[In the following review, Brogan observes that That Noble Dream has much to teach historians about their own “intellectual fallacies.”]

Nothing could be more elegant than Peter Novick's performance in That Noble Dream: The ‘Objectivity Question’ and the American Historical Profession. Taking up the theme of the nature of historical knowledge (Is it objective or subjective? Are a historian's categories determined by his researches, or imposed by him on his material?) he uses it to make intelligible the development of academic history in the United States during the past century or so. Historiology is not everyone's cup of tea, but it can safely be asserted that this is a book which no one interested in the modern history of the United States can afford to ignore (for one thing, it is in part a chronique scandaleuse of the profession). And any historians reflective enough to be interested in the philosophy of their subject will also find this volume absorbing. It is perhaps both a little too long, and not long enough: I could have done with slightly less theoretical exposition and rather more sociological explanation. I also disliked the assumption, explicit in the language used, that anyone not an academic historian must be an ‘amateur’ (so much for Thucy-dides, Tacitus and Gibbon). There my objections cease. It is a long time since I have been so intellectually aroused by a book. Professor Novick leaves his readers in no doubt that the American historical profession, in spite of its enormous achievements, is today in extreme difficulties. He touches on the problem's political and social roots, but shows that it is primarily intellectual. For the historical discipline in the United States has always been grounded on the belief that history was, or at any rate ought to be, an empirical science; and now that the notion of empirical, value-free science has collapsed under the assaults of intellectual historians such as Thomas S. Kuhn, historians who are honest enough to face the issues are at a loss. Their great common enterprise has splintered into a myriad of sub-disciplines, each of which is being smothered by its overproduction of research; they have little fame among the public at large, and no influence at all on the schools, where their subject is vanishing, as it is beginning also to vanish in the universities; worst of all, they are losing confidence in the meaningfulness of their work. If no agreement on important truths about the past is attainable, even in theory, what is the point of the undertaking? The author does not, perhaps, realize how culturally specific his story is: certainly the scene is somewhat different in Britain, even though we have our own crisis. As one who has long believed that historical writing is a branch of rhetoric, I am not disturbed by proof that it is not a science; and so far in this country links with the schools, journalism and the general public of enthusiasts are still strong. But I do not doubt that many of the intellectual fallacies that Novick discusses are rife among us, and I know that our structural problems are the same or worse. For that reason I hope his book gets wide attention on this side of the Atlantic. It has much to teach.