The Marty Standard of History Explained

Yesterday I spoke, with an eye towards wry humor, about my idea of what defines history. If you missed it, here it is: The Marty Standard History, I believe, doesn't really begin until fifty years have passed, if not one hundred. Why? We are to close to the people and events to judge them objectively. Our prejudices generally get in the way.

Today I want to explain what I mean with an example. Indeed this example may be what drew me to my conclusion.

Way back when, not quite in history as it was only about 40 years ago (ha ha), I had to do a college report on the life of John Adams, Revolutionary War leader and our second President. It was the first term paper I really went whole hog on, determined to make a good presentation. As such, I decided to see what history said concerning his life.

The oldest book I found in the library at the University of Detroit was published in 1801, the very year the Adams Presidency ended. The tome was so old I handled it very carefully, being intimidated by its age. I still can't believe it was still out on the shelves in 1982; I would have expected it to be archived by then, available only by special request. Anyway, it claimed that John Adams was just about the most useless disgrace of a President and human being we ever had. Wow. Reports of the same era were similarly antagonistic. Or, at best, dismissive.

But as I studied I noticed an odd thing. By 1900 or so books and articles were appearing which kind of grudgingly allowed that maybe old John Adams wasn't all that bad. He maybe, perhaps, sort of had done some okay things. Move forward to the 1960s and historians were much more considerate in analyzing his life and times. By 1975 he was the star character of a musical about American Independence. Extending into modern times we find David McCullough's positively glowing account of Mr. Adams, published in 2001, interestingly coming 200 years after the damning book which came on the heels of his time in office. Adams' Presidency is currently rated 15th or so among our Chief Executives. Out of 46, that's not bad. 

So, did John Adams change? Did the circumstances of Revolutionary and early United States history change? Or does the ebb and flow of time simply make it easier to look at something dispassionately? 

I believe the latter. As Adams moved from the real life figure to the historical personage, as people lost their direct emotional prejudices against him, they could see the real man more clearly.

So history doesn't really begin until well after events have taken place. At least, that's the Marty Standard of history. But I am open to suggestion and modification.

The open book?

When my son and I were in Boston a couple of years ago we stopped by Peacefield, the homestead of American Revolutionary hero and later President John Adams. We just wanted to see it; I'm an admirer of President Adams and we had a few minutes, so Frank looked it up on his smartphone and we found it. Once there, we walked around the open grounds and took some pictures. You know, touristy stuff. As it was obviously open we didn't think much of what we were doing.

Outside the carriage house we were stopped by a staffer. There was no problem. He just saw us there and asked what he could do. We explained we were just looking around, and he took us inside to tell us about available tours, which began a couple miles away.

As he talked I saw a small display of books and memorabilia, obviously for sale. There was a biography of Abigail Adams, John's wife. I have read several volumes on the President; I thought then I'd buy one on Abigail, to hear more about her and her perspective. "There's plenty of books and such at the visitor's center," I was told. Okay, thank you, I replied, and we left.

That's what happened, in a nutshell. But I wondered then and wonder now why he wouldn't sell me that book. In my mind that conversation went kind of like this:

"I would like to buy this biography of Abigail Adams please."

"Oh, there are plenty of books at the Visitor Center."

"Okay, but I'm here. I would like to buy this book."

"You'll find all kinds of books and gifts at the Visitor Center."

"I'm sure I will. But I'm here and so is this book. May I buy it?"

"Memorabilia, glassware, collectible plates, pictures..."

"Why won't you sell me this book?"

"It only takes about two hours; you'll really enjoy the tour."

"I'm not arguing that. I just want to buy this stupid book, that's all!"

A hush slams upon the room. "I find your lack of respect for one of our nation's finest First Ladies appalling," replies the docent. "Good day." And we leave without the book.

It didn't actually go like that, as I said. But it would have been really easy to sell me that book.

Why can't I buy this book?

When my son and I were in Boston last month we stopped by Peacefield, the homestead of American Revolutionary hero and later President John Adams. We just wanted to see it; I'm an admirer of President Adams and we had a few minutes, so Frank looked it up on his smartphone and we found it.

Once there, we walked around the open grounds and took some pictures. You know, touristy stuff.
Outside the carriage house we were stopped by a staffer. There was no problem. He just saw us there and asked what he could do. We explained we were just looking around, and he took us inside to tell us about available tours, which began a couple miles away.

As he talked I saw a small display of books and memorabilia, obviously for sale. There was a biography of Abigail Adams, John's wife. I have read several volumes on the President; I thought then I'd buy one on Abigail, to hear more about her and her perspective. "There's plenty of books and such at the visitor's center," I was told. Okay, thank you, I replied, and we left.

