An Interview with Peter Burke

The "Early Modern" Period

What follows is a literal transcription of an interview held on June 26th, 1990 by Karl Vocelka [KV] and Markus Reisenleitner [MR]. This interview has also been translated into German.

KV: Peter, I would like to ask you first, what do you think, how can we define early modern history, when does it start, when does it end, what is specific for early modern European history?

PB: Now this is one of our problems because it's very tempting to say 1500, say to 1800, but then 1500 -- would it not be better to have 1492, 1494 at the other end would it not be better to have 1789, but then if you choose those dates, they are really too specific. Sometimes I think it would be better to include the 15th century, sometimes not. I think you want to stop halfway through the 18th century, I'd be tempted to go a little further. I assume this is one of our problems. Nobody can agree as to when the early modern period begins or when it ends.

KV: Yes, our idea was that in the fourties and fifties of the 18th century in Austria there was Enlightened Absolutism, centralisation starts, and this creates a new situation, so what do you think -- is this Enlightened Absolutism characteristic -- can it form part of the early modern history or do you think it is more modern than traditional, more belonging to contemporary history or more belonging to early modern history?

PB: Well, I go the opposite way. I'm very happy to include it, but I want to include a bit more. I suppose I'm being very impressed by the arguments of, well, Koselleck in particular that the late 18th century is the true "Sattelzeit" and that this goes for all sorts of aspects of social and cultural life. So I would tend to extend it to the seventeen-nineties, or, and, well, if one had to have a date, 1789 or preferably maybe 1800, because a round number -- nobody takes it so seriously. In a sense, I don't mind as long as we don't take the period too seriously. What I am afraid of is the reification of the period, and because of division of labour we want to divide ourselves off from the mediaevalists on one side, the modernists on the other. But if we started to believe that our period is homogenous, then that would be the end. So I treat it just as a flag of convenience. I realise thinking back that I am guilty of publishing two books with the words "Early Modern" in the title. In that sense I am committed to the concept, but without being able to tell you when it began or when it ended. And the biggest objection is surely the one of Marc Bloch that the dates that matter vary according to the problem you are interested in. And so if political history need not have, probably should not have the same dates as economic history, and the history of high culture probably should not have the same dates as the history of popular culture. And yet we want to do total history, so what are we doing? I think the only thing is we use this term, but we don't pretend it's more than convenience.

KV: Do you think that there is nevertheless a specific way of methods and a specific way of history itself in this early modern period? Do we need special methods for early modern history?

PB: I can't think of any methods that we would use which wouldn't also be available to medievalists. And maybe also to historians of the 19th century. I can see that for the history of the 20th century there are special methods, like oral history. But I cannot think of anything which is unique to the 16th, 17th, 18th century.

KV: In the history of this period itself, is there something different from other periods? How would you try to define the differences, even if it's only a convenience if we say it's "early modern history"? Is there something different?

PB: Yes, we've got to have something which will differentiate it at both ends. At one end, because it's a traditional or pre-industrial society, you can see how it's different from the 19th and 20th centuries. But then trying to distinguish it from the Middle Ages, I would be tempted to go for much more cultural criteria. This is the age when there was more than one version of christianity, and people are having to choose between them. Surely this is a very big experience in many people's lives. Rather than growing up inside the Catholic church, orthodox church, scarcely aware that anybody else exists. You could make a case for the Renaissance, it's a weaker case, it affects fewer people, but again there is more cultural pluralism in our period than in the Middle Ages. So -- it sounds strange to define the period at one end by cultural criteria, at the other end by economic or social criteria, but I think that's probably the most workable. But don't you think in a sense the concept is self-contradictory -- it can't be -- if it's modern it's not early, if it's early it's not modern. But I suppose the reason is that -- in the early 19th century it was simple: there was ancient history, medieval history and modern history, and because politics was important, then 1494 was a good date for Ranke to start modern history. And this is fine even for Burckhardt. But then in the late 19th century modernity changes, and so there is some sense that the railway age and the age of mass nationalism and so on is new. So then we need a different label for the whole of the 16th, 17th, 18th centuries. And the Middle Ages have been used -- what else was there? So I think it is a compromise term and that it's only honest to recognise this, and that's the least dangerous thing to do. So I don't feel there is some kind of "early modern spirit" or anything like that. You want to be more positive?

KV: No, no. I agree absolutely with you. I always was not very fond of this periodisation discussions some of my professors liked when I was a student so I also don't think that periodisation is the most important thing in history. Periodisation is something like a label/sticker you give to a period to know what we are talking about, not more than that.

PB: Maybe it would be interesting to think what would be the ideal dates -- first for economic history, then for social, then for political, then for cultural, to see if we would agree and if the dates were similar or not. In economic history I don't think that 1500 is a wonderful date. I mean if one is going to say that the early modern period is the age of capitalism, either it's earlier than 1500 or it's later. I can't see anything happening [important around 1500]. Then if we tried political history, I am no longer convinced that 1494 was such a major date because the so-called "new monarchies" -- are they so very different from 15th-century monarchies? Well, the kind of centralisation, the scale of it, the number of civil servants, the real control of the provinces, does this really change until maybe the 17th century? In culture, it may be in high culture it's you can say the Renaissance, but then it's still a bit strange because you have to leave out the Early Renaissance. 1500 is the High Renaissance -- Raffael and Leonardo. Maybe for Northern Europe that's good because that's when the Renaissance really affects people outside Italy. And then it's nice to end with the Enlightenment. Renaissance to Enlightenment somehow makes sense to me. In popular culture I am less happy. I think that the traditional system goes on longer. I think 1850 would be better.

