Lost Causes

Abstract

Often papers begin with an idea. Once the paper is written, sometimes little sometimes much effort goes into finding a title. This lecture worked the other way round. It started with the title, which I passed on to Roy Weintraub, my successor as President of the Society, when I still had but the vaguest idea ol what I would write. When Roy heardmy title he pointed me to a passage from C. Vann Woodward, that he hadhimself quotedinStablizing Dynamics:Lost causes, especially those that foster loyalties and nostalgic memories are among the most prolific breeders of historiography. If survivors deem the cause not wholly lost andperhaps in some measure retrievable, the search of the past becomes more frantic and the books about it more numerous. Blame must be fixed, villains found, heroes celebrated, old quarrels settled, old dreams restored, and motives vindicated. Amid the ruins controversy thrives and books proliferate (quoted by Weintraub 1991, p. 125, from Vann Woodward 1986).