Listen More; Judge Less: Lessons from Jim Grossman

Elizabeth Lewis Pardoe

Thanks to a series of Teagle Teaching Workshops at Northwestern, the executive director of the American Historical Association, Jim Grossman, gave a lecture on “Historical Thinking and Public Culture.” Much of what he said hearkened to conversations I had at the Historical Society’s 2012 conference "Popularizing Historical Knowledge: Practice, Prospects, and Perils." As Jim said, we know people like history. The History Channel, thousands of reenactors, and millions of genealogists indicate a thirst for knowledge of the past. Derision of such historical fancy keeps doctoral candidates clothed in a veil of superiority while their bank balances dwindle. Grossman suggested a revolutionary shift in academic historical thought: dispense with the patronizing judgment and listen to what people want to learn.

The lesson holds for the undergraduate classroom. Faculty ask one another, “what are you teaching?” Grossman suggests we end the obsession with our own performances at the front of class and focus upon what the students at the back learned. While teaching and learning have a symbiotic relationship, the shift of emphasis from professor to listener signals a broader embrace of history’s public value. The nuances of Foucauldian analysis may help the professor frame his or her argument, but if every iPhone in the lecture hall sends out a frantic  “wtf?” we have lost the pedagogical point.

How the Pilgrims Repented of Socialism and Gave Thanks

[This post originally appeared on November 20, 2013, on the Faith and History blog, and is reposted here with the permission of the author]
Robert Tracy McKenzie

As I promised in my last post, I want to share some thoughts about Rush Limbaugh’s recent book, Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims: Time-Travel Adventures with Exceptional Americans. Released just three weeks ago, the book by the popular conservative radio host is now the second best-selling work on Amazon and has already elicited 470 reader reviews, nearly 90% of which are five-star raves. They praise it as a “factually correct,” “unbiased,” “true history” that will help to combat the “liberal propaganda that the children are being fed today.” (These are all comments that appear within the last twenty-four hours.)

What strikes me about these responses is how utterly confident the reviewers are in the historical accuracy of a work of children’s literature that centers on the adventures of a time-traveling talking horse. There are no footnotes. No bibliography. No list of suggested readings. No evidence of any kind.

Historical evidence, for most of us, is sort of like the foundation of a house. I remember when my wife and I were ready to buy our first home. In the back of my mind, I knew that the structure needed to rest on a firm foundation, but I didn’t waste much time thinking about it. I was a lot more concerned about floor plans and color schemes and square footage, and I remember being irritated when someone suggested that I should look underneath our dream home before buying it. (“You want me to crawl where?”) I think we tend to shop for history in much the same way. If a particular history book reinforces convictions that we already hold, it rarely enters our mind to investigate the underlying evidence. No need to go down in the crawl space when the rest of the house is so appealing.

From Roosevelt to Roosevelt

Jonathan Rees

As a good liberal, I’ve always claimed that my favorite President ever is/was Franklin D. Roosevelt.  After all, his legacy STILL defines what liberalism means and what government does down to this day.  However, as I’ve gotten older, my opinion of Franklin Roosevelt has grown steadily worse.  First, there’s how he treated Eleanor.  Second, there’s the fact that the New Deal didn’t go further.  Lastly, like making batches of wine, some bits of the New Deal have aged better than others.

As a historian, I’ve been drawn to an entirely different, somewhat less liberal President—Franklin Roosevelt’s distant relation, Theodore.  Sure, there’s the whole warmonger thing.  That’s not too appealing.  And as a liberal, Teddy’s presidency was not nearly as charged as his unsuccessful campaign’s platform in 1912.  But as a personality, Teddy Roosevelt has every other President beaten hands down (with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln, but I’d still give the nod to Teddy there by a smidge).

Let’s look at the biographies.  When I read biographies, the part I usually hate comes right the beginning.  How many historical figures are more interesting in their youth than they are when they’re adults?  If you’ve ever read David McCullough’s Mornings on Horseback you’ll know he stopped that book in Roosevelt’s early twenties and it still made me cry.  (I’m not telling why if you don’t already know.  You should read the book.)  I’m not a huge fan of Edmund Morris’ three-part TR biography, but unlike say Robert Caro’s series on Lyndon Johnson, where the research is the best trait it’s Morris’ subject that makes all three of those books worth reading.

Why I Teach Baseball History: A Brief, Self-Serving Manifesto

Chris Beneke

A detail of a print of Union prisoners in a
Confederate camp playing baseball, Salisbury,
N.C., 1863. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Very few people ask me why I teach baseball history. It’s obvious. I love baseball. Lots of students love baseball.

But let me offer another explanation, something out of left field: baseball history is also a really effective way of teaching American history.

Before you sport non-enthusiasts get too worked up, let me dispense with the usual caveats. College-level baseball history students shouldn’t memorize how many American League pennants the Yankees won during the 1950s (8) or the last time the Chicago Cubs were major league champions (1908). It’s unnecessary for them to recall that Ted Williams batted .406 in 1941 or that George Foster led the major leagues with 52 home runs in 1977. They could also receive a fine education in baseball history without knowing that Don Larson pitched the only perfect post-season game in 1956 or that Bob Gibson struck out 17 batters in the opening game of the 1968 World Series.

When Do We Forget?

Eric Schultz

We were sitting round this past Thanksgiving and I asked our assembled crew what day November 22 was, besides Thanksgiving.  Everyone looked stumped.  So I added, “49 years ago?”  One of our 55+ did the math and announced that it was the anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy.  She remembered the day vividly.

In fact, it was a day that we would never forget.  One, it appears, we are now rapidly forgetting.

Intrigued, I checked data from the US Census Bureau and did some arithmetic, making the assumption that someone would have to have been about 5-years-old at the time (or 54-years-old now) to have a “resonant” living memory of the Kennedy assassination. In big, round numbers, then, the 54+ age demographic represents about 25% of the United States’ 2012 population. 

