Historicism and constructionism: rival ideas of historical change

Simon ZB. Historicism and constructionism: rival ideas of historical change. History of European Ideas. 2019;45(8):1171-1190.A seemingly unitary appeal to history might evoke today two incompatible operations of historicization that yield contradictory results. This article attempts to understand two co-existing senses of historicity as conflicting ideas of historical change and rival practices of temporal comparison: historicism and constructionism. At their respective births, both claimed to make sense of the world and ourselves as changing over time. Historicism, dominating nineteenth-century Western thought and overseeing the professionalization of historical studies, advocated an understanding of the present condition of the human world as developing out of past conditions. Constructionism, dominating the second half of the twentieth century, understood the present condition as the recent invention of certain ‘historical’ environments, without prior existence. As competing ideas of historical change, they both entail a comparison between past and present conditions of their investigated subjects, but their practices of temporal comparison are irreconcilable and represent two distinct ways of historicization

a behavior approach to Hisrical Analisis

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Inventaires de biens et proto-comptabilités dans le nord de la France (XIe-début XIIe siècle).

Die Verwaltungsschrift im eigentlichen Sinne bleibt im Nordfrankreich des 11. Jahrhunderts eher selten, während in die vorgehenden und folgenden Jahrhunderte die Schaffung großer Urkundentypen fällt, erst die Polyptychen, dann die Zinsbücher. Das Verhältnis zwi schen Landverwaltung und Schriftproduktion läßt sich nur anhand konkreter Fallbeispiele untersuchen, wie sie hier aus fünf Benediktiner-Klöstern ausgesucht werden (Saint-Denis, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Saint-Bertin de Saint-Omer, Saint-Vaast d'Arras, Saint-Père de Chartres). Man beobachtet überall eine parallele, wenn gleichzeitig versetzte Entwicklung: die Besitz bestätigungen durch höher stehende Auctoritates werden immer detailgetreuer; es entstehen kompilierte Schriften, also mehr oder weniger historiographisch geprägte Kartularien, die unterschiedliche Dokumente enthalten und bald einer geographischen Ordnung folgen; es erscheinen unterschiedliche Arten von Verzeichnissen (Grundbesitz, Dienstverpflichtungen aller Art, Schatzinventare) und Vorläufer einer Rechnungsführung. Aber eine wirkliche Entwicklung entsteht hieraus erst gegen Ende des 11. Jahrhunderts und zu Beginn des 12. Jahrhunderts. Sie bezeugt weniger eine neuartige Beherrschung der Schrift als das Aufkommen neuer Notwendigkeiten.Written documents as tools for management are uncommun in Northern France in the eleventh century, whereas the preceding and following centuries witnessed the development of important categories of documents, from polyptychs to rentals. The relationship between estate management and writing is examined through five case-studies concerning five Benedictine monasteries (Saint-Denis, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Saint-Bertin of Saint-Omer, Saint-Vaast of Arras, Saint-Père of Chartres). A similar evolution may be observed in all these cases, albeit at different dates. Confirmations of property rights requested from higher authorities become more detailed. Books are compiled, i.e. cartularies drawn up more or less following historiographical models, including different types of documents, and soon given a geographical lay-out. Lists of various types (lands, services of all kinds, inventories of treasuries) and proto-accounts make their appearance. But this movement is in full swing only at the end of the eleventh or beginning of the twelfth centuries. Rather than a new mastery of writing, it reveals the emergence of new needs.L'écrit de gestion à proprement parler est rare dans la France du nord au XIe siècle alors, que les siècles précédents et suivants ont à leur actif la création de grands types documentaires, polyptyques puis censiers. Etudier la relation entre la gestion de la terre et la production de l'écrit présuppose d'examiner des cas précis, qui sont pris dans cinq monastères bénédictins (Saint-Denis, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Saint-Bertin de Saint-Omer, Saint-Vaast d'Arras, Saint-Père de Chartres). Partout s'observe une évolution analogue, encore que décalée dans le temps: les confirmations de biens demandées à des autorités supérieures se font plus détaillées; des livres sont compilés, cartulaires plus ou moins coulés dans un moule historiographique, qui incluent des documents divers et sont bientôt organisés selon un plan géographique; des listes diversifiées (terres, services de tout genre, inventaires de trésors) et des proto-comptabilités apparaissent. Mais le mouvement n'est vraiment lancé qu'à la fin du XIe et au début du XIIe siècle; il témoigne moins d'une nouvelle maîtrise de l'écrit que de l'émergence de nouveaux besoins.Berkhofer Robert F. Inventaires de biens et proto-comptabilités dans le nord de la France (XIe-début XIIe siècle).. In: Bibliothèque de l'école des chartes. 1997, tome 155, livraison 1. pp. 339-349

Salvation and the Savage: An Analysis of Protestant Missions and American Indian Response, 1787–1862

The great, pre-Civil War attempt of Protestant missionaries to Christianize Native Americans is found by Robert F. Berkofer, Jr. to be a significant point of contact with enduring lessons for American thought. The irony displayed by this relationship, he says, did not really lie in the disparity between Anglo-Saxon ideals and the actual treatment of first peoples but in the failure of all, including the missions, to see that both sides had ultimately behaved according to their cultural values. Using the records of missions to sixteen tribes in various regions of the United States, Berkofer has carefully followed the hopeful efforts of sixty-five years. The ultimate outcome, when the Civil War brought most of the missions to an end, was only a nominal conversion of Native Americans, despite the unflagging optimism of missionaries struggling against cultural barriers. This work was co-recipient of the McKnight Foundation Humanities Prize in American History for 1963. Robert F. Berkofer, Jr. was professor of history emeritus at the University of California, Santa Cruz.https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_united_states_history/1047/thumbnail.jp