I left the academic practice of history at least in part because I didn't want to write that way all my life. I don't believe the epistemology behind academic prose: that one applies a given method or theoretical frame to a given body of data, and presto, history emerges. And I don't much like the prose style, Academic Standard, that follows from this theory. The rhetorical aim of Academic Standard is to convince readers that this history emerged as a quasi-scientific process, almost without human intervention. And I don't buy either the claim or the prose.
Still, some smart people work in history, and some good prose emerges. I was glancing in an old favourite among historical journals, The William and Mary Quarterly -- dedicated to scholarship on early American history -- when I came across a line that struck me strongly, both as good prose and as clear, informative history.
The author is Robert Sweeny, a prof at Memorial, I believe. His article compares the French colony founded at Quebec in 1608 and the English one founded at Newfoundland in 1610. It's a Marxist analysis comparing "modes of production" -- not always my favourite kind of analysis, and not always a seedbed of sparkling prose, shall we say.
But give Sweeny credit for this pithy sentence: "Canada [ie, New France on the St. Lawrence] was the world's last feudal society, whereas Newfoundland was the world's first capitalist society."
True enough, I think, and crystallizing things I found myself thinking while visiting Newfoundland recently. Wish I'd thought it as clearly myself. You can read a little of Sweeny's article here.
