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FYS 101: Ancient Historiography and the Historian’s Craft

Dr. Kershner

Carlos Maciel

April 4th, 2011

Final Draft (Peer Review)

A Patriotic Historian and His Bias

Humans are rational animals, we rarely act based upon instinct. Therefore most

of men’s actions are affected by things like the actor’s experiences, environment,

historical context, as well as other factors. It does not matter if it is a simple decision

like choosing between two options of juice for breakfast or a more complex one like

deciding to go to war, if it involves thinking it will be affected by bias. And it is not

different in the scientific field, after all this is the field of human action which utilizes

most intellectual activity. Therefore one can consider that written history is affected by

bias as well. Beard himself stated that “written history inevitably reflects the thought of

the author in his time and cultural setting” (221). This paper intends to prove that bias is

present intrinsically in historical works, and that, despite what some might argue, it is a

beneficial scientific tool. The paper’s objective will be achieved by analyzing the works

of Samuel Eliot Morrison on the battles that took place for the control of Guadalcanal

during the Second World War, and comparing those works to the ones of great historic

minds such as Herodotus and Thucydides.

It is important to clarify that this paper takes the word “bias” to a broader level

of meaning. For many, the meaning of bias is having a preference to certain side of the

history and trying to influence others to have the same preference. This paper, however,
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is focused not in showing that Morrison had a preference to one side of the story, which

he had indeed, but to analyze where that favoritism comes from and what are its

consequences for the style, method and objective of the author.

The presence of bias in the process of writing history can be either good or bad.

Most writers, especially those from an older age, consider bias to be malefic because it

may take the historian away from the scientific approach necessary to a good historical

work. However, from the beginning of the twentieth century, the notion of bias as both

avoidable and solely malefic lost importance for big historians such as Beard and

Becker admitted that bias is a characteristic inherent to human nature (Maciel 3).

Nevertheless, there is not a consensus about the true effect of bias in scientific history.

S. E. Morrison was a member of the United States Navy during the Second

World War. Shortly after the end of the war he wrote a series of volumes about the

many battles, of naval, terrestrial and aerial nature that took place on the Pacific Theater

of such War. He named the volume about the “major engagements in waters adjacent to

Guadalcanal” (ix) The Struggle for Guadalcanal. These engagements, says Morrison,

were the most violent and vicious faced by the American Navy since 1814(ix), and

therefore have a latent importance to the understanding of the general conflict as well as

the understanding of U.S. military history. His research method consisted on reading

and searching for “innumerous” documents of both Allied or Axis origins; he also

visited battle sites for archeological-like1 research and collected testimony about the

happenings from people who took part on the conflicts.

The battle for Guadalcanal is still one of the most important conflicts in military

history. The fights held in that area are exceptional because of its large variety of and

multiplicity of armaments and for the coordinated use of sea, air and land forces. For

1
Thucydides also did archeological research. That is, both authors looked for proofs and actual facts in
their researches.
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Morison, no other battle in modern history “is more fraught with ferocity and misery;

none has blazed with more brightly with heroism and self-sacrifice” (ix). It was the

turnover on the Japanese advance in the Pacific; in fact it was one of the most important

steps on securing Pearl Harbor, the principal American naval base on the Pacific, and

advancing toward Japan (373).

To prove the existence of bias in Morison’s work is easy and simple. In fact, the

author himself writes on the preface of the work that, “We [he and his colleagues]

cannot pretend to write of that stinking island with the detachment and objectivity of

trained historians” (ix). The quote cited beforehand is not only a clear confession of the

influence of bias in the book, but contains also one example of how his emotions

affected his writing. The use of the world “stinking” to describe Guadalcanal gives the

place a derogatory image in a sense that is unnecessary in academic history writing.