So, at least one reason we fail to remember the Kennedy assassination is that only 25% of us have any real memory of it.

I did the same rounded historical math for the sinking of the Titanic, Pearl Harbor, the first moon walk, the Challenger Disaster and 9/11, just to pick a few of our more vivid cultural memories.  I discovered the percentage of the American population with “resonant living memory” in 2012 would be as follows (again, in big, round numbers): 

• Titanic (95 years or older): There are 70 thousand centenarians, so under 1% of the U.S. population remembers. 

• Pearl Harbor (76 years or older): About 7 to 8% of the population remembers. (My dear departed father would have been 79 years old this year, and when he heard on the radio about Pearl Harbor he hid under his bed—6,000 miles from Hawaii.) 

• Moon walk (48 years or older): About 33% of the population remembers. 

• Challenger Disaster (31 year and older): About 45% of the population remembers. 

• 9/11 (16 and older): About 75% of the population remembers.

Roundup: The Trials and Tribulations of David Barton

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Elise Hu, "Publisher Pulls Controversial Thomas Jefferson Book, Citing Loss Of Confidence," NPR, August 9, 2012

Citing a loss of confidence in the book's details, Christian publisher Thomas Nelson is ending the publication and distribution of the bestseller, The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You've Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson.>>>

Chris Beneke and Randall Stephens, "Lies the Debunkers Told Me: How Bad History Books Win Us Over," Atlantic blog, July 24, 2012

Earlier this month, George Mason University's History News Network asked readers to vote for the least credible history book in print. The top pick was David Barton's right-wing reimagining of our third president, Jefferson's Lies: Exposing the Myths You've Always Believed about Thomas Jefferson. But just nine votes behind was the late Howard Zinn's left-wing epic, A People's History of the United States. Bad history, it turns out, transcends political divides.>>>

John Fea, "What Can We Learn From the David Barton Controversy?" Patheos, Anxious Bench, August 15, 2012

In case you have not heard, last week Thomas Nelson, a Christian publisher based in Nashville, ceased publication of David Barton’s The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson, saying it has “lost confidence in the book’s details.”>>>

Paul Harvey, "David Barton: Falling from Grace?" Religion Dispatches, August 10, 2012

This has been the summer of discontent with David Barton. First, in a poll taken by History News Network, Barton’s newest work, The Jefferson Lies, topped the list of “least credible history works in print.” The same work met a unanimous chorus of refutations from Jefferson public humanities scholar and radio personality Clay Jenkinson, from religious historians ranging from Martin Marty to John Fea, and (in the full length work Getting Jefferson Right) from Grove City College professors Warren Throckmorton and Michael Coulter.>>>

Jennifer Schuessler, "Hard Truth for Author: Publisher Pulls ‘The Jefferson Lies’" NYT, August 14, 2012

Last month the History News Network voted David Barton’s book “The Jefferson Lies” the “least credible history book in print.” Now the book’s publisher, Thomas Nelson, has decided to stop publishing and distributing it.

The book, which argues that Thomas Jefferson was an enthusiastic orthodox Christian who saw no need for a wall of separation between church and state, has attracted plenty of criticism since it appeared in April, with an introduction by Glenn Beck. But the death knell came after Jay W. Richards, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and the author, with James Robison, of “Indivisible: Restoring Faith, Family and Freedom Before It’s Too Late,” began to have doubts and started an investigation.>>>

A Popular Portrait of Jefferson

Dan Allosso

In the spirit of the Historical Society's recent conference on talking to the general public about history, I thought I'd share some of my initial reactions to a recent popular biography: Christopher Hitchens's Thomas Jefferson: Author of America (Harper, 2009).  In a short volume that seems to have achieved both commercial success and good reviews, Hitchens portrays Jefferson as not only the author of America (writer of the Declaration and purchaser of Louisiana), but as a symbol of the conflicts that have always been close to the heart of the “republican experiment.”  Given Hitchens’s notoriety, it’s impossible to completely separate the author from the subject; so this is not really a standard biography.  It’s sort-of half biography and half Hitchens’s reflections and evaluations.  But in this critical role, Hitchens may be providing a useful corrective to the hagiographical (or anti-) chronicles of Jefferson’s life we’re more accustomed to reading.

Although Hitchens is not a historian, he does a pretty good job of inserting names, dates, and events that provide both context and a sense of the culture Jefferson involved himself in.  This is a short book (208 pages), so there’s a limit to the amount of detail that can be jammed in, but Hitchens chooses some elements that illuminate Jefferson’s character.  And he offers perspectives you wouldn’t normally get from a historian, such as when he observes that the fact Thomas and Martha delighted in reading passages from Sterne’s Tristram Shandy to each other suggests “we are studying a man with very little sense of humor.”

In another interesting moment, Hitchens describes Jefferson as the “republican equivalent of a philosopher king, who was coldly willing to sacrifice all principles and all allegiances to the one great aim of making America permanent”  (p. 14).  While this sense of a permanent guiding mission may be ahistorical (although we find it in some academic biography, too), Hitchens makes a strong case for long-term connections in Jefferson’s story.  At one point, he recounts Jefferson’s dismal performance as governor of Virginia during the Revolution, which he contrasts with Alexander Hamilton’s record.  Too frequently, we seem to lose sight of the ongoing political weight of issues like these – if only in the sheer volume of data coming at us in traditional biographies.  And when Jefferson wrote his famous Notes on the State of Virginia, Hitchens calls attention to the fact he was responding to a questionnaire sent him by Francois Barbé-Marbois, who not coincidentally was the future negotiator of the Louisiana Purchase.  The sense of continuity and relatedness of events Hitchens brings to such a short retelling of Jefferson’s life is really helpful.

