New Historicism

The idea of an white, European, male dominated history has always bothered me: as a kid I believed my history books told the complete truth. I had no reason to doubt the “correctness” of my lessons because I could repeat facts and score well on tests. The books weren't lying, but they had a specific, Western view of history. Starting in first grade, my class celebrated Christopher Columbus with a day off of school and by learning a catchy song I still remember parts of to this day: “Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492”. As third-graders, we all looked forward to the Thanksgiving feast where half of us dressed up as Pilgrims and the other as Indians brought food to share. So of course I saw American colonization as a good thing and didn’t think that anyone objected. From the viewpoint of history I was told, everyone in America seemed happy with colonization. As I got older, social studies classes started to cover other aspects of American history. The first time I learned about the Trail of Tears, I was shocked. It was hard for me to make the jump from happy Indian friends at Thanksgiving to banishing them. I learned that a positive event in an history from an American perspective wasn't always seen as positive in others. 

Of course first-graders aren't told how Native Americans were treated. Kids need to understand single deaths, like in just about every Disney movie, before they can comprehend the genocide of almost an entire population. They are taught that America is good- to be proud of their home. So, American history is taught like a story book: the hero (British colonists) is sent by his evil stepfather (Britain) to a strange land (America), discovers treasure (natural resources), makes companions (Native Americans), the stepfather wants in on the riches, and the hero valiantly defeats the stepfather (American Revolution).

New historicists would look at how American children are taught their own country's history as a chance to learn about American culture. Classic historicists would just touch the surface, saying that the source of history is the most important detail to understanding it. They specifically look at the lens of history: who is writing the source, what perspective is shown, etc. New historicists would look at not only what the lens shows about the perspective of the storyteller, but also the society. They examine  historical accounts like artifacts, asking what they can find out about the culture by how they choose to tell history, who they write as the hero, what daily life is like, and what other narratives are absent. Because we teach kids the "story" of America, it shows that our culture is goal-oriented. Even today we romanticize the the "American dream". This is also based on how American history is told like a hero's tale. 

By thinking of history as a web of stories rather than a single story line is the basis of new historicism. Learning about this perspective made me curious about what else I can discover about history through a new historicist lens.