William Cronon\u2019s \u201cA Place for Stories: Nature, History, and Narrative\u201d attempts to explain how two historians, Bonnifield and Worster, examined nearly identical sets of facts, yet came to radically different conclusions about the causes and lasting effects of the Dust Bowl.\u00a0 Cronon posits this is possible because of the powerful influence of narratives and stories in both history and environmental studies.<\/p>\n
Cronon makes his point by first exploring how Bonnifield and Worster came to different conclusions.\u00a0 He suggests that each chose a different story to tell.\u00a0 Bonnifield wrote a progress narrative based upon narratives of other historians and environmentalists like Webb and Malin who depicted the settlement of the Great Plains as a \u201cdialectic between a resistant landscape\u201d and the innovative settlers who tamed it (1355).\u00a0 By contrast, Worster told a declensionist tale, mostly aligning his narrative with that of the New Dealers.\u00a0 Worster broke from the New Dealers, however, when he claimed that the efforts of the New Dealers \u201cdid nothing to address the basic contradictions of capitalism itself\u201d (1364).<\/p>\n
Next, Cronon discusses possible reasons humans feel compelled to tell stories, even when nature and the universe do not.\u00a0 He points to two possible reasons: either we cannot do justice to either nature or the past no matter how hard we try so we use what we know or narratives are \u201cfundamental to how humans organize our experience\u201d (1992).\u00a0 While the two ideas are similar, the first, Cronon points out, implies narrative histories are futile, while the second is more optimistic.<\/p>\n
Finally, Cronon asks: what defines a good narrative history in our postmodern society?\u00a0 Histories must be true and complete, they must make sense, and they must be written with the knowledge that others will critique and comment on them.\u00a0 Cronon seems really disturbed by the postmodernist idea that the past is infinitely malleable.\u00a0 He worries that this could undermine the \u201centire historical project\u201d (1374).\u00a0 I think Cronon assuages his fear in his fourth edition of \u201cA Place for Stories.\u201d\u00a0 He believes that \u201chistorical storytelling helps keep us morally engaged with the world by showing us how to care about it and its origins in ways we had not done before\u201d (1375).\u00a0 Even if narrative histories are malleable, they help humans today stay morally engaged.\u00a0 Historians\u2019 efforts are not futile, even in a postmodernist society. \u00a0Cronon used the competing narratives<\/a> of Bonnifield and Worster as context to make this larger point about history and environmental studies.<\/p>\n