As one of America's leading atheists, Christopher Hitchens would of course be expected to show his interest in Jefferson as a prototype of the secular American, and he doesn’t disappoint.  But his coverage of Jefferson’s anticlericalism and “Enlightenment” orientation is much less strident than it might have been.  Hitchens does connect Jefferson with Edward Jenner and the cowpox vaccination, and he does point out that “Dr. Timothy Dwight, then president of Yale and to this day celebrated as an American divine, was sternly opposed to vaccination as a profane interference with God’s beneficent design” (p. 44).  But he also goes after Jefferson’s hypocritical attitudes about slavery and race.  “A bad conscience, evidenced by slovenly and contradictory argument, is apparent in almost every paragraph of his discourse on this subject,” Hitchens concludes (p. 48).  But he grants, quoting Jefferson, that a “The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances”
(p. 49).

Hitchens tells the story of Jefferson as a remarkable human being, who achieved incredible things while failing to completely transcend his nature as a male mammal living in the eighteenth century.  And he calls attention to parts of Jefferson’s historical role (in abandoning the Haitian Revolutionaries and in sending the Marines to North Africa) that it might be useful for us to remember.  In a passage that I found funny, Hitchens suggests that Dumas Malone (the ultimate academic biographer of Jefferson) “had great difficulty considering the question of carnal knowledge at all” (p. 61).  This seems a little harsh, until Hitchens reminds the reader that as late as 1985 Malone insisted that “for Madison Hemings to claim descent from his master was no better than ‘the pedigree printed on the numerous stud-horse bills that can be seen posted around during the Spring season’” (p. 65).  I appreciate the freedom Hitchens had as a non-academic author, to trash “Jefferson’s most revered biographer” in a way that clearly needed doing.

In the end, Hitchens’s conclusions about Jefferson match his understanding of his adopted nation.  “The truth is,” he says, “that America has committed gross wrongs and crimes, as well as upheld great values and principles” (p. 186).  Thomas Jefferson: Author of America is part of Harper-Collins’s “Eminent Lives” series for general readers, but it might be useful as a short, accessible supplementary text for high school and undergraduate students in a U.S. survey.  For that purpose, I think the author’s perspective as a non-academic and the fact that he has a clearly-stated position are among the book’s most valuable assets. 

Roundup: THS Conference - Popularizing Historical Knowledge, May 31 - June 2, 2012

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Peggy Binette, "USC to host The Historical Society May 31 – June 2," USC News, May 28, 2012

University of South Carolina historian Walter Edgar will open The Historical Society’s 2012 conference Thursday, May 31, on the USC campus.

The conference, which is open to faculty, staff and students and runs through June 2, will take place in the Daniel-Mickel Center, located on the eighth floor of the Darla Moore School of Business. Edgar’s address, “Whose History is it Anyway? Reaching the People,” will take place at 7:30 p.m. in Belk Auditorium.>>>

Mark R. Cheathem, "THS 2012: Popularizing Digital History," Jacksonian America: Society, Personality, and Politics, June 7, 2012

At last week’s THS conference, I also attended the roundtable, “The Perils and Promises of Popular History in a Digital Age.” Yoni Appelbaum, Chris Cantwell, John Fea, and Elizabeth Pardoe each addressed a different aspect of digital history.>>>

Dan Allosso, "America by Bus," danallosso.com, June 7, 2012

I took the bus from New England to South Carolina last week, to attend The Historical Society’s conference. I knew I didn’t want to fly, for several reasons. The cost, of course – but even more, the disastrous environmental effects and the obnoxiousness of the whole TSA-centered security regime. The only way to really object to this, I thought, was to boycott flying.>>>


John Fea, "The Historical Society Conference Recap," Way of Improvement Leads Home, June 4, 2012

This past weekend I was in Columbia, South Carolina for the biennial conference of The Historical Society.  The focus of this year's conference was "Popularizing Historical Knowledge: Practice, Prospects, and Perils."  It was hosted by the University of South Carolina.

On Friday morning I chaired a session entitled "Religious History and the Public Imagination."  Adam Brasich, a graduate student at Florida State working with John Corrigan, gave a presentation on the way Reformed Evangelical minister and author John Piper utilizes the legacy of Jonathan Edwards to promote his 12st century religious agenda in the same way that Jonathan Edwards used the life of David Brainerd to promote an 18th century version of evangelical Reformed piety.>>>

Mark R. Cheathem, "THS 2012: Popularizing Jacksonian America," Jacksonian America: Society, Personality, and Politics, June 4, 2012

I consider my first visit to The Historical Society’s biennial meeting a success. In today’s post, I’ll cover the session in which I presented. On Thursday, I’ll discuss the session on digital history.>>>

Popularizing Historical Knowledge Conference, University of South Carolina

Randall Stephens

On the fence about whether or not to attend the Historical Society's 2012 conference?  We have extended the deadline for early registration.  So, head over to the Historical Society site and sign up.  The PayPal setup makes it a cinch to register.

Also, check out the program, with many of the papers now on-line.

Here's a sampling of what will be on offer:

"Popularizing Historical Knowledge: Practice, Prospects, and Perils," University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, Mark Smith, Program Chair

THURSDAY MAY 31

7:30-9:00PM - Belk Auditorium
INTRODUCTION
Lacy K. Ford, Jr., University of South Carolina

KEYNOTE ADDRESS
"Whose History Is It Anyway? Reaching Real People"
Walter Edgar, University of South Carolina

FRIDAY JUNE 1

8:30-10:00am

Session IIB - Room JK
RELIGIOUS HISTORY AND THE PUBLIC IMAGINATION

Chair: John Fea, Messiah College

“Jonathan Edwards Redivivus: Contemporary Reformed Evangelical Uses of Popular History”
Adam S. Brasich, Florida State University

“Rob Bell, News Media, and the Role of Historians”
Charles A. McCrary, Florida State University

“Popularizing the Sacred: Religious History and the Public Imagination”
Jason Wallace, Samford University

