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The History Between the Lines
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Midway through Moby-Dick, Stubb, the second mate, is frustrated in his attempts at researching the astrological symbols on the Spanish doubloon Ahab has nailed to the mast as a reward for the first sighting of the white whale. Stubb expostulates, “Book! . . . you books must know your places. You’ll do to give us the bare words and facts, but we come in to supply the thoughts.” Those of us who write books should heed that warning, for mere “books”—recitations of “bare words and facts”—can never tell the truth in any culturally significant way. “Facts are inert,” argued the literary scholar William Mulder, “until they are enlivened by the imagination.”1 And yet some historians continue to write compilations of unenlivened facts, proud of our diligence and resourcefulness in finding fugitive sources and separating fact from fiction, assuming that that is the sum total of the historian’s duties. They, and the reading public, often consider as history mere compilations or chronicles of “fact.” This is not to say that historians eschew analysis and interpretation, since those are signature responsibilities of the profession, but even then historians are often hesitant to make any projections beyond what can be firmly and explicitly established in the historical record. As one of the literary arts from ancient times, history must stand beside its sister disciplines of philosophy and poetry to say something significant about the human condition. For a historian to be content with merely establishing an accurate factual record, or even with sticking to an interpretation that strays not at all from a written text, would be like a poet contenting himself with flawless rhyme and impeccable grammar. Utah historiography, in particular, has been dominated by a sort of logical positivism, a radical empiricism that forbids any speculation or conjecture—indeed, any assertion that cannot be closely documented by reference to a primary source. This essay is meant as a corrective to what I see as an imbalance in Utah historiography. Rather than adhering single mindedly to what a historical document definitely tells us, I encourage historians to use evidence to read between the lines and, in so doing, offer greater interpretive insight than would otherwise be available. I use two examples of how taking this approach can offer interpretive
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