Further in the text Morrison uses other pejorative terms, as well as constant complaining

about the environmental conditions of the islands, whenever describing or citing the

islands of the Solomon archipelago. The resentment present in his descriptions of the

islands most likely comes from the fact that such a little and insignificant piece of land

caused so much suffering and deaths to the U.S. armed forces. Guadalcanal is in the

middle of a vast ocean and far from any real center of advanced civilization, not to say

how far it is from the main actors on the War. Such resentment is not present in the

works of early historians like Herodotus and Thucydides. As a matter of fact, Herodotus

has interest in describing the geographical characteristics of the places important to his

tale, and even those places of less importance, and, in an action that would later raise

the anger of Plutarch, threats the Hellenic’s enemies with interest and without the use of

derogatory words.
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Morison’s resentment towards the Guadalcanal islands, however, is not carried

towards those who were the main cause of American deaths, the Japanese. Or at least he

did not present it with the same intensity. Except for some very rare occasions he refers

to the Nipponese with some disrespect. The greatest examples being when calls the red

circle in on the Japanese flag “meatball”, which can be compared to calling the stripes

on the United States flag of ‘bacon,’ and, when calls the extermination of Nipponese

troops by American tanks a “great sight” (69). Culinary terms aside, he presents the

Japanese in a clear way, without judgmental comments of any sort. In doing so he

differs from Herodotus, because the early historian classified the peoples who were not

Hellenic as strange. Furthermore, in Herodotus’ account about the person of Xerxes,

one can infer that Herodotus was trying to pass the message that the Persian emperor

had a deeply troubled personality; Morrison pays little attention to the Japanese leaders’

personality on his accounts. Like many other characteristics of his writing, the respect

for the Japanese soldiers is a consequence of Morrison’s military background. He

knows that the enemy soldiers were acting under orders and that their will to kill

Americans was equally reflected by the Allied will to kill the Japanese; he had fought

under these conditions, unlike Herodotus who never took part on the actions he

describes. Therefore, this respect characterized by the lack of predictable prejudgments

towards the Japanese cannot be classified as ‘barbarophilic’, a term used by Plutarch to

classify Herodotus for his supposed preference for the barbarians.

One could think that because Morrison shows no rancor towards his enemies his

text is not patriotic; but those who think in that way are wrong. His lack of anger for

those who killed so many of his people is balanced by honoring, as often as possible,

those who fought for his country. The author has a biased approached when he writes

about the actions of the American; he uses words like ‘brave’, ‘honored’ and
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‘experienced’ to describe the United States military. His patriotism is often

overwhelming to the reader, especially if he or she does not share the same feeling

about the United States. Examples of such biased writings are seen throughout the texts;

when he cites the actions performed by the Marines in the Battle of the Tenaru River he

concludes that those men were such heroes that from then on “The United States

Marines were invincible” (73).

However, although his over patriotic view may lead to not scientifically proper

ideas, Morison’s bias has beneficial consequences. Much like Herodotus did when

describing the magnitude of the Persian army, Morrison gives a special attention to

mention how, for most the battles, the Nipponese forces outnumbered the American

forces. By doing so he gives each American victory a lot more heroism. As consequence

of his special attention towards the Japanese, the author presents the reader with

insightful and detailed analysis of most of the actions performed by the American

enemy. Morison researched a number of different sources, of both American and

Japanese origin, in order to describe the battles which took place in Guadalcanal. He

cites, in great detail specific orders and speeches from Nipponese leaders, as well as

their battle strategies, numbers and armament. Therefore the reader has both sides of

every conflict, from its preparations to its outcomes, covered in detail. Finally,

Morison’s methods make his work a lot more reliable than the ones of early historians

like Herodotus and Livy for the first often cited actions he had no way to know with

certainty, and the second admitted to use myth as one of his primary sources. Morison

on the other hands relied solely in actual documents and trustable eye-witnesses.

Morrison’s military background was beneficial to his work because gave him the

means write a reliable work of history. He is methodic in his descriptions to a point that

he uses the exact time for each battle movement giving to those who read a broader
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view of the events in a step-by-step fashion. The author was also capable to perceive

that a battle has many actors and consequently he presents his readers with detailed

description for the actions and thoughts of each ship and troop involved in the conflict,

independent if they were American or Japanese, and also of the main commander of

such armed forces. Other means are also very important for the success of Morrison’s

work as a good piece of written history. Because of his high patent in the American

navy he had access to very private sources such as maps, diaries from Nipponese

commanders, documents from both the Japanese and the Allies and interviews with

those combatants who took an active part on the conflict. Such sources give his works

credibility to make the transcription of even the secret orders issued by the Japanese

during the fights; the kind of credibility Herodotus lacked when writing the same kind

of accounts about the Persians. Finally Morrison’s experience in the battlefield allows

him to make considerations about the orders and movements from both sides with the

credibility a nonmilitary writer would never be able to have.