1:00-2.30pm

Session IIIB - Room JK
LISTENING IN: MUSIC AND AMERICAN HISTORY

Chair: TBA

“Remixing the Master: Music, Race, and the Central Theme of Southern History Revisited”
Michael T. Bertrand, Tennessee State University

“A Song Is Born (The Public Intellectual)”
Jeff Pennig, Austin Peay State University

Session IIIC - Room 855
POPULARIZING JACKSONIAN AMERICA AND “FRONTIER” HISTORY

Chair: Heather Richardson, Boston College

“Old Hickory Just Got All Sexypants: History and Politics in Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson”
Mark R. Cheathem, Cumberland University

“Moving West: Migrations of a Yankee Family across the Old Northwest, 1780-1869”
Dan Allosso, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

3:00-4:30pm

Session IVC - Room 855
TEXTBOOKS AND THE POPULARIZATION OF HISTORY

Chair: Linda K. Salvucci, Trinity University

“A Most Successful Case of Historical Popularization: R. R. Palmer’s A History of the Modern World”
James Friguglietti, Montana State University, Billings

“Ideology and Education: Economic Education in Texas Public Schools, 1945-1970”
Jeff Hassmann, Lakeview College

SATURDAY JUNE 2

8:30-10:00am

Session VB - Room JK
LEGAL HISTORY AS POPULAR HISTORY

Chair: Deborah Beckel, Joel Williamson Visiting Scholar, Southern Historical Collection

“Abraham Lincoln’s Suspensions of Habeas Corpus in Public and Scholarly Memory”
Robert Faith, Indiana University of Pennsylvania

“Between Evidence, Rumor, and Popular Perception: Marshal Lamon and the “Plot” to Arrest Chief Justice Taney”
Phillip W. Magness, George Mason University

“The Politics of Habeas during the Civil War and Reconstruction”
Justin J. Wert, University of Oklahoma

“General Thomas Ewing’s Infamous Actions Hostile to Civil Liberties: General Order Numbers 10 and 11”
Timothy C. Westcott, Park University

Session VC - Room 855
POPULAR HISTORY, WOMEN’S HISTORY

Chair: Chris Beneke, Bentley College

“Traveling from the 18th to the 20th Century with Dorothy Quincy Hancock, Margaret Fuller, Sally Baxter Hampton, and Edith Nourse Rogers”
Marcia Synnott, University of South Carolina

“Knowledgeable Human Capital and Education in the Eisenhower Administration: The Role of Women”
Erwin V. Johanningmeier, University of South Florida

3:00-4:30pm

Session VIIIB - Room JK
THE POPULARIZATION OF HISTORY IN BRAZIL

Chair: Martin J. Burke, CUNY Graduate Center

“The Magazine Revista de História: A Brazilian Model of Scientific Spreading”
Luciano Figueiredo, Universidade Federal Fluminence

“The TV Show/Youtube Channel Leituras da História as an Example of Scientific Accountability”
Oldimar Cardoso, University of Augsburg


Session VIIIC - Room 855
LITERATURE AND THE WRITING OF HISTORY

Chair: TBA

“Links in the Chain: William Styron and the Creation of History”
R. Blakeslee Gilpin, University of South Carolina

“The History Behind the Poetry of Natasha Trethewey”
Daniel Littlefield, University of South Carolina

“Confronting and Correcting the ‘Cheap, Popular Edition’: Hemingway, Dorman-Smith, and the Chivalrous Quest for Historical Truth”
Ken Startup, Williams Baptist College

6:00-7:30pm - Top of Carolina
RECEPTION

7:30-9:00pm - Belk Auditorium
CHRISTOPHER LASCH LECTURE
"The Politics of Dead Knowledge: What If the Death of History Is a Suicide?"
Jane Kamensky, Brandeis University

Horrible Histories

Randall Stephens

Pillaging and plundering. Murder and torture. Soldiers gassed in the trenches. Kings and Queens behaving badly. Those are some of the many things you'll see on the BBC hit TV show Horrible Histories. The program is fittingly hosted by a rat puppet.

Its so popular with kids and parents that it's spawned a play, "colouring" books, and more. I'm hooked after seeing just a little of it with my god daughter here in the UK. (Watch the Four Georges boy-band sketch here.)

And in addition, the play, TV show, and the books all teach some fun lessons about the past. Jonathan Jones writes in the Guardian:

One sketch in the CBBC series concerns communications in ancient Rome. The Romans send messages by writing them on a tablet and sending them along the Roman roads by a network called Tabellari Messenger. That is, a slave takes the verbal message – complete with the requisite smilies – to its recipient. An adult needs to watch this twice to get all the references to BlackBerry Messenger. Of course, some might point to this system's alleged use in this summer's British riots. Perhaps that was all the fault of Horrible Histories.

But I doubt it: kids addicted to this programme would be more likely to be trying to memorise a song that names all the monarchs of England since William the Conqueror (one that should make the Tories happy there!) or collecting the full series of original books from Savage Stone Age to Blitzed Brits. Although it's impossible to achieve that goal because Deary keeps adding to them, endlessly spinning new variants on a winning formula. Only when he runs out of gruesome "R" words will he be done with the Romans – you can already get both Rotten Romans and Ruthless Romans.

I have wondered if the show's premise and popularity comes from Brits' happy pessimism, there comic dark streak. (Think for a moment of Monty Python or one of England's greatest poets, Philip Larkin, who famously said: "Deprivation is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth.")

I doubt something like Horrible Histories would fly in the US. Too much celebratory and triumphant history dominates the popular view. But I certainly can see some great episodes based on robber barons, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, anti-communism, Henry Ford, slavery, and more!

