"It is this conception of the unity of the human career which is perhaps the greatest achievement of historical study, since it gained a place analogous to that of natural science"
About this Quote
Breasted is arguing for history as a hard-won technology of perspective: a way of seeing humanity not as a scatterplot of tribes and eras, but as one continuous project with a shared trajectory. Coming from an archaeologist in the early 20th century, the line carries the ambitions of a field trying to graduate from antiquarian curiosity to disciplined knowledge-making. Archaeology and history were busy professionalizing, building institutions, standardizing methods, and competing for the prestige that “natural science” had already banked.
The phrase “unity of the human career” is doing double duty. On its face, it’s generous: the past becomes legible as connected experience rather than exotic fragments. Underneath, it’s a claim about authority. If historical study can produce unity, it can also produce rules, narratives, and, crucially, a coherent “we.” That’s why Breasted frames it as an “achievement” rather than an observation; unity isn’t simply found in the record, it’s assembled through selection, interpretation, and synthesis.
His comparison to natural science is less a neutral analogy than a bid for legitimacy. He’s saying: history can deliver something like the explanatory power of biology or geology - not just stories, but structured understanding. The subtext reflects its moment: a Progressive Era faith in expertise, and a tendency to treat civilization as a single developmental arc. The power of the sentence is also its risk. “Unity” can illuminate interconnectedness, but it can flatten difference, turning messy, plural pasts into one clean storyline that conveniently mirrors the storyteller’s worldview.
The phrase “unity of the human career” is doing double duty. On its face, it’s generous: the past becomes legible as connected experience rather than exotic fragments. Underneath, it’s a claim about authority. If historical study can produce unity, it can also produce rules, narratives, and, crucially, a coherent “we.” That’s why Breasted frames it as an “achievement” rather than an observation; unity isn’t simply found in the record, it’s assembled through selection, interpretation, and synthesis.
His comparison to natural science is less a neutral analogy than a bid for legitimacy. He’s saying: history can deliver something like the explanatory power of biology or geology - not just stories, but structured understanding. The subtext reflects its moment: a Progressive Era faith in expertise, and a tendency to treat civilization as a single developmental arc. The power of the sentence is also its risk. “Unity” can illuminate interconnectedness, but it can flatten difference, turning messy, plural pasts into one clean storyline that conveniently mirrors the storyteller’s worldview.
Quote Details
| Topic | Knowledge |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
More Quotes by James
Add to List