An important feature of Morison’s historical methods is his use of tables and

maps. It represents a major difference between his method and the methods of other

earlier historians because they did not use those resources. The conflict in Guadalcanal

was a complex one, with many struggles happening at the same time. By reading the

maps one can more easily understand the actions that took place in the islands for the

explanations in writing are not usually enough. The tables most of the times show the

names and function of the major figures in the conflict, the armaments used, the battles

damages, and the number of killed and wounded for each military action. Maps and

tables are a way of presenting information in a clear and straight way, in accordance

with Morison’s military writing style.

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The Struggle for Guadalcanal was not written to amuse the reader; instead it is

an account with the main objective of exploring the facts related to the events it convers.

In that matter Morrison is much more like Thucydides than like Herodotus, for the

second ancient historian had clear intentions of amusing the crowd who listened to his

tales whereas Thucydides has the tendency of attending solely to the facts. Knowing

that Thucydides was, like Morrison, a soldier who took action in the events he exposes

in his writings it is possible to arrive to the conclusion that military background can

influence the writer to, like the soldier is obligated to do during a battle, pay less

attention to trivial facts and more attention to what really matters. Morrison’s language

is that of a man used to giving orders in a battlefield: clear and concise. Throughout the

whole text there are very few digressions; the reader is given the meaning for every

action with no ambiguity.

Furthermore, Morison’s work is not very accessible for the military laymen. In

order to fully understand the writings one has to have some previous knowledge of

military terms. Morison is very accurate with the battle timelines, however, he only uses

the military format for time; a reader that doesn’t know what 2317 means will probably

get confused more than a few times during the course of the book. The author also uses

of technical military terms to describe some of the maneuvers done by the actors in the

battle, the meanings of such terms are unknown to most people outside the armed

forces. This writing technique is a result of two main characteristics of the author. First

the book was written focusing the readers involved in the armed forces therefore that is

no need to adequate the language and terms to those who are not part of that group.

Second and most importantly, Morison wrote this way because he himself was a Naval

Officer; that is the kind of language he is used to use and, most likely, the kind of

language he finds more appropriate to use in a military historiographical account.

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Although Morison presents a reliable and clear description of the battles, his

work lacks on historiographical credibility because it is almost uniquely an account of

facts. Morison goes into great detail in the explanation of the battles, using charts that

contain every number, maps with all the naval movements, and tables with the names of

all hierarchically important figures. He however, rarely makes any interpretation of

historical importance. Even when considering the reasons for certain decisions took by

the forces’ leaders, he uses either the facts written on his sources or his military

interpretation. There is rarely an analysis on the background which leads to the battle;

Morison does not state the primary reasons for the battles of Guadalcanal very clearly

anywhere on the text. Because of his technical focus on the fights he also forgot to

explore the public opinion and situation back in the United States, information

important for the reader’s understanding.

However, there are reasons for why the works of Morison are, like he himself

admits “primarily of naval operations” (ix). First, that was his field of work, he was a

member of the United States Navy, and therefore the author could provide the analysis

of an expert. Other reason is that, like stated by Livy, the more the historiographical

analysis comes closer to present time the more intricate it gets (29). Morison wrote his

books shortly after the end of the war, with notes he had been taking during the war and

research he did afterwards. Therefore Morison had a rather large number of factors to

considerate, and since he could not write about every event that took place in those

struggles in the Pacific Ocean, as well as what was going on in the other theaters of the

war, he had to, in what can considered a biased decision, chose to write about some of

the happenings and not about others. Furthermore the closer in time a historian is to the

event he writes about the more susceptible to bad bias. That is, the more likely he is to

write a detrimental account when regarding some figures or facts because remorse is
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still a fresh emotion in his mind. Hence, Morison’s narrow focus is optimal to the story

he is analyzing.

The malefic outcomes of Morison’s bias to his work might be the proof to some

people that bias is a bad influence to historiography; however the beneficial

consequences of his background to his work overthrow such claim. The environment’s

influence in a work of history is not only present on the subjective steps of the writings.