November issue of Historically Speaking

Randall Stephens

In not too long, the November issue of Historically Speaking will be shipping out. And, as usual, it will soon be posted on Project Muse. This issue features a forum with Joyce Appleby on the emergence of capitalism; Peter Coclanis and Stanley L. Engerman's discussion of the influence of Eugene and Elizabeth Fox Genovese; essays on the Christian America debate; and more. Here's the run down:

Historically Speaking (November 2011)

Taking Historical Fundamentalism Seriously
Johann N. Neem

Historians Meet Thanksgiving: What Would George Do?
Sam Wineburg and Eli Gottlieb

The Early Modern Origins of Capitalism: A Roundtable

The Cultural Roots of Capitalism
Joyce Appleby

What’s Left for Economics? A Comment on Appleby
Hans L. Eicholz

Comment on Appleby
Hendrik Hartog

Response
Joyce Appleby

Athens and Sparta and the War of Rank in Ancient Greece: An Interview with J.E. Lendon Conducted by Donald A. Yerxa

Labor Day: The Lessons of the Past
Robert H. Zieger

The Intellectual World of Southern Slaveholders: Two Assessments of the Recent Work of Eugene D. Genovese and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese

Sic et Non
Peter A. Coclanis

The Richness of Intellectual Life in the Antebellum South
Stanley L. Engerman

Teaching and Writing about the History of African-American Christianity: An Interview with Paul Harvey
Conducted by Randall J. Stephens

Then, and Then Again
Joseph A. Amato

Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin: An Interview with Timothy Snyder
Conducted by Donald A. Yerxa

Submit a Paper or Panel for the 2012 Historical Society Conference

Randall Stephens

It's not too late to submit a paper or a panel proposal for the 2012 Historical Society Conference in Columbia, SC, Thursday, May 31st - Saturday, June 2nd, 2012.

But the deadline, December 1, will soon be upon us! Here's the CFP:

Professional historians in the United States are increasingly being called upon to produce more “popular,” more accessible history. How do and how should academic historians reach popular audiences? How and to what extent is “popular” history written around the world? Does the meaning of and audience for “popular history” vary from place to place? Along with professional historians, states, elites, and a variety of interest groups have long had an interest in sponsoring, supporting, and generating historical knowledge for popular and other audiences. We seek paper and panel proposals that will consider “popular” history in its various guises and locales. How and to what extent is the interest in “popular” history genuinely new? How do and how should historians interact with television and movie production or write op-ed pieces or blogs or serve as expert witnesses? Is there such a thing as a truly “popular” history? Do we need a distinctive “popular” history and are historians properly equipped to write it?

We especially encourage panel proposals, though individual paper proposals are welcome as well. And our interpretation of “panel” is broad: 2 or more presenters constitute a panel—chairs and commentators are optional. As at past conferences, we hope for bold yet informal presentations that will provoke lots of questions and discussion from the audience, not presenters reading papers word-for-word from a podium followed by a commentator doing the same.

Please submit proposals (brief abstract and brief CV) by
December 1, 2011 to Mark Smith and Dean Kinzley,
2012 Program Chairs, at jslucas@bu.edu

Exploring History from National Geographic

Randall Stephens

National Geographic has rolled out a new magazine, Exploring History, which promises readable and easily accessible essays and features on ancient to modern topics. The magazine has the polish of History Today, though it does not include the range of historians that HT does so well.

The first installment includes a cover story on Abraham Lincoln that delves into that giant's political career and his inner world. K. M. Kostyal presents the man who would become the 16th president as a contrarian:

Growing up in a land of hunters, he spurned hunting; in a land of overt religiosity, he was a skeptic and kept his beliefs private, in a frontier society preoccupied with physical labor, he disdained it, in an environment indifferent to education, he had a passion for learning; raised by farmers, he left the farm; in a rough-cut male culture, he didn't smoke, chew, curse, gamble, or drink; surrounded by slavery sympathizers, he opposed it.

Kostyal draws on the work of scholars and uses firsthand sources throughout and asks "What propelled Abe Lincoln from the obscurity of frontier life to leading the nation, and becoming the most written about president of the United States?" Like other articles in this inaugural issue, this piece could be used for undergrads in a history survey.

The Fall 2011 issue also includes essays on "Rome's War Machine," "The Rise and Fall of Moctezuma," "Joan of Arc--Beyond Belief," and "Birth of the Pyramids." Editor Anne Alexander writes "Just as National Geographic has been revealing the wonders of the world to readers for more than a century, this magazine will dig deep to unlock the mysteries of time, from the dawn of civilization to the modern era."

Richly illustrated and laid out with clean precision, Exploring History is a must have for history buffs, general enthusiasts, teachers, and professional historians.

Historical Society Conference, 2012

Randall Stephens

December 1, 2011 seems far, far away. But, it will be upon us before we know it. That date marks the deadline for panel and individual paper submissions for the Historical Society's 2012 conference: "Popularizing Historical Knowledge: Practice, Prospects, and Perils," Columbia, SC, Thursday, May 31st - Saturday, June 2nd, 2012. Here's the CFP:

Professional historians in the United States are increasingly being called upon to produce more “popular,” more accessible history. How do and how should academic historians reach popular audiences? How and to what extent is “popular” history written around the world? Does the meaning of and audience for “popular history” vary from place to place? Along with professional historians, states, elites, and a variety of interest groups have long had an interest in sponsoring, supporting, and generating historical knowledge for popular and other audiences. We seek paper and panel proposals that will consider “popular” history in its various guises and locales. How and to what extent is the interest in “popular” history genuinely new? How do and how should historians interact with television and movie production or write op-ed pieces or blogs or serve as expert witnesses? Is there such a thing as a truly “popular” history? Do we need a distinctive “popular” history and are historians properly equipped to write it?

Please submit proposals (brief abstract and brief CV) by December 1, 2011 to Mark Smith and Dean Kinzley, 2012 Program Chairs, at jslucas@bu.edu

I was thinking about the main theme and wondering about some ideas for panels. . . .

