After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection, Volume I

I am one of the lucky ones that stumbled onto vol I and vol II of After The Fact. In these books the authors look at history as a detective story. They take the facts and then read between the lines to try and figure it all out. Their technique is basically how I always looked at history. Every historian has a point of view. The true story is rarely right there in any book in black and white - it is between the lines. And often between the lines of several different books. The truth must be hunted out. And you hunt it out by asking objective, rational questions. It is a great and refreshing approach to learning history. Books written by Richard Noble: "Hobo-ing America: A Workingman's Tour of the U.S.A.." "A Summer with Charlie" "A Little Something: Poetry and Prose" "Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother"

Davidson and Lytle's book is a study in historiography dealing with the interpretation and analysis of the sources used to report history. The authors concentrate on the several types of sources and the drawbacks of each, specifically biases. Examples include written, oral, video, psycho, cultural, economic and political history. This version includes an investigative CD which enhances the lessons in the book. After the Fact is a good companion to Richard Evans' In Defense of History, David Fischer's Historians' Fallacies, and Mark Gilderhus' History and Historians.

After the Fact is a book that every serious historian should have in their library. Davidson and Lytle do a great job elucidating the various aspects of exploring the conundrum of history. From the very basic task of exploring the veracity of the Declaration of Independence to the monumental task of discovering the reasons why history was made in a certain context. Every chapter is interesting and captivating, and a "must read" to supplement the history seminar. If you do not have this book already, I strongly suggest purchasing it.

In each of its editions, After the Fact remains one of my favorite books. The first time I read the book, I began the Introduction (often a daunting task) and read the authors' account of using the tree rings on a recently cut-down tree as a device for recalling local history, and I was hooked! I have read each of the editions (except the recently published hardback) and think they are great. Davidson and Lytle take people and/or events in United States history and write chapters on the events demonstrating methods and techniques used in studying and writing history. This sounds heavy and boring -- but it isn't. The reality is an engrossing look at events -- some well-known, others almost unknown -- that reminds us that good history requires a good narrative and that historians have to use many different methods and techniques to get the information they need to write their narratives. The chapters combine one incident and one aspect of how historians go about doing history. The chapter on the Salem witch trials tells a good story while introducing the reader painlessly to the historical concepts of demographics, multiple causation, community dynamics, and the status of women in 17th century New England. It also gives several reasons the young accusers may have had physical convulsions. Psychohistory is the method explored in the chapter on John Brown and leads the reader to think about the whole concept of madness or insanity in our legal system and what constitutes sanity. The Prologue is one of my favorite chapters, taking a relatively unknown diplomat from the Revolutionary period, Silas Deane, and using the circumstances of his death to discuss the pivotal hisorical issue of evidence and how difficult it is to determine which pieces of evidence are important. A theme running through these chapters and many of the others is how much we don't know about historical events and how even the best history is open to various interpretations. It reminds me why many historians also like to read mysteries and detective fiction. Since the first edition was published, I have used After the Fact in classes that I teach on the college level. My students love it! Even students who don't find history very interesting usually enjoy at least parts of After the Fact. They find it more interesting than they expect a history text book to be. So do I. I couldn't even guess how many times I've read the book, and each time I'm struck by how fresh and interesting most of it remains. Above all else, it is history written the way history should be written.

After the Fact is usually read by college history majors. That is surely something I am not. As a future economics/English major heading off to Yale next fall, I found this book to be nonetheless very lucid for something so lauded for its groundbreaking insights and explainations. It has been cited by such "pop" historians as James W. Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me. And this is for a good reason. Through highly entertaining tales of American history, historians Davidson and Lytle uncover some of the most common myths that currently surround the process of creating history. The book illuminates one's understanding of American history while enlightening one to the underlying methods of historians. For a textbook, it is not "textbookish" at all. I would even recommend it for pleasure reading.