By Chris Thompson
I have just spent part of my time searching for material on
the response of Robert Brenner to the works of Immanuel Wallerstein and
thinking about whether I should buy the first volume of the latter’s series of
works on the World System. During the course of these searches, I found an
on-line copy of Spencer Dimmock's defence of Brenner's work on the rise of
capitalism and also a reference to Gerald Aylmer's participation in the work of
the Discussion Group on the State until his death.
I had been aware of the existence of this group, partly through
the book by Corrigan and Sayer entitled The Great Arch and partly as a result
of a conversation many years ago with John Morrill, who had known Aylmer much
better than I ever did. I then found a tribute by Derek Sayer to Gerald Aylmer
in the Journal of Historical Sociology for March 2002.
Sayer's account began with a description of his initial
meeting with Aylmer, then newly installed as Master of St Peter's College,
Oxford, and the evolution of the plans for an informal conference to be held
there each year on the evolution of the English State (although that
restriction to England was never fully enforced). Approximately twenty
scholars, sometimes a few more, sometimes a few less, were invited to discuss
short papers that were circulated in advance and to elaborate on their contents
for about ten minutes or so before wider discussions began amongst those
present. There were sessions on Thursday evenings, two the following morning
and evening and one or two on the final Saturday morning.
Interestingly enough, there were no formal ‘discussants’
nominated to reply to the papers and no plans for publication. Gerald Aylmer
evidently thought that participants would be bolder in the discussion if they
did not expect their papers to be dissected or their remarks to be published
shortly thereafter. They could be and often were drawn out of their periods of
expertise with fruitful results. Of course, some sacrifices had to be made -
Aylmer like Sayer and Patrick Wormald had to give up smoking in the DGOS’s sessions
– and some papers did, in due course, make it into print once their authors had
reflected on the responses they had received from those present.
All in all, Sayer paid a gracious tribute to Gerald Aylmer
and his role in this informal group. But there may be a wider point to be made
here. I am certainly interested in what people in other disciplines have to
say. As a historian, however, I
personally find it very difficult to listen to or read the observations of scholars
in other disciplines, whether historical sociologists or political scientists
or philosophers, advancing arguments or making comments about subjects in which
I am interested without having consulted the sources for the period. All too
often they base these observations on the secondary works they have consulted
without any direct knowledge of the records at all. Frequently, these arguments
are made in the service of ideological causes that I find unconvincing.
Nonetheless, it is pointless to complain about sociologists
or political scientists or anyone else going to the past to find ammunition.
That process cannot be stopped. But their arguments and conclusions remain
subject to historical examination, a point Gerald Aylmer understood as well as
anyone.
