Why Historians Should Write Books Ordinary People Want to Read

Check out grad student Jeremy C. Young’s HNN piece on the need for academics to write for general audiences:

The amazing thing about history is just how many people want to read about it.  Step into any Barnes & Noble and you’ll find shelves full of glossy, high-priced history books on a wide variety of subjects.  Those volumes aren’t there just to fill space; popular presses literally sell millions of copies of history and history-related books each year.  While these books do tend to cluster around certain subjects — predominantly American history, political and military history, biography, and the Founding Fathers — there’s no denying that many lay Americans find history a stimulating and important subject worth spending their hard-earned dollars on.

The problem with Young’s argument, however, is that the he keeps going back to one simple (and troubling) point-that somehow sales of books at Borders, B&N, etc. should drive what we write about and study.  That ain’t the way it works, nor should it be.

Too many lawyers…

“If you look at the figures, where does the top of the class in college go to? It goes into law. They don’t go into teaching. Now I love the law, there is nothing I would rather do but it doesn’t produce anything.”

—Justice Antonin Scalia, 2008

What the hell is wrong with college football?

What the hell is wrong with college football?  As I wait anxiously for the beginning of this season (given the high expectations for my beloved Ohio State Buckeyes), most websites I go to for news have an overwhelming number of stories about college players getting kicked off their teams, etc. for bad behavior.  It used to be a few schools (Miami, to name one) that had trouble, but now it seems they all are.  For example, some recent headlines:

‘Bama linebacker Johns charged with selling cocaine, possessing Ecstasy

Oklahoma State’s Pettigrew pleads guilty to misdemeanors

Brown, Douglas suspended for 2008 season for violating team rules (Ark. St.)

Razorbacks dismiss Fairchild following arrest on misdemeanor charges

Clemson’s McDaniel arrested, charged with aggravated assault, battery

UCF’s Kay suspended from team after weekend arrest

These are just some from one day from just one website!   Not a good case for the “student-athelete.”

Don Higginbotham

Word comes from HNN that noted historian of early America Don Higginbotham has died.  No more details available right now.

 

The fourth annual Virginia Forum (2009)

The fourth annual Virginia Forum will meet at Longwood University in Farmville, located in Prince Edward County, Virginia, on April 24-25, 2009. The Virginia Forum offers an opportunity for exchanges of ideas among scholars, archivists, librarians, museum curators, K-12 teachers, and all those interested in Virginia history and culture. The Virginia Forum invites proposals for presentations on all topics in Virginia history and culture, but Prince Edward County’s involvement in both the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement offers a special opportunity to reflect on such themes as historical memory, the significance of place, and the meaning of freedom in Virginia history.Proposals from graduate and undergraduate students conducting research in Virginia history are also encouraged.

The Virginia Forum invites proposals for individual papers or complete panel sessions, roundtable discussions, workshops, poster sessions, or electronic/multimedia presentations. Proposals for individual papers, posters or electronic presentations should be no more than one page, single-spaced in standard font. The proposal should include a title, the name of the participant(s) and his/her affiliation, and an abstract of the presentation that discusses the sources used and the significance of the topic presented. Proposals for complete panel sessions, workshops, etc. should include a one-page description of the overall session, as well as a separate, one-page description for each individual presentation in the session.

E-mail proposals, along with a one-page vita for each of the presenters, go to Brent Tarter, co-chair of the 2009 Program Committee, at Brent.Tarter@lva.virginia.gov. Proposal Deadline: September 15, 2008.

Historian Sean Wilentz & the Clinton campaign

Is Princeton historian Sean Wilentz a whore for the Clinton campaign?  Kevin Mattson sure thinks so, as noted in a lively exchange on HNN.  I think Wilentz’s response makes himself look worse than Mattson’s initial summary.  And see his Hillary puff piece at Salon.com.

My question is: how are we to take the “gratuitously patronizing” Wilentz’s new book on the Reagan years seriously as a piece of balanced, objective scholarship when his extreme partisanship is so well known now?  This is the guy, you should recall, who argues that W may be the “worst president in all of American history.” 

According to the Princeton University website, “Sean Wilentz studies U.S. social and political history, specializing in the early nation and Jacksonian democracy. He received his Ph.D. in history from Yale University (1980) after earning bachelor’s degrees from Columbia University (1972) and Balliol College, Oxford University (1974). Chants Democratic (1984), which won several national prizes, including the Albert J. Beveridge Award of the American Historical Association, shows how the working class emerged in New York City and examines the changes in politics and political thought that came with it. It has recently been republished with a new preface in a 20th-anniversary edition. In The Kingdom of Matthias (1994), Wilentz and coauthor Paul Johnson tell the story of a bizarre religious cult that sprang up in New York City in the 1830s, exploring in the process the darker corners of the 19th-century religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening. Professor Wilentz is also the coauthor and coeditor of The Key of Liberty (1993) and the editor of several other books, including Major Problems in the Early Republic (1992) and The Rose and the Briar (2004, Greil Marcus coeditor), a collection of historical essays and artistic creations inspired by American ballads. His most recent book is The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (2005). A contributing editor to the New Republic, Professor Wilentz lectures frequently and has written some two hundred articles, reviews, and op-ed pieces for publications such as the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books, the American Scholar, the Nation, Le Monde, and Salon. He is the Dayton-Stockton Professor of History and the director of the Program in American Studies.”

Academic v Popular History, again

The new issue of Historically Speaking has an excellent article by Adam Hochschild about the need for academics to write for larger audiences.  He is correct.  John Demos (in a response) gives tepid support, while Joseph Ellis strongly endorses Hochschild’s conclusions.  And Joyce Seltzer doesn’t get it at all.

