Nearby History (Second Edition)

Rating:
Summary: Nearby History (2nd edition)
Review: I found that "Nearby History" (2nd edition) was actually quite an informative book. I was looking for something in particular about my family, and I was at a complete loss as to how to find it. I haven't found it yet, but thanks to this book, I have made progress. I thought it'd be just for historians.

Rating:
Summary: Nearby History (2nd edition)
Review: I found that "Nearby History" (2nd edition) was actually quite an informative book. I was looking for something in particular about my family, and I was at a complete loss as to how to find it. I haven't found it yet, but thanks to this book, I have made progress. I thought it'd be just for historians.

Rating:
Summary: More introspection into common items
Review: Keeping a diary is a commendable and worthwhile pursuit if its content forms a cohesive, relevant history that future generations can appreciate. However, if one treats "daily jottings as cheap therapy," the record created prevails only for the gain of one person, not progeny (48). Readers of Kyvig and Marty's Nearby History will never look at journal writing the same, and more importantly, they will not see ordinary things within close proximity as ordinary anymore.

In Nearby History, "the commonplace becomes the mystifying" (129). Kyvig and Marty succeed in making everyday items such as manhole covers and fire hydrants exciting, saying that a look at the materials used in their design, their function, the materials used in their construction, etc. tell a lot about the history of their locale (172-173). The volume shows that fast food restaurants anywhere can be excellent barometers of change over time (168). The authors suggest that something as boring as a tax form can be a useful historical trace (57). Nearby History teaches that seemingly mundane objects, upon critical introspection, can become a treasure trove of historical information. For instance, in the caption of a photograph of a small schoolhouse, the authors ask, "What does the physical appearance of a school suggest about the nature of the educational experience?" (31). Questions that should be posed when examining the facets of local history - family, religion, culture, etc. - abound in the volume. The answers to the book's questions can lead anyone on a more successful journey into the past.

To make trips into the past more rewarding, one cannot simply look at surviving written traces. Nearby History shows the importance of examining artifacts and their potential to add needed depth to the historical record. Words and pictures are abstractions - ideas conceived in the mind - while artifacts prove concrete (149). Artifacts are "silent carriers of vast amounts of information about the past (149). Material culture, the book explains, has been especially useful in uncovering women's history, since many women did not leave written records. Artifacts demonstrate how earlier generations solved daily problems and provide insights into tastes, customs, manners, and styles of living (156).

Through its handling of everyday items as historical records unto themselves, Nearby History can be treated as the practical guide to becoming an amateur historian. Its introduction argues that the emotional rewards of learning about a past affecting one's own life cannot be duplicated (12). However, its conclusion stresses that local history should be put into better context by comparing it to similar phenomena elsewhere, saying "the historian who wishes to understand a topic never regards it as existing in a vacuum" (217). Such an inference reiterates the book's strength - its continuing lesson that observing any item at face value yields practically nothing while continually asking questions produces an abundance of useful information.

The book's main weakness is easy to spot. It is astoundingly outdated. Much of the technology it suggests one use while doing research, especially in the collection of oral evidence, does not exist anymore or is rarely used. An updated edition would be welcome to better serve as a guide for historians, both amateur and academic, in their discovery of the vast array of stories told close at hand.