Ralph Emerson Twitchell
Just bought Volume I and Volume II of the book "Leading Facts of New Mexico History" written by Ralph Emerson Twitchell. Read all about him at the website below;http://dev.newmexicohistory.org/filedetails.php?fileID=21280
Ole Ralphie was quite the character, he would upset the "Hispano" New Mexicans and the Pueblo Indians to no end. It is good to keep that in mind when reading his "Leading Facts of New Mexico History". These eminent historians had a way of putting their point, or slanted view, of history up front in their writings. Twitchell was no different.
Anyway, I had read the books from the library, but they were too expensive for me to buy. The other day I was on Amazon and looked up Ralph E. Twitchell and saw Volumes I and II for about $25.00 plus shipping. That my friends is a real bargain, especially hardcover, cloth bound in very good condition.
There are three other volumes which were written several years after volumes I and II. They contain additional material but these two are the real gems. I was super glad to find them at the price I did.
Anyway, I will dive into both volumes and hope to finish them by about Thanksgiving. Volume I is 506 pages and Volume II is 631 pages. My retention of material is average at best, so reading them a second time is well worth my time.
A closing quote from Twitchell:
"The writer of history, in his presentation of events occurring during a given period, may be compared to the lawyer in the preparation and presentation of a case...So the historical writer should not be merely a narrator, chronicler. He should not be the witness giving testimony. He should be the lawyer, the advocate, the painter, the artist evolving an historical picture for the mind and creating impressions which result in conclusions."
In other words convince the reader that your version of the "facts" are the true facts. Not sure this is the way to do history.
1 comment:
Or that your argument is convincing.
This is a very interesting post. One reason "historians" might do that is that there are millions and millions of facts. Each of the several million people living in New Mexico today is creating an endless stream of them, and they always have going back to the first arrivals. What to do with all those but make an educated guess?
I have to agree with you, however. A couple posts ago you listed some genealogical type facts and I said that they allowed me to imagine those peoples' lives. But my images aren't the history. When I imagine things, my images come from an incomplete knowledge and a biased interpretation of it, and so would anyone else's, I believe. They come from things I've heard from you and Jim Baca and from looking around me and reading some history and having some notions about Hispanic people, who I didn't grow up around although I grew up in America which is about half full of people who know for sure what Hispanic people are like. I could come back to your facts later, knowing more and having other biases, and people like me can consult your facts over the years, as can historians, and our images of what those peoples' lives were like will be many and varied, but the facts are a constant. You can't veer off too far to one side of them or the other.
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