SOURCE: “Heroes, Villains, and Wicked Priests: Authority and Story in the Histories of Simon Schama,” in Clio, Vol. 29, No. 1, Fall, 1999, pp. 23–46.

In the following essay, Ford examines Schama's historiographic approach in Citizens and dismisses claims that his work is postmodern or subversive.

Simon Schama is perhaps the most widely read historian of the decade. While the historical merit of his work is beyond doubt, the most interesting facet of Schama's work is his use of anecdote and story as vehicles of historical argument.¹ It is on this basis that critics have read Schama as both “Literature” and as exemplary postmodern historiography.² Hans Kellner, in particular, argues that in Citizens, Schama substitutes metanarrative with a chaos of individual stories not governed by any imposed “laws” of history. Schama himself, in his cursory allusions to historiographical debate, aligns himself casually with some aspects of the postmodern historiographical agenda.³

It is...