metodologica quanto interpretativa. L’interpretazione di questa fase storiografica come di un’unica, indistinta ritirata dall’ampio respiro della longue durée contrasta poi con elementi fattuali quali l’emergere, nello stesso periodo, della global history, della storia ambientale, o di una storia della scienza e della tecnologia sempre più interessate alle scale temporali lunghe. E anche l’impatto politico del cultural turn nell’ambito della battaglia per i diritti civili, nella preservazione dell’ambiente o nella lotta al razzismo e all’antisemitismo (per citare solo alcuni esempi), dagli anni sessanta a oggi, rimane del tutto in sordina in queste pagine.

Il riferimento conclusivo ai big data e al rapporto tra digital history e longue durée non migliora il quadro. Basandosi essenzialmente su Ngram Viewer e su Paper Machines (un’estensione open source di Zotero), ovvero su strumenti di digitalizzazione di ampi corpi testuali, i due autori di fatto celebrano i potenziali benefici della “lettura a distanza” teorizzata da Franco Moretti, senza tuttavia esplorare le profonde questioni metodologiche già introdotte dalla storia quantitativa francese negli anni ottanta e novanta. Perché il distant reading abbia reale efficace probativa, è infatti necessario costruire adeguatamente un corpus testuale che risponda a una precisa ipotesi di ricerca, non basta accumulare e amalgamare il più ampio numero possibile di testi. Al contrario, occorre risolvere i rischi di anacronismo connessi all’insuperabile storicità delle categorie analizzate nel lungo periodo e sviluppare una riflessione teorica sui modelli di causalità e temporalità. Non dialogando metodologicamente con gli scienziati sociali e con gli economisti; inventandosi l’equivalenza “lungo = significativo”; e occultando completamente la rilevanza della public history a livello internazionale, il manifesto di Armitage-Guldi assume i contorni di un’invocazione anacronistica, incapace da un lato di individuare i termini strutturali della crisi in corso, e dall’altro di valorizzare la ricchezza e le potenzialità effettive della disciplina. Le ultime battute vanno all’edizione italiana.

Bene ha fatto Donzelli a tradurre un libro che ha circolato molto all’interno della comunità degli storici, ma che meritava di essere portato a conoscenza del vasto pubblico dei “non addetti ai lavori”. E la ricca introduzione di Renato Camurri istituisce abilmente alcune connessioni con i dibattiti interni alla storiografia italiana. Ma se un aspetto positivo dell’History Manifesto è proprio da individuarsi nella critica alla parossistica moda delle “svolte” storiografiche degli ultimi decenni, la sua lettura non può che risultare assai straniante alla luce di un contesto storiografico come quello italiano, nel quale le suddette “svolte” hanno avuto vita breve o sono ancora scarsamente riconosciute, con una “storia sociale” ormai in via di estinzione, una “storia culturale” a tutt’oggi fortemente discriminata, una “storia globale” priva delle risorse necessarie al suo pieno sviluppo. In questa situazione, abbiamo davvero bisogno di un Manifesto così presentista e futurologico?

David Armitage e Jo Guldi
MANIFESTO PER LA STORIA
Il ruolo del passato nel mondo d’oggi
ed. orig. 2014, trad. dall’inglese di David Scaffei
pp. 262, € 22
Donzelli, Roma 2016

18 luglio 2017 - “L’Indice dei libri del mese”
Francesco Cassata (insegna storia contemporanea all’Università di Genova) show less

The Declaration of Independence: A Global History (2007) by David Armitage takes a different approach to studying the Declaration of Independence of the United States by showing how it's been received around the world and how it's affected history and politics globally since it's publication. Even Americans need a review of what exactly the Declaration of Independence is, and Armitage sums it up in three parts: 1) a statement of the world of independency of the American states, 2) a summary show more of the offenses by the King of Great Britain that lead to this break, and 3) a statement of political philosopy on the rights of human beings.

Modern Americans remember the Declaration for the latter, but is the first two parts that were important at the time. Governments around the world had to decide whether to recognize the United States and for many declaring independence was not enough, but force of arms prevailed on opinions. Others attacked the notions of the rights of men in the Declaration, most notably Jeremy Bentham whose interesting questions regarding how something can't be self-evident just because one says so is included in a complete republication in the book's appendix.

The Declaration would also influence the independency of future nations with a declaration of independence an important part in their creation whether the country was born in revolution or peacefully ceded. These often cribbed words and structure straight from the US Declaration, most strikingly in the 1945 Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam written by Ho Chi Minh. Other declarations are different in their goals. Armitage makes the comparison of how the US Declaration speaks of continued friendship with British bretheren, while the Haitian Declaration makes a point of stating eternal hatred to the French. Perhaps that's the effect of really being enslaved instead of using slavery as a political analogy.

