Introduction

Summary

Writing in The American Merchant in 1859 Buffalo, New York, businessman, author, civic leader, and scholarly dilettante Roswell Willson Haskins (1796–1870) ambitiously offered to readers his personal “Philosophy of History.” “By nature a democrat” politically, as his biographer later noted, the lessons of the French Revolution had inspired in Haskins an entrenched scepticism of both religion and monarchy. He brought these and other prejudices to bear in his undoubtedly quixotic, and ultimately ignored, efforts to set aright American historical studies. Observing among his countrymen the enormous popularity of historical writing, second only to fiction, Haskins critiqued those “standard” histories then available to American readers, claiming that they gave the false impression of history as “narratives of rule—of mere domination” rather than “what was dominated, what was governed.” According to Haskins, history, when pursued properly, should focus on “the people,” while also considering the ostensible divisions between races.

The history of early France, for Haskins, served as an ideal case in point, despite what he perceived as a relative indifference on the part of his fellow Americans towards that nation's history: “If, from recent events in Europe, or from whatever other cause any one should be singular enough…to wish some knowledge of early France—a wish, by the way, that is not often manifested—he would of course, resort to what are known as the standard histories of that county.” But these standard sources, Haskins suggested, provided only “dead and soulless” antiquarian details that ultimately told readers very little of real importance. In contrast, modern fiction and poetry by the likes of Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) gave a far better impression of the national character and spirit of the French kingdom's founders. The true story of France's origins, according to Haskins, was one of diverse “races” gradually, and not without violence, congealing into a single nation.

There was, needless to say, no small amount of personal hubris underlying Haskins's assumption that the bulk of his fellow citizens might not, like himself, find their interest in early French history piqued by recent and dramatic events across the Atlantic.