American Historians and the Idea of National Character: Some Problems and Prospects

Abstract

acter in a curious manner: on the one hand, most historians take a dim view of any serious attempts to generalize about the of a nation; on the other hand, most of them constantly do it. Few scholars would care to attempt a defense of the stereotypes commonly applied to the inhabitants of various nations, yet those stereotypes frequently creep into their writing on such matters. And, whether it is Henry Steele Commager writing of America-Over a period of two and a half centuries, marked by such adventures as few other people had known, Americans had created an American character and formulated an American philosophy or Melvin C. Wren writing of Russia The geographical factors which set the Russian land apart from the rest of Eurasia have helped produce a national character as distinctive as the land in which it grew very few national histories have failed to betray the author's private belief in the characterological difference between the people of his interest and others.' Historians, despite their general conservatism when pressed specifically on the matter of national character, all too often have displayed the behavior noted by Walter Metzger: It comes about that scholarly practice accepts what scholarly theory renounces, and a venture repudiated in program is repeatedly affirmed by act.2 In the area of serious, direct and careful attempts at dealing with national character, however, historians have somewhat recently been replaced by behavioral scientists as the scholars most likely to produce valid and