It also determines the amount and quality of resources available to the author. One of

the main reasons for Morison’s writings being more credible than the works of earlier

and more famous historians such as Herodotus, Thucydides and Livy, is simply that the

author of The Struggle for Guadalcanal was born in a more modern age. By the time

Morison started to write his volumes, the historiographical method had evolved for

millennia’s, and therefore, the writing effort of modern authors is conducted by rules

less susceptible to flaws. Furthermore, the hard sources Morison used in his works,

documents; maps; and diaries, are also more credible, and more numerous, than the ones

used by earlier authors. Finally the work of Morison has no relation to mythology

whatsoever, whereas Herodotus and Livy rely heavily on myth. It might seem trivial,

but one has to acknowledge that passing of time caused improvements in written

history.

The astute reader, nevertheless, would know that the influence of bias is not

restricted to the resources available to the author. The historiographical method is

biased and, therefore, writing history has been an exercise of balancing predispositions

and empiricism since Herodotus first started this science. The work of that first historian

was biased in many ways for he strived to amuse his readers with his tales. Thucydides

was also a biased writer, even though he did not try to amuse his readers, because his

resentment for Athens’s defeat in the Peloponnesian war often guided his analysis.
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Lastly Livy admits that he struggled to keep bias away from his work; his love of Rome

affected the way he portrays the history of that empire. The bias present in the work of

Morison is one more example within a pattern repeated for thousands of years.

The example of Livy’s patriotic love influencing his work relates to what is seen

in The Struggle for Guadalcanal. By the time the Roman historian wrote his many

books Rome was the most powerful empire in the world, its inhabitants were proud and

felt like they were a superior people. The same feeling of eugenics was present in the

American society during the Second World War. Livy acknowledges that he hopes his

passion for Rome does not affect his judgments (30) but Morison does not do the same

thing in regard of his love to the United States. Morison’s love for his nation is easily

found throughout the text, just as cited beforehand. Readers may infer that patriotic bias

is a characteristic of those authors who write about their nations growths and conquests

for they inevitably try to show their land and their people as greater than others.

The most important contribution of bias to the understanding of human history is

that, by studying it, one can understand the mindset of the period of time from what the

historical work comes from. The analysis of biased work must go further than just

judging the preferences of the authors for one side or the other. The reader is capable of

inferring what was the author’s feelings and the thoughts about his subjects and, with

that in mind, make generalizations to what the rest of society might have felt about the

same things. It is sure that the generalizations cannot be traced involving every single

individual for it is very unlikely that an entire society had a unanimous feeling about

any subject. However, the importance of the analysis of bias shall not be put lowered; it

is one of the most credible ways to get to know a face of history that is usually left out

of historical works, the people’s feelings and thoughts that were never recorded in

documents. Furthermore one can compare the biased feeling of authors who wrote about
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the same topics and then draw conclusions about what is the usual feeling towards such

topics. For example, both Thucydides and Morison wrote about wars, and both of them

transpired a feeling of bitterness in their accounts. The pattern observed in that case is

interesting because in Morison is writing about a war won by his nation whereas

Thucydides focuses in a war lost by his countrymen; nevertheless both of them show

some sort of grief of all the suffering endured by those whose story they tell.

The Battle of Guadalcanal was rather a fight for power than a fight for territory;

both sides were trying to prove to be more powerful than the other. It was bloody and

brutal, with plenty of suffering for both Allies and Japanese. Morison knew what

happened there because he was an eye-witness of conflicts of the same nature, but he

himself admitted that no other battle can be compared to Guadalcanal in the matter of

violence and human loss (ix). Although the author has a clear and concise style, almost

totally impersonal, bias shows up in between the lines of almost the whole text, proving

that no matter how neutral the an historian tries to be he or she will always be

susceptible to bias. The comparison of Morison’s work to the works of earlier

historians backs up the claim that, historically, history and bias have walked side by

side.
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Works Cited

Beard, Charles A. “Written History as an Act of Faith”. The American Historical

Review. 39.2 (1934). 219-231. Web, 20 Dec. 2010.

Herodotus. The Histories. New York: Penguin, 2003. Print.

Livy. The Early History of Rome. New York: Peguin, 2002. Print

Maciel, Carlos. “Oppositions and Agreements Between Three Historic Minds”. Diss.

Denison University, 2011. Print.

Morison, Samuel E. The Struggle for Guadalcanal: August 1942- February 1943.

Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1949. Print.

Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War. New York: Penguin, 1972. Print.