Imperfect Archives and the Historical Imagination
Imperfect Archives and the Historical Imagination
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不完美的档案与历史想象
DOI：
10.1525/tph.2014.36.1.77
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发表时间：
2014
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
L. Harris
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
L. Harris
2000年，我收到了我的第一本书《在奴隶制的阴影下：纽约市的非裔美国人，1626-1863》的最后一套读者报告。这本书是我的论文的修订版，我在论文中描绘了一部从1785年解放前夕开始的非洲裔美国人生活史。在这本书中，我又增加了160多年的历史，以回应我听过太多次的问题“纽约有奴隶吗？”但是，根据二手资料撰写这段历史是很困难的，以至于十八个月前，一位第一批读者的报告敦促我删除那些关于奴隶制的章节，称它们“无聊”。然而，我决心保留它们，坚持修改语言，试图找出那个时代的中心主题。因此，我对这位读者这次评论中微弱的赞扬语言感到兴奋。语言更加清晰;这些年和我的书的其余部分之间的联系得到了阐明。尽管如此，这位读者还是为那个时期提出了一个更高的标准：“总有一天，有人会想出如何让这个时期变得生动起来。”. . . "我知道我已经尽了自己最大的努力;我也希望别人能做得更好，研究和写作我发现的东西，太晚了，是早期纽约的迷人历史。我和那位匿名读者都没有想到，在五年内，一个博物馆展览会迎接挑战。我很幸运地加入了学术历史学家和博物馆专业人士的团队，
in 2000, i received the final set of readers’ reports for my first book, In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863. The book was a revision of my dissertation, in which I had charted a history of African American lives beginning in 1785, on the eve of emancipation. For the book, I added an additional 160-odd years of history, in response to having heard too many times the question ‘‘there were slaves in New York?’’ But the writing of that history, based on secondary sources, had been difficult—so much so that one of those first readers’ reports eighteen months before had urged me to excise those chapters on slavery, calling them ‘‘boring.’’ Determined to keep them, however, I had persisted in massaging the language and trying to figure out the central themes of that time. Thus, I was thrilled with the faint-praise language of that reader’s comments this time. The language was more clear; the connection between those years and the rest of my book elucidated. Still, this reader held out a higher standard for that time period: ‘‘one day, someone will figure out how to make this period come alive. . . . ’’ I knew I had done the best I could within my own powers; I too hoped that someone else would do a better job of researching and writing what I had discovered, too late, was a fascinating history of early New York. Neither I nor the anonymous reader could have imagined that, within five years, a museum exhibit would rise to the challenge. I was fortunate to be among the team of academic historians and museum professionals who came