More silliness from the UK

Do UK education officials dream up ways of screwing up their schools, or is this purely accidental bullshit?  The Telegraph tells us that a former government advisor argues that “the national curriculum should be more focused on the teaching of skills such as team building, public speaking and problem solving, rather than ‘an encyclopaedic knowledge’ of the world, he believes.”   The “subject approach” favors middle class students, so of course that must be “mean.” 

The expert, Prof (red flag) John White from the Institute of Education of London University, says “distinct lessons in English, maths, history, geography, science and foreign languages have traditionally been used to equip children with the skills needed to become a member of the middle classes. They have become a vehicle for entry to university, but this harmed poor pupils unable to get the top grades, he suggests.”  Duh! 

 

Military History in the Academy and in Public

(Austerlitz)

I am pleased to note that there is a very well-done piece by John Lynn at the NAS website, entitled “Breaching the Walls of Academe: The Purposes, Problems, and Prospects of Military History.”  Lynn is currently professor of history at the University of Illinois, Urbana.  He served as president of the United States Commission on Military History from 2003 to 2007 and as vice-president of the Society for Military History from 2005 to 2007. His latest book is Women, Armies, and Warfare in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2008).

In the piece, Lynn considers “again the fate of military history in American academe.”

Very well worth reading…he does a nice job differentiating the (as he sees it) different genres of military history: popular, applied, and academic. 

In trouble for reading a book

Keith John Sampson never thought he could get in trouble for reading a book, especially not on a college campus. But that’s what happened.

And…it was a history book!

Read the rest here.

Job

Siena College announces a search for a Director of the College’s new Center for Revolutionary Era Studies. The mission of the Center is to foster greater appreciation, interest, and awareness of the events and ideals behind the struggle for American independence. Of special interest is exploration and understanding the Revolutionary Era in upstate New York. The Director will serve on a three-year renewable contract with renewal at the option of the College. The Director will hold a PhD in history with a specialty in the Revolutionary period. Academic rank is open but the position is not tenure track. The Director will be expected to have published in his/her field and will continue to do so. Since the Center is housed in the History Department, the Director will report to the Chair of the History Department. Responsibilities of the Director will be to direct the Center and teach two American history courses each semester at the discretion of the department Chair. The Director’s responsibilities for the Center include, but are not limited to; applying for grants and seeking donors, producing and coordinating events, conferences, and workshops, coordinating with the Chair of the History Department offerings for the Certificate for Revolutionary Era Studies, chairing the College Center committee and scheduling meetings with the community, overseeing a budget, and maintaining collaboration with Saratoga National Historical Park. The Mission Statement for the Center is available at www.Siena.eduHistory. Review of applications will begin immediately and continue until the position is filled. Duties to begin September 1, 2008. Please send a cover letter, CV, examples of scholarship, and names of three references in confidence to Chair, CRES Director Search, c/o Laurie Hempstead, School of Liberal Arts, Siena Hall Room 321, 515 Loudon Road, Loudonville, NY 12211-1462.

Early American Military History at the SMH 2008

 

I was pleased to see the program of the 2008 meeting of the Society of Military History (in Ogden, Utah) will have several papers (mine too) on early military history, primarily in the 18th century.  Kinda breaks up all the “air war” and COIN papers!

Here are the titles and presenters: 

“The Critical Shift: Washington’s Fabian Strategy.” Donald Stoker, US Naval War College, Monterey Program

“Nathanael Greene’s Southern Strategy.” Michael W. Jones, US Naval War College, Monterey Program

“The Rise and Decline of the Theory and Practice of Partisan Warfare in Early Modern Europe,” George Satterfield, Hawaii Pacific University

“Using the Natives against the Natives: Indigenes as “Counterinsurgents” in the British Atlantic, 1500-1800,” Wayne E. Lee, UNC-Chapel Hill

“Exerting Limited Control with Limited Resources: Spanish Policy on the North American Frontier,” Irving Levinson, University of Texas, Pan-American

“The Politics and Philosophy in the Army of Eighteenth Century France,” Christy Pichichero, Stanford University

“For Cause and Family in the American Revolution,” Jason Palmer, United States Military Academy

“Morality and Captivity in Revolutionary South Carolina,” Paul Springer, United States Military Academy

“Troublesome Allies:  The Wabanaki in King William’s War,” Jenny Hale Pulsipher, Brigham Young University

“The Protestant Assault on New France: War, Religion, and the Origins of Empire in the Colonial North East,” Owen Stanwood, Catholic University

“Cultural Exchange on the Warpath: English-Indian Cooperation and Communication in the Pequot War,1636-1638,” William Stone, University of Kentucky

“Frontier Health:  British soldiers at Forts Niagara, Detroit and Michilimackinac during the American Revolution,” Tabitha Marshall, Memorial University of Newfoundland“Queen 

“Against Their Will? The Recruitment of the King’s German Subsidy Troops for North America, 1776-1783,” Daniel Krebs, University of Louisville

“Oh, What a Tangled Web We Weave, When First We Practice to Recruit,” James R. McIntyre, Moraine Valley Community College

“’An Extreme Violent Spirit:’ War, Peace, and the Politics of Enmity in Revolutionary North Carolina,” John R. Maass, U.S. Army Center of Military History

“’The Virtue of Humanity was Totally Forgot’: How Britain Failed to Subdue the Southern Colonies,” Greg Brooking, Gordon College

“The Loyalist Exodus of 1778: The Mass Escape of Southern Loyalists
To Florida and Its Consequences,” Jim Piecuch, Kennesaw State University 

Culloden, 1746