"Writing Popular History for the General Public"; "Public History and the Public Historian"; "How Journalists Write History Bestsellers"; "Can Late Antique History Reach a Large Audience?"; "Popular History in the 1950s, Popular History in the 2000s"; "Howard Zinn and David McCullough: A Consideration of the Politics of Popular History"; "The Rise and Fall and Rise of Biographical History"; "Reenactors of the World Unite: What Professional Historians Can Learn from Living History Buffs"; "How Will Writing Popular History Shape Your Career?"; "The State of Popular Digital History"; "How Not to Write Popular History"; "PBS's American Experience and TV History"; "The Career of Ken Burns." The list could go on and on!

4th of July Roundup

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Jim Cullen, "The Declaration of Independence and the American Dream," HNN, June 29, 2011

"America is a young country," people sometimes say. What they really seem to mean is: "the United States is a young nation." Such a statement makes some sense if one thinks of a political entity that came into existence circa July 4, 1776. It makes less sense when one considers that the Constitution that followed about a dozen years later is the oldest written functioning one in the world. Compared with a traditional nation-state like France or Spain, sure—the United States is a young nation, even if France has had a few republics since then.>>>

"American civil war re-enactment in South Yorkshire - in pictures," Guardian, July 4, 2011

Enthusiasts from all walks of life took part in re-enacting scenes from the American Civil War and in 'living history' events in the grounds of Cusworth Hall, near Doncaster, which are as authentic as possible.>>>

Peter Rothberg, "What Is Patriotism," Nation, July 1, 2011

The first sentence of The Nation's prospectus, dated July 6, 1865, promised "the maintenance and diffusion of true democratic principles in society and government," surely a patriotic sentiment, as was the magazine's name.

Since that time The Nation has attempted to represent and give voice to the best of American values and culture and has steadfastly resisted all efforts through the years to brand dissent as unpatriotic.>>>

Amy Bingham, "Almost a Fourth of Americans Do Not Know When the U.S. Declared Independence," ABC News, July 4, 2011

American Fourth of July traditions are tightly woven into the fabric of U.S. society, but the history of the country’s independence seems to have slipped through the seams.

A Marist poll released Friday shows that only 58 percent of Americans know when the country declared independence. Nearly a fourth of respondents said they were unsure and sixteen percent said a date other than 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was signed.>>>

Brian Handwerk, "Fourth of July: Nine Myths Debunked," National Geographic, July 4, 2011

Many time-honored patriotic tales turn out to be more fiction than fact. On the Fourth of July—today marked by a continent-spanning Google doodle—here's a look at some memorable myths from the birth of the United States.>>>

An Interview with John Fea on the Historian's Public Role and the Christian Nation Debate

Randall Stephens

With the 4th of July just around the corner, it's a good time to reflect on how Americans conceive the settlement and founding of their nation. John Fea has been thinking and writing about colonial America and the Revolutionary Era for quite some time. (He writes on that and related matters at his popular, always interesting blog Way of Improvement Leads Home.) Fea is the author of The Way of Improvement Leads Home: Philip Vickers Fithian and the Rural Enlightenment in Early America (U of Pennsylvania Press, 2008) and an editor of Confessing History: Explorations in Christian Faith and the Historian's Vocation, with Jay Green and Eric Miller (University of Notre Dame Press, 2010). His most recent book, Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? A Historical Introduction (Westminister John Knox Press, 2011), uncovers the historical roots of the Christian nation question and offers much-needed, timely insight. I recently caught up with Fea and asked him about his book, contemporary discussions on the matter, and his experience lecturing on the topic.

Randall Stephens: Gordon Wood has commented on the strange fascination Americans have with their founders. Other westerners, he observes, are not so obsessed with the lives and values of their nations' progenitors. Why do you think it matters so much, to so many Americans, that the founding fathers and the nation itself was and is Christian?

John Fea: As a I argue in the first four chapters of Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?, the overwhelming majority of Americans have always seen themselves as living in a Christian nation. Though the idea of America as a "Christian nation" has been understood in different ways by different groups, I think one could make a pretty good argument that today's advocates of a "Christian America" have a large chunk of American history on their side. This is more a statement about the influence of Christianity on American culture and less a statement about whether or not the founders believed that they were creating a uniquely Christian nation or whether those who believe today that America is a Christian nation are correct in their assumption.

Anyone familiar with the historiography of American religion knows that American evangelicalism and American nationalism have, in many ways, grown-up together. A lot of Christians today have a hard time separating the two. Since this book came out I have talked to several people—both on the radio and on the lecture circuit—who have a hard time distinguishing their patriotism from their Christian faith. One radio host told me point blank that if America was not a Christian nation he could not be a patriot.

Stephens: You write about the difference between what the public wants out of the past and how historians actually practice history. Is this difference at the heart of the Christian nation debate?

Fea: Yes, I think it is. Before I wrote this book I was aware, at a cognitive level, that most people were in search of a usable past. But the reaction to this book has really opened my eyes to the way ordinary Americans think about history. I don't believe that there is anything wrong in searching for a past that helps us achieve our present-minded agendas. Lawyers do it all the time. But those who only approach history in this way miss out on the transformative power that the study of the past can have on our lives and our society. In a world in which self-interest, individualism, and even narcissism reign supreme, history forces us to see ourselves as part of a larger human story. It has the potential to humble us. Its careful study has the potential to cultivate civility as we learn to listen to voices that are different from our own. I am working on a book on this topic which should be out sometime in late 2012.

I would like to start a crusade to promote good historical thinking as a means of contributing to civil society. Now if only I could find a wealthy philanthropist or foundation who might be willing to fund my project. (If anyone wants to talk more about this let me know).

Stephens: What do you think accounts for the widespread popularity of amateur Christian nation historians like David Barton and the late Peter Marshall?

Fea: I can think of three reasons for their popularity. First, as I mentioned in my answer to a previous question, Barton and Marshall are reinforcing the God-and-country narrative that many American Christians feel comfortable with. Christians can read these authors and breathe a sigh of relief because someone is affirming their already held beliefs about the American past.