That's what happened, in a nutshell. But I wondered then and wonder now why he wouldn't sell me that book. In my mind that conversation went kind of like this:

"I would like to buy this biography of Abigail Adams please."

"Oh, there are plenty of books at the Visitor Center."

"Okay, but I'm here. I would like to buy this book."

"You'll find all kinds of books and gifts at the Visitor Center."

"I'm sure I will. But I'm here and so is this book. May I buy it?"

"Memorabilia, glassware, collectible plates, pictures..."

"Why won't you sell me this book?"

"It only takes about two hours; you'll really enjoy the tour."

"I'm not arguing that. I just want to buy this stupid book, that's all!"

A hush slams throughout across room. "I find your lack of respect for one of our nation's finest First Ladies appalling," replies the docent. "Good day." And we leave without the book.

It didn't actually go like that, as I said. But it would have been really easy to sell me that book.

Lucky Jim? Lucky Marty

Awhile back I stumbled upon the type of thing one often stumbles upon on the Internet: a list (this one by Esquire magazine) of 80 books in no particular order which Esquire insists everyone ought to read. To my delight (I can be delighted rather easily it seems) I found several books on the list which I actually have read: The Things They Carried by one Tim O'Brien, a rather grotesque Vietnam War tale which I thought far too full of itself; Jack London's The Call of The Wild, which I remember little of except that they made us read it in Grade 7; The Killer Angels, a simply marvelous historical fiction from Michael Shaara wrapped around the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War (I gained a great respect and admiration for the Confederate General Longstreet after reading it); and Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff about the Mercury astronauts, where I similarly learned to like Deke Slayton. On the list too though I have not read it was David McCullough's The Great Bridge, about the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. As he did such fine jobs with biographies of John Adams and Harry Truman I find myself interested in how he might make bridge construction an exciting read. But what most delighted me to find on list was, of all things, a little comedy which I first read after my wife, who had had it assigned to her in an English course at the University of Detroit, complained to me that neither she nor the rest of the class understood. So I borrowed it immediately. Five pages in I was laughing so hard I was, as the cliche insists, crying. Or hurting, as both adjectives are suggested by like cliches. The book, which by one of those strange intersections of time and circumstance I just happen to be rereading just now, is Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis.

It really is very funny in its very English way. There are passages which until yet I laugh so long and hard at that I have to stop reading for minutes at a time. Then I have trouble getting back to the text because the funniest moments just keep coming back to me. Yes, it is that good. If you like dry, droll, yet still somehow over the top English humor.

And you should, you know. The English have a delightful way of melding sublime understatement, surreal juxtaposition, and outlandish slapstick in hilariously satisfying ways. A wonderful example from Lucky Jim is a passage where an absent minded driver comes near to a head on collision with a bus. His passenger, the actual lucky Jim, describes the incident in harrowing comedic detail, finishing with a description of the obviously excited and screeching bus driver, "...his mouth opening and shutting vigorously.' I'm chuckling at it still.

The closest American approximations are the Marx Brothers and, believe it or not, Bob Newhart. The English, they know humor. Americans should get to know English humor better too.

And I'm not talking Benny Hill either, you walking primates out there.

Is history truer are time goes by?

In my most recent blog post before this one, I spoke of how new scholarship has shone a better light on Detroit Tigers great Ty Cobb. Yet this is not the first instance I've come across of history taking a different view of someone, especially years after they're gone.

Cobb died in July 1961. That's enough time, isn't it, that we ought to be getting a clearer view of who he was and what he did. This phenomenon first came to my attention when I was working on a major term paper on second President and major Independence mover and shaker John Adams. The earliest primary source which I read, published in 1801 (regretfully I can't recall what that was, as I wrote the paper 35 years ago and can't easily find it) and right on the heels of his Presidency thought him little but scum. But as the books and articles about him accumulated over time, it seemed that by around 1900 people were admitting that he wasn't all that bad. By the 1970s, Adams was actually rising into the camp of a 'better than average' President in the eyes of the majority of historians.

Indeed we can extrapolate this point further when referring to even newer biographies of Adams. David McCullough points out that a quote about Adams, used in the musical 1776 as a citation against the Massachusetts lawyer as 'obnoxious and disliked', can be found only in a self-description of attitudes toward him in a letter I believe to his wife Abigail. McCullough finds Adams spoken of that way by no one else. Judgment of Adams by history continues to tick upwards.

When I was still teaching, I rarely went past World War II in my lectures and assignments. My justification was that things which have happened too recently aren't history yet; we're too close to the events to think about them objectively. True, there are those history will likely never treat kindly. I can't imagine Hitler, Stalin, or Mao becoming saints over the coming decades. But it does appear that history looks kinder upon the more mainstream people and ideas as time marches on.

I do wonder if it would be fair to argue that it's not history if we've lived it. Or at least, not a full and true history.