Armitage has written an interesting book from an unique perspective. It's a quick read even if at times it appears to be a doctoral thesis or maybe a long research paper. The appendix includes a number of worldwide Declarations of Independence in their full-text from 1776 to the present day. show less

The History Manifesto makes a compelling argument for the application of history to address ongoing challenges. In the process, the book describes trends in the study of and scholarship on history--a broad focus resulting in work looking at bigger issues considered over longer time frames, and a more narrow focus ("microhistory") with decidedly shorter time frames. The authors argue we need both, but it's really the former that offers perspective and insight that other practitioners (e.g., show more economists) cannot. In short, this book is an important and provocative work that’s a must read for anyone interested in history. show less

In The Declaration of Independence: A Global History, David Armitage examines the American Declaration of Independence in an effort to find its true meaning, both for the United States and the world at large. Through his analysis, Armitage pursues three approaches to the global history of this document: the world in the Declaration, the Declaration in the world, and a world of Declarations. This may seem like a play on words, yet Armitage breaks down his analysis of the document so that it show more neatly fits within these three areas of interest. In this work, the author has created a piece of scholarship that is undoubtedly significant. The modern countries of the world are becoming more and more globalized each day. A book such as this gives a unique perspective which facilitates lucidity that a document such as the American Declaration of Independence was in fact the product of a world already familiar with the importance of a global consciousness.
In his first section, “The World in the Declaration of Independence”, Armitage analyzes the wording of the document and how that wording articulated deeper intentions with regard to the world at large. By breaking the Declaration down into five parts, the author is able to show that its purpose was not solely to vocalize the independence of the American colonies, but also to convey to the world that these thirteen colonies were “one people” and no longer tied to Great Britain. This is especially important and, in fact, quite ingenious. Many countries throughout Europe were on poor terms with the English. This document facilitated new economic possibilities with the colonies. Countries that were less likely to trade with the English were now open to trade with the colonies.
Armitage also makes an intriguing point regarding the futility and contradictory claims made by Great Britain with respect to the independence of the colonists. According to George III, the American colonies were “rebels, and hence outside his monarchical protection” (33). Parliament confirmed this royal proclamation in its Prohibitory Act of 1775. By that rationale, it would seem that the American Declaration of Independence was simply a document to officiate what was already a reality. However, by officially communicating this reality, the colonists placed their cause on the global stage. This gesture was not so much for global approval, as the colonists would have separated from Britain regardless of global opinion. Yet the Declaration was a means of standing up to be counted amongst the states of the world and attaining the recognition which was vital to its success and virility.
In the second section of the book, entitled “The Declaration of Independence in the World”, Armitage discusses the many global occurrences which affected the way the Declaration was viewed within the global theater. The French Revolution, for example, was in many respects likened to the conflict between America and Britain. However, Armitage states that “the French Revolution would cast other shadows across the cause of American independence.” (67) He states that although it is common to assimilate these two events, the political motivation behind each was quite different. Friedrich Gentz, a counter-revolutionary writer stated that “the American Revolution was from beginning to end, on the part of the Americans, merely a defensive revolution; the French was from beginning to end, in the highest sense of the word, an offensive revolution.” (68) However, this insight did not hinder the social acceptance of these two revolutions being akin.
The manner in which the British government responded to the Declaration was one of discretion and, in many cases, loathsome indifference. Armitage describes the reaction to the document on the western side of the Atlantic as being more oppressive and that “silencing the Declaration was a more effective governmental response to its challenge than attempting to refute it.” (74) This is significant, as the author stipulates, for two main reasons: the first is that for the loyalists to the King in the colonies, it seemed antithetical to publish the Declaration for fear that more colonists would rebel and join the fight for independence; the second, of course, pertains more to matters of power and importance. By giving the Declaration its just attention and consideration was in itself the means to place the document as a viable threat to monarchical control in the colonies.
In 1783, the British officially affirmed American independence in Article 1 of the Peace of Paris. The birth of the United States of America was indeed a feat that did not go unrecognized or unappreciated in the global theater. Edmund Burke eloquently surmises the victory as something new and never before seen; “A great revolution has happened—a revolution made, not by chopping and changing of power in any one of the existing states, but by the appearance of a new state, of a new species, in a new part of the globe.” (87)
The third and final section, entitled “A World of Declarations”, pulls away from the specifics of the American experience and instead focuses on the way in which said Declaration paved the way for others to follow suit. If Armitage is correct in his analysis, then other movements which spanned from the late eighteenth through the twentieth centuries may to a great extent be attributed to the fortuitous resolve of the American colonies. He observes that “the ultimate success of the Americans’ claim to independence encouraged others to follow their example, not only in claiming statehood as an escape from empire, but also in declaring independence as the mark of sovereignty.” (113) Although Armitage makes a compelling case for his no doubt thorough analysis, it is perhaps in this boastful claim that one may criticize Armitage for attributing too much to the influence the American Declaration of Independence had on communities around the globe. Many did go so far as to use the specific wording of the American document, and in these instances it is difficult to refute the obvious influence of the American Declaration. Yet Armitage draws examples from South America, Mexico, the Caribbean, Africa, Spain, and even Australia to show a common thread. At times, it seems as though he leaves no stone unturned and indeed all of the free nations of the world are indebted to the American Declaration. Yet as with any such claim, it is difficult to accept that argument fully and blindly.
David Armitage is the Lloyd C. Blankfein Professor of History and Director of Graduate Studies at Harvard University. The Declaration of Independence: A Global History is his most recent publication and is a testament to his profession and specialty. Indeed, the final one hundred pages of the book contain primary documents of Declarations of Independence around the globe spanning from the American Declaration in 1776 to the Southern Rhodesian Unilateral Declaration in 1965. In this book, Armitage has certainly offered a fine and compelling perspective on the historiography of global history and intellectual thought. Scholars working within this genre would be well served to familiarize themselves with developing arguments within the historiography which Amitage brings to light here. Although scholars will find this to be a valuable work, the author is readable for the popular audience as well. show less