Second, I think both Barton and Marshall are/were effective communicators. Barton is smooth. He can be very compelling. I have watched him on television and have found him to be an effective salesperson. Marshall and his co-author David Manuel were excellent writers. When compared to your average history textbook, their million-selling The Light and the Glory reads like a page-turner.

Third, I think Barton and Marshall have been so successful because, frankly, they are the only game in town. Most scholars, academics, and intellectuals have not stepped up to the plate to provide an alternative narrative. Scholars do not go out on the lecture circuit or write for popular audiences. They do not have public relations people or connections with local churches. They don't have the time or inclination to do these things.

When most Christian academics think about being public intellectuals they think in terms of writing for The New Republic or The Atlantic or a similar venue. Don't get me wrong, I think that Christian intellectuals should be writing in these venues. I also think that Christian intellectuals should be publishing with major university presses and trade presses, but if they want to serve the church and society they need to think about their careers, or at least part of their careers, in a different way.

Stephens: How do you address the Christian nation debate in the classroom?

Fea: I have had several opportunities in the classroom to address this issue. I usually don't dive into it in any great depth in my U.S. survey course (although this could change since I have now written this book), but I do explore it a great deal in my upper-division course on the American Revolution and a seminar I teach on religion and the founding. I teach mostly Christian students so many of them come to my classes with some opinion about the whole Christian America debate. Since I am a history professor, I usually try to approach the topic without a strong opinion one way or the other. (In other words, I don't come into class with my proverbial guns blazing and tell my students that I am going to try to debunk their false views about the relationship between Christianity and the American founding). Instead, we usually handle the issue through the reading and discussion of primary sources.

Stephens: You've lectured extensively on the subject of your book. Could you comment briefly on your experience? Would you recommend going on the lecture circuit?

Fea: My experience on the so-called "lecture circuit" has been mixed. I have thoroughly enjoyed the speaking and engagement with those who come to my talks. On the other hand, I have realized just how difficult it is to get people to think historically about this topic. Most people who come to one of my lectures come with their minds already made up about the question in the title of my book and are thus looking for me to confirm their position. When this does not happen (for those on both sides of the debate), I think folks get a bit uncomfortable or perhaps even defensive. I welcome this response. After all, history is complex and messy. Any type of education or learning should make us a bit uncomfortable.

Would I recommend the lecture circuit? Yes. I think that academics and scholars should be able to take their research and explain it to a popular audience in an enthusiastic and passionate way. On the other hand, such an approach to an intellectual or academic life requires taking the time to leave the ivory tower and get on the road in order to meet people in all kinds of settings. Needless to say, I have had my share of cookies and punch in church basements, chicken dinners on college campuses, tours of local historical societies, microphone problems at revolutionary-era round tables, and long car rides listening to E-Street Radio on XM. I have enjoyed it all and hope to do more of it, but I also realize that not all academics will want to do this, nor should they.

The Historian as Op-ed Artist: An Interview with Jonathan Zimmerman

Chris Beneke

You may have run across Jonathan Zimmerman’s op-eds on the History News Network or while browsing the editorial pages of the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Washington Times, Toronto Globe and Mail, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Dallas Morning News, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, Christian Science Monitor, or USA Today. If there is a definable art to writing an op-ed, this NYU historian has mastered it. Even while serving as department chair and engaging in other academic leadership—Zimmerman recently completed his term as president of the History of Education Society—he manages to write two or three op-eds per month. In all, he has published more than 300 opinion pieces in major newspapers and magazines.

Despite his commitment to the op-ed form, Zimmerman isn’t convinced that an op-ed will change any reader’s particular mind. Yet he believes that it remains a critical democratic exercise. Zimmerman observes that "our history is replete with examples of collective moral progress. And pamphleteers—the op-ed writers of their day—helped speed it along, with the logic and power of their prose."

Recently, Prof. Zimmerman spoke at my home institution, Bentley University. I caught up with him afterward via email to pose a few historically oriented op-ed questions.

Chris Beneke: When you visited Bentley, you made a revealing (and funny) point about not beginning your op-ed: "Scholars have long disagreed . . ." Are there any other practical do’s and don’ts to which historians trying to publish op-eds should pay special attention?

Jonathan Zimmerman: Well, that's the first and most important point: always remember that you are NOT writing for an academic audience. So your readers don't care about debates among professors, unless these debates bear directly on an issue of the day.

And that brings me to my most important suggestion. Whatever you write, you need to link it to what editors call a "news peg"—that is, something that happened VERY recently. In the 24-7 media world, things become yesterday's news—to borrow another cliché—more quickly than you might guess. So if you see something in the paper that you want to write about, you need to write about it as soon as humanly possible

And when you do write, make sure to put the point of the piece—the reason you're writing it—no later than the second or third paragraph.

That's what editors call the "nut graph"—the paragraph that establishes the central claim of the piece. Editors get hundreds of these things per day, so if they don't get to your nut graph right away . . . they'll stop reading.

Beneke: Should a historian only consider topics related to her primary area of research? Will editors be interested in anything else an historian has to say?

Zimmerman: When you write about something in your area of expertise—and when your "slug," or italicized bio, indicates as much—you do have a better chance of getting into print. But I would never advise anyone to restrict their op-eds only to the subjects of their historical research. If you have spent 10 or 20 or 30 years reading and teaching history, you know a huge amount about many, many things—and vastly more than almost everyone else knows about them. I think you have a right and possibly even a duty to share that knowledge with lay audiences.

Beneke: It’s pretty clear that blogging will not advance your career as a historian. What about op-ed writing?

Zimmerman: Well "advance your career" is probably still a stretch. But I will say that it won't inhibit your career, as it might have in the old days.

