We would understand more if the work of historian Tyler Stovall were better known
‘For me, history is the record not only of how things change, but how people make things change, how they act individually and collectively to create a better world.” So wrote American historian Tyler Stovall about his approach to his craft. The echoes of historians such as EP Thompson and Eric Foner, Barbara Fields and Robin DG Kelley are unmistakable in his work.
Primarily a historian of France, Stovall’s work bears on many important present-day themes – the relationship between race and class, the tension between universalism and particularism, the contradictions of liberalism. Yet few people outside academia know of him and his death last month was almost unmarked in the mainstream media, a testament, perhaps, to the parochialism of our culture. Engaging with his work is a useful means of illuminating many contemporary debates.