SOURCE: A review of Figural Realism, in Journal of Modern History, Vol. 72, No. 3, September, 2000, pp. 777–78.

In the following review of Figural Realism, Megill finds flaws in White's rhetorical approach and the interpretative “multiplicity” of his historical perspective.

Figural Realism: Studies in the Mimesis Effect is the fourth book by Hayden White in a series that began with the raw, ungainly, and brilliantly suggestive Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Baltimore, 1973). Taken together, White's books and essays have done much to alter the theory of history. Although his focus on trope and narrative is far from what most historians are interested in, they are all aware of his work. This does not mean that it has been carefully read, but it does mean that in some slightly perverse way it now registers as part of the discipline's “cultural capital,” getting cited in such otherwise unlikely contexts as American...