1. Bill Cronon calls his essay "A Place for Stories." What is the story that Cronon tells in his essay?
William Cronon’s story is about the meaning and value of narratives to the study of history. He recounts multiple stories of The Dust Bowl in order to illustrate how and why historical narratives differ from one another. Cronon analyzes several narratives that, while based largely on the same information, come to a variety of different conclusions about the (human) causes and responses to The Dust Bowl. But it isn’t just the conclusions that differ; the stories themselves (their starting points, their plots, etc.) vary in a number of important ways. Cronon reminds us that historical narratives are cultural constructions that we use to make sense of the world and describe the consequences of human actions. The stories we create range because people often interpret and value these consequences in different ways.
Cronon is responding to the postmodern view that maintains that because our narratives are creations of our cultural beliefs and values, they cannot be used to accurately describe historical reality. While Cronon agrees that narratives do not provide us with the ability to recapture reality or the truth of the past, he is certainly not willing to throw away narratives as a tool (indeed he believes it is our best tool) for describing the past. For Cronon, the “commitment to teleology and narrative gives environmental history – all history – its moral center” (1370). It is through the process of writing our stories that we analyze, judge and find meaning in the past.
These culturally constructed narratives are themselves subjects that are worthy of study and Cronon calls on environmental historians in particular to write stories about stories (as he did in the case of The Dust Bowl). This idea made me ask the following questions: Could the web be a better place to relate stories that involve multiple narratives? In what ways could Cronon’s story about The Dust Bowl be enhanced or different if it were presented on the web?