Historia Contemporánea

T H E L A N D S C A P E O F H I STO RY

also by john lewis gaddis The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941–1947 Russia, the Soviet Union, and the United States: An Interpretive History Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War The United States and the End of the ColdWar: Implications, Reconsiderations, Provocations We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History

T H E L A N D S C A P E O F H I STO RY
How Historians Map the Past

J O H N L EW I S GAD D I S

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2002

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Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi São PauloShanghai Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Copyright © 2002 by John Lewis Gaddis Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gaddis, John Lewis. The landscape of history : how historians map the past / John Lewis Gaddis. p. cm. Includes index. isbn 0-19-506652-9 1. History—Philosophy. 2. History—Methodology. 3. Aesthetics—History. I. Title. d16.8 .g23 2002 901—dc21 2002010392Book design and composition by Mark McGarry, Texas Type & Book Works. Set in Linotype Fairfield. 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

For Toni The Love of Life and a Life of Love

CON TE N TS

Preface ix
one two three four five six seven eight

The Landscape of History 1 Time and Space 17 Structure and Process 35 The Interdependency of Variables53 Chaos and Complexity 71 Causation, Contingency, and Counterfactuals 91 Molecules with Minds of Their Own 111 Seeing Like a Historian 129 Notes 153 Index 183

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The University of Oxford has again provided a hospitable setting in which to write a book. The occasion this time was the 2000/1 George Eastman Visiting Professorship in Balliol College, a chair dating back to 1929whose occupants have included Felix Frankfurter, Linus Pauling, Willard Quine, George F. Kennan, Lionel Trilling, Clifford Geertz, William H. McNeill, Natalie Zemon Davis, and Robin Winks. As befits a position with such diverse and distinguished predecessors, the Eastman electors do not find it necessary to provide current chairholders with detailed instructions as to what they are expected to do. Myown letter of appointment specified only “participation in twenty-four academic functions during the three terms of the academic year.” It then added, accurately enough as I discovered, “that the Eastman Professor enjoys considerable scope for flexibility in adjusting the pedagogical activities in combination with scholarly projects which the holder may wish to pursue.” Confronted with so muchlatitude in so congenial a setting, I was at first at a loss to know how to use my time. One possibility, I suppose, would have been simply to dine: high table at Oxford is definitely an “academic function.” Another would have been to spend the

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year doing research, but this would have disappointed my hosts, who clearly expected some sort of visibility. A third would have been tolecture on Cold War history; but I’d done that as Harmsworth Professor eight years earlier and had since published the lectures.1 Even in a rapidly changing field like this one, would there be that much new to say? I rather doubted it. So in the end, I settled on something completely different: a set of lectures, delivered as before in the Examination Schools building on High Street, on the...