Gabriel Jackson

Novelists have frequently provided insights into the process of their writing, in Separate commentaries and increasingly within their novels themselves, but it is a rarity for a historian to publish a companion guide to his writing of a scholarly book. History professor Gabriel Jackson had two reasons for supplementing The Spanish Republic and the Civil War (1965): he was unwilling to discard those facets of his work in Spain rich in human value but lacking in professional sobriety, and he considered it important to inspect the intellectual baggage he had brought with him -his personal background, his principles and practices of work, the sense and meaning of his commitment. The revelations of this rather pedantic pilgrim's progress are more informational than inspirational, and Jackson's renderings of his interviews with survivors of both sides of the Civil War are riper with intellectual content than human interest, but his vindication of the historian's role is of wider, value. Jackson argues that history should be studied ""out of curiosity and concern for human conduct as a whole""; it is with this Unifying ideal of ""perspective as a primary responsibility"" that he Plies his trade. Sensitive to the moral crisis which has paralyzed many of his students and colleagues, Jackson propounds a gospel of ""honest workmanship in work freely chosen"" which is refreshingly cheerful if not compelling.