KV: Don't you think there are a lot of changes in Enlightenment in this popular culture? A lot of things which are not any longer allowed, in Austria for example these old traditions, all these old folk traditions? Do you think there is a sort of an end of a period?

PB: On one side, I think that only continues in maybe more secular form the attempt of the Counterreformation to reform popular culture, and on the other side I feel that popular culture is often so resilient that despite all these prohibitions people went on believing and acting in much the way as before. But then in the age of the railways and mass conscription and cheap newspapers and universal compulsory elementary education, then the world of ordinary people is decisively different. That means no longer a local culture.

And then in science I'd vote for the middle of the 17th century. In the case of absolutism, I'd vote for the middle of the 17th century, and in the case of war -- the so-called military revolution -- I'd be tempted to vote for that. I think 1650, more or less, is a terribly important date in European history. So I would cut the early modern period into two halves: early early and late early modern.

MR: Since we have the intention to publish a journal about early modern history, do you feel that there is an inherent danger that the stress is taken away from longue durée by concentrating on this defined period, however we define it?

PB: It's not too bad because you've got at least 300 years, and maybe 350, that's time to see quite a lot of things happening. And if it's a way of attracting attention to this period, and away from something more modern or away from the medievalists, that's fine, I just wish you luck. As long as nobody reifies the period, I think it's perfectly okay. I don't know if you are having an editorial statement or anything as to what you mean by founding the journal?

MR: We do, but it's pretty flexible.

KV: How would you consider the position of the history of foreign countries, non-European, in this early modern period? Is there a very important position of these foreign countries? Of course 1492 is a very important date, but do you think this is something that characterised the period, where changes occur?

PB: I suppose we'd better take region by region. And certainly the Americas is going to be the simplest one to deal with. Because this violent impact of the Europeans on them clearly is important in that history, as we now know not only in the political and religious history, but even in the demographic history. At the other end, the late 18th century is the time more of rebellion against the colonies and declarations of independence, so it's almost perfect, at least for the Americas. Asia is trickier, isn't it, so I suppose we should divide the Middle East from the Far East. In the case of the Middle East, well, the three great empires -- Ottoman, Persian and Mogul -- that seems to fit rather nicely, doesn't it. We have to adjust the dates a little bit, but the great age of those empires is so much early modern. It does get a bit trickier when we go to China and Japan. I don't really see much sense in talking about "Early Modern China", because they have the Ming dynasty from early in the 14th century, and then they have the great break, the time of troubles and the new dynasty in the middle of the 17th century, and then it goes to 1911. Maybe I am being too political. But on any other criteria -- economic I don't think the decisive changes took place either around 1500 or 1800. In the case of Japan, you've got the European impact on Japan in the early and mid-16th century, but then you've got the famous closing of the country, and then it is the eighteen-fifties, eighteen-sixties are the next decisive dates in Japanese history, around 1800 doesn't mean anything, it's just the middle of the Tokagawa-dynasty. In the case of Africa, I feel I'm too ignorant even to make any suggestions as to whether this fits or doesn't fit. But if you extended early modern at least as far as the Ottoman empire, that does seem to me to make sense.

KV: So the period of a starting deline?

PB: Yes.

KV: The Ottoman empire in the 16th century is still on a climax, but...

PB: Yes

MR: But in any case you would take the autonomous developments of these non-European countries as a starting point, not the European influence on them?

PB: Unless the European influence is so great, and I think you could say it was for, say, Latin America, as to determine everything else. If the population goes from 10 million to two million as a result of the diseases the Europeans brought with them, then this must affect life in so many ways. But in the case of Asia or Africa, I'm more sceptical about this kind of periodisation.

MR: Which would also mean some sort of colonial history, of course.

PB: Yes.

KV: Despite all the periodisation problems, would you consider this early modern period academically and is it developed in countries you know better, is it to be taken as an own subject, seperate from other subjects, or is it just a question of changing interests of historians, being at one time an early modern historian, at another time a historian of contemporary history? Do you think there is a certain inventory of books you read and things you do which characterises you as an early modern historian? Do you feel, do you identify as an early modern historian?

PB: In a way I'd like not to. I mean I'd like to be able to read so many books and know so many things that I was not confined to a period, and I do admire people like my old teacher Trevor Roper, who manages to keep going his interest in the history of 20th century Europe while at the same time always working on Europe in the 16th, 17th centuries. But I think this specialisation is no worse than any other, but it's only human limitations. And as far as recommending students, the only point I would like to insist on in an educational programme is that every student of history must study the modern world, the 20th century-world, and must also study something which is remote from the modern world, but then I would happily consider our period as an alternative to the Middle Ages and the Middle Ages as an alternative to our period, as long as they get the flavour of this cultural distance involved in studying a non-industrial society, it can be Chinese or Japanese, it can be 500 years ago or 1000 years ago. But there is something very important educationally in getting people to understand what a really different culture was like. It puts your own world in perspective.

MR: Would that mean that the study of the history of the Middle Ages or the early modern times can be compared to anthropological study, the study of remote tribes and societies?

PB: In many ways, except that we have the disadvantage that our contact is indirect, but we have the advantage that we can see the longue durée.

MR: So the aim is the same, only the methods are different?

PB: I think the fundamental aim -- to understand the Other and through the Other to understand oneself -- this is fundamentally the same aim. But the methods have to be different.