Samuel E. Morison
Samuel E. Morison
Samuel Eliot Morison,was an American historian noted for his works of maritime history and American history that were both authoritative and highly popular. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1912, and taught history at the university for 40 years. He won Pulitzer Prizes for Admiral of the Ocean Sea, a biography of Christopher Columbus, and John Paul Jones: A Sailor's Biography. In 1942, he was commissioned to write a history of United States naval operations in World War...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth9 July 1887
CountryUnited States of America
Historical methodology, as I see it, is a product of common sense applied to circumstances.
The same contingencies of time and space that force a statesman or soldier to make decisions, impel the historian, though with less urgency, to make up his mind.
Courses on historical methodology are not worth the time that they take up. I shall never give one myself, and I have observed that many of my colleagues who do give such courses refrain from exemplifying their methods by writing anything.
Every historian with professional standards speaks or writes what he believes to be true.
If a lecturer, he wishes to be heard; if a writer, to be read. He always hopes for a public beyond that of the long-suffering wife.
So I have cultivated the vast garden of human experience which is history, without troubling myself overmuch about laws, essential first causes, or how it is all coming out.
Throughout this evolution from left to right, Beard always detested war. Hence his writings were slanted to show that the military side of history was insignificant or a mere reflection of economic forces.
With honesty of purpose, balance, a respect for tradition, courage, and, above all, a philosophy of life, any young person who embraces the historical profession will find it rich in rewards and durable in satisfaction.
Yet enthusiasm is no excuse for the historian going off balance. He should remind the reader that outcomes were neither inevitable nor foreordained, but subject to a thousand changes and chances.
Everyone agrees to that; but when we come to define truth, dissension starts.
Too rigid specialization is almost as bad for a historian's mind, and for his ultimate reputation, as too early an indulgence in broad generalization and synthesis.
Any child knows that history can only be a reduced representation of reality, but it must be a true one, not distorted by queer lenses.
Skepticism is an important historical tool. It is the starting point of all revision of hitherto accepted history.
I have nothing revolutionary or even novel to offer.