On How to Study History

I just started a new book called Founding Brothers by Joseph J. Ellis, a revered analysis of several of the early Americans who formed the political process we enjoy in the U.S.

In the Acknowledgements, Ellis starts with a brilliant quote form the book Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey that I absolutely love:

"It is not by the direct method of scrupulous narration that the explorer of the past can hope to depict a singular epoch.  If he is wise, he will adopt a subtler strategy.  He will attack his subject in unexpected places; he will fall upon the flank and rear; he will shoot a sudden revealing searchlight into obscure recesses, hitherto undivined.  He will row out over the great ocean of material, and lower down into it, here and there, a little bucket, which will bring up to the light of day some characteristic specimen, from those far depths, to be examined with careful curiosity."

To the contrary, I've always loved the tome.  That's why I'm currently reading Volume V of the epochal biography George Washington by Douglas Southall Freeman.  That's why, after originally falling in love with history some 15 years ago I decided to go back to the beginning of recorded history itself, and to proceed chronologically through the millennia.

But this counter-strategy outlined by Strachey has its own brilliance.  I need to seek more variety in my reading.  I need to pick the random figure that piques my interest and explore his or her story.  I need to read more about non-political figures, the inventors, writers, artists and musicians who lived during the time under study.

So that's what I intend to do...