When I first started out, several senior scholars advised me not to write op-eds: it's a distraction from your "real" work, and it might make you seem flip or facile. I very much doubt that a junior scholar would receive such advice today, because the idea (or ideal) of the "public intellectual" is more deeply inscribed and accepted.

Beneke: Do you think that historians are peculiarly well-equipped to contribute op-eds, or would we be deluding ourselves in believing that?

Zimmerman: I wouldn't be a historian unless I thought the discipline had something very important to contribute to public dialogues. I do not think op-eds are the only way to do that!!! They're just my way. I do think each of us has a responsibility to share what we do with lay audiences. So we should all explore different ways of doing that.

For more on Zimmerman’s approach to the op-ed, click here.

Writing that Book After Work Hours: Why and How

Philip White

In a perfect world, each historian with a worthy book proposal would earn an advance large enough to enable him or her to focus solely on crafting a top notch manuscript. In reality, for those of us who write history in addition to working outside the academy, we work to convince university presses that our ideas are “academic” enough and trade presses that our book will be “marketable.” Once we get a deal it barely allows us to get enough Starbucks coffee to fuel late-night writing sessions after our “real” jobs are done for the day. After the tax collector has taken a cut and we’ve plumped down the cash for research trips, bought enough books to buckle already-burdened shelves, and purchased enough aspirin to kill a small horse, we’re typically left with a pittance. So why do we put ourselves through this?

It can’t just be because we’re suckers, or so I keep telling myself as my bloodshot eyes struggle to comprehend the horror of reading “2:00” again—and I’m not talking p.m.—on my bedside clock as I stumble into my bed, fearing the alarm that will blare in not even five hours.

Well, one reason is a cliché, but true nonetheless—love. Love of the subject matter, the new angle we’ve come up with, the historical characters we’re impatient for our potential readers to meet on the page. For me, it is all of these, plus the thrill of finding a detail that I’ve never seen before, something I’ve just discovered in a dusty archive file after a day of previously fruitless searching.

Another bonus is mastery, relative though that is, of our subject matter. Often, this involves the painful recognition that presuppositions we formed years ago are wildly inaccurate—a revelation that only comes from digesting a broad range of scholarly works to get as close to the “truth” as we can. We then do our own primary and secondary source work, which takes apart yet more generic or personal misconceptions, while supplying new facts to take their place. Supplement that with oral history, archival work and such and you can get dangerously close to (gulp!) writing a book with something new and important to say.

So now I’ve covered the “why,” at least in part, onto the “how.” Yes, the aforementioned caffeine, applied in careful doses that don’t cumulatively turn you into a jabbering, twitchy wreck that can’t sleep, is certainly needed. Beyond that there are the principles of organization and prioritization. The fact that you have might have a main job in which you must give your best effort, maybe a family and possibly, you slacker, some other, non-work interests, means you are dealing with very limited time. The first step in getting organized is working with your family to set up a realistic schedule that won’t push you over the edge or deny them the time they need. Then, you must find a suitable workspace in which distractions are minimal, a desk uncluttered and all the resources you need at your disposal. If this sounds elementary, forgive me, but it’s amazing how many wasted hours result from trying to eke out a first draft in a noisy, crowded, disorganized workspace. Next, you need to set yourself some deadlines, even if they’re “soft,” with your manuscript submission date in mind.

Once you’ve got these basics down, got all your research materials together and are ready to jump in, you need to prioritize. What are you going to tackle first, and why? List making may seem like a chore, but well ordered to-dos for each aspect of your project are useful: “Things to Ask My Advisor,” “Interviews to Conduct,” “Archives to Visit,” and so on. Then you must decide how much time to give to each list, and then each item on your list, in order to meet those established deadlines. It’s satisfying to get out the red pen and cross off items, one by one.

The third stage of getting a well-written book completed on time is execution. All the organization and prioritization in the world is useless if you’re not going to actually hunker down and get the thing written. This is tied to the umbrella over the three components—discipline. It takes discipline to clear your workspace, organize your folders so they’re easy to navigate, apportion your time adequately, and then to execute. Discipline is needed to say “no” when your buddies invite you out for a few cold ones or when you want to watch your favorite team lose again. It also takes discipline to listen to your body’s warning signals and take a night off when you need it.

If you can combine organization, prioritization, discipline, and execution you will be able to have fun with your research and writing processes, to eliminate wasted time and to create a finished product you can be proud of. And that, ultimately, makes the creeping carpal tunnel syndrome, the sleep deprivation, and the raging caffeine addiction more than worth it!

The Historical Society's 2012 Conference

Popularizing Historical Knowledge: Practice, Prospects, and Perils

Columbia, SC, Thursday, May 31st - Saturday, June 2nd, 2012

Professional historians in the United States are increasingly being called upon to produce more “popular,” more accessible history. How do and how should academic historians reach popular audiences? How and to what extent is “popular” history written around the world? Does the meaning of and audience for “popular history” vary from place to place? Along with professional historians, states, elites, and a variety of interest groups have long had an interest in sponsoring, supporting, and generating historical knowledge for popular and other audiences. We seek paper and panel proposals that will consider “popular” history in its various guises and locales. How and to what extent is the interest in “popular” history genuinely new or does it have a deeper genealogy? How do and how should historians interact with television and movie production or write op-ed pieces or blogs or serve as expert witnesses? Is there such a thing as a truly “popular” history? Do we need a distinctive “popular history” and are historians
properly equipped to write it?

We especially encourage panel proposals, though individual paper proposals are welcome as well. And our interpretation of “panel” is broad: 2 or more presenters constitute a panel—chairs and commentators are optional. As at past conferences, we hope for bold yet informal presentations that will provoke lots of questions and discussion from the audience, not presenters reading papers word-for-word from a podium followed by a commentator doing the same.

Please submit proposals (brief abstract and brief CV) by December 1, 2011 to Mark Smith and Dean Kinzley, 2012 Program Chairs, at jslucas@bu.edu.