Heather Cox Richardson
As the school year winds to a
close, incoming graduate students have been asking me what they should read to
prepare for the fall. That question has an obvious answer, and the answer
brings up what strikes me as an oddity in the way we handle graduate education
in history.
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| Boston Public Library. Photo by Randall Stephens. |
It has always seemed to me
bizarre that we treat graduate education as if it has little connection to
undergraduate studies. A brilliant undergrad will understand facts, argument,
and, with luck, historiography, as well as how to write. But one of the first
things that brilliant undergrad will do in graduate school is to take a seminar
in historical theory, where s/he’s supposed to converse intelligently about
historical theories of which s/he has never heard. First year grad students are
lost and frightened. (Except for that One Guy who throws around Foucault's name
like they're long-time tennis partners.)
My antidote to that
deer-in-the-headlights experience of first-year graduate school in history is
Marnie Hughes-Warrington’s book, Fifty Key Thinkers on History. It lays out the major
arguments of Tacitus, Natalie Zemon Davis, E P. Thompson, Michel Foucault, Marc
Bloch, and so on, in a few pages each. It identifies both the major works of
each historian, and how the argument of those works fits into the
historiography of their era.
It's not perfect (of course), but
it's a godsend for showing students the lay of the land so they can then absorb
individual hills. This book lays out major theoretical arguments in history and
situates them in their historical moment. It opens up the world of historical
theory so students can then examine it in more detail, piece by piece.
This book helps to ease the
transition from undergraduate course work to graduate studies. If you are looking
for something to give you a leg up in your first year of graduate school, this
is your first assignment.
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6 comments:
All hail Kindle, too--this book (as a book book) is about $90 used and $130 new, but can be rented for $6 on Kindle and purchased for $14.
@Eric Schultz I found if for $18 on amazon as a book book. I hate reading on a screen, so for those of you like me, it's available!
This book looks really good. It reminds me that, while I loved my graduate education in history, and remain immensely satisfied with it, we never had a course on theory. We occasionally read theoretical works, but I got the impression that many Americanists had little use for formal attention to theory by 2001, when I started. Books like this, though, are a big help putting this theoretical world together. I will try this one. Another one I read was Green and Troup's Houses of History.
Glad to hear these comments, although when I bought it, it was just the normal cost. Gabriel, I have a theory about Americanists/Europeanists and theory (ironically). Perhaps I'll write it up....
I'd love to hear that theory on theories, Heather!
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