“Some stories entertain us. Others define us. They shape our identity, our sense of character and community, our understanding of right and wrong. Stories from the past have this power, which is why history is often so contested. Historians conduct their work under a weight of this charge.”
As one of the most respected historians of the Civil War, James McPherson is aware of this responsibility. Today, this turbulent period still has echoes in American politics and culture. “So many issues continue to be relevant today,” says McPherson. “When you look at the pattern of red states and blue states on today’s political map, it’s striking how it replicates the Civil War map of Union and Confederate states.”
As a student at Gustavus in the 1950s, McPherson gained an interest in the past from historian Rodney Davis’s course on Western civilization and English professor Gerhard Alexis’s course on American culture. At the same time, a more surprising class also steered him toward history. “I took two terms of geology to finish my science requirement,” McPherson explains. “The second semester dealt more with the historical dimension of geology, such as the Ice Age and glaciation. I found it fascinating and thought that maybe human history would likewise be of interest.” Above all, it was McPherson’s attention to contemporary events that spurred his interest in history. “My awakening understanding of world events at the time––the Cold War, the presidential elections, the emerging Civil Rights Movement––all that spurred a need to have a knowledge of the past,” he remembers.
After beginning graduate studies at Johns Hopkins University, McPherson saw firsthand how a historian’s understanding of past events can be applied to current issues. His adviser, C. Vann Woodward, was an acclaimed scholar whose book on Jim Crow laws was recognized by Martin Luther King, Jr. as “the historical bible of the Civil Rights Movement.” McPherson recalls that when he visited Woodward’s office for the first time, the professor was not there. He had been called away from campus to testify before a Congressional committee on school integration in Little Rock.
“That was eye-opening,” McPherson recalls. “Here was a historian who had reached a broad audience with his research, who had made an enormous impact, and he was being consulted by Congress as an expert on contemporary issues. That shaped my perspective of what a historian should try to achieve.”
To become a historian whose work had that kind of influence, McPherson recognized that he had to write in a way that would reach a broad audience. Key to this approach was telling stories. “History is really the story of the past,” he insists. “As a historian who wants to gain people’s attention, you have to be able to hold your readers. You must be able to tell a story. A historian has to present an account of the past as a narrative, with a beginning, middle and end, with causes and consequences.”
After earning his PhD at Johns Hopkins, McPherson joined the history department at Princeton University in 1962. In a career spanning four decades, he earned the highest accolades in the academic field of history, included terms as president of the American Historical Association and the Society of American Historians. Yet McPherson’s approach to writing history is sometimes at odds with the more analytical practices of fellow scholars. “A lot of rewards in the academic world go to people who use new methodologies and cutting-edge research,” he points out. “Young historians shy away from narrative history, for fear of being branded as someone not breaking new ground.”
In McPherson’s view, the analytical historian and narrative historian should work together. “Metaphorically speaking, we can say that people doing more analytical or theoretical research create the bricks,” he explains, “while those who take a more narrative approach put those bricks together into walls. They add the roof and windows. They create a whole structure.”
McPherson insists, however, that storytelling is also a sophisticated means of interpreting history. “In going to the sources to answer questions, you find stories that illustrate a point better than any analytical passage you could write. In my research, I am always on the lookout for a bright quotation, a story, or even a joke. This is what catches the reader’s attention. And if you can do that, if you can make the reader respond to your writing, you are making a more effective argument.”
Of course, an essential requirement for the historian as storyteller is to present a reliable account of the past, “a sixth sense for what it is plausible and implausible,” McPherson says. All historians can be lured by a stirring yet apocryphal anecdote. It is their responsibility to verify the truth of those stories, to ensure the accuracy of the stories they use. “Admittedly, ‘truth’ is a somewhat slippery concept. Still, the historian must be a fanatic for ferreting out the truth.”