Probably not, but in terms of book sales, one would have to say yes.
Jeremy Cameron Young is a graduate student at Indiana University and the editor of www.progressivehistorians.com. I came across his well thought out “Why Historians Should Write Books Ordinary People Want to Read” on the History News Network.
I highly recommend his article, however, I did have some reactions and they are as follows:
Mr. Young writes: “Thanks to university budget cuts and conservative attacks on their fields, humanities scholars are increasingly forced to defend something many of them have in past taken for granted: the importance of their research to the modern experience.”
This comment surprised and astonished me. I am not a part of academia and do not teach at the University level — I am a just lowly high school history teacher. However, though I understand the attacks on Gary B. Nash and his so-called National Standards for United States History in the 1990s and the U.S. Senate’s denouncing them, I do not know what Mr. Young is speaking of in terms of “attacks,” or is it academic criticism?
The only “attacks” I give any credibility to are those from other historians that challenge the scholarship of some humanities scholars (also known as cultural or progressive historians) who make up the majority of university history departments.
The ones who should be complaining are those who write what Young refers to as “straight-up history” (which I assume centers on: political and military history, biography, and the Founding Fathers, ect.) as they have been forgotten and castoff by universities everywhere. Interestingly enough, if I am not mistaken, traditional historians like Joseph J. Ellis and Gordon S. Wood are among the best selling scholars?
Perhaps history departments need more, well, diversity among their departments?
When Gordon S. Wood “attacks” Gary B. Nash’s “The Unknown American Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America” (New Republic, June 6, 2005) he does not attack the topic or the “importance” of the study, but the study itself. Wood is able to take apart Nash’s thesis as his scholarship is flawed. Too often, Wood notes, these cultural historians attempt to impose their own political beliefs and/or today’s current political climate, on the past. Presentism is cultural history’s downfall, not its importance. (Though one could point out no one buys cultural history, perhaps, because it does not interest main stream America?)
Mr. Young writes: “Though conservative activists have attacked most strongly those fields that represent the political left — race and gender studies, peace studies, and other such interdisciplinary programs.”
Once again, not sure what or who he is speaking of: Sean Hannity, Daniel J. Flynn? If so just recognizing these types of hyperbolic political activists only empowers them. They should be ignored. But in academia, as far as I am concerned, it is not the topic, but the scholarship that is criticized.
Mr. Young writes: “They’re [cultural historians] faced with a truly bizarre situation: write a book that only two hundred people buy, and you’re lauded as a serious, mature scholar; write an op-ed for two million readers and you’re derided as a popularizer.”
Here an excellent point, popular historians are the black sheep of academia and despised by many cultural historians who are jealous of their success.
Finally, Mr. Young writes: “It’s just that the academic community has disengaged itself from that work. We have forgotten that the way to reach out to the general public is not to lecture them on what they should be interested in, but to cater to what they are already interested in.”
Could not agree more, cultural historians who dominate “academia” are out of touch, and it is historians like Wood and Ellis who are not.
Chris, thanks for your thoughtful critique of my piece. My responses to your responses:
1) The “attacks” I’m referring to are primarily those of David Horowitz, along with his allies (which include Hannity and the rest). I’ve corresponded with Horowitz, and I have a lot more respect for his ideas than do many in the academic profession. I think his critiques have to be taken seriously. However, I also think the way he’s gone about them is unfortunate.
2) When I use the phrase “straight-up history,” I’m actually referring to anyone who teaches full-time in a history department (instead of splitting their time between that and an interdisciplinary field, for instance). My point is that the field of history struggles to attach itself to new ideas like transnational and transcultural history because it’s tied to an older model, while interdisciplinary fields don’t have that problem. Personally, I’m an advocate of the older model of history, but as a critique of President Spiegel’s argument, I’m saying that interdisciplinary fields are generally more effective at de-othering other peoples than is history.
3) Finally, in the place where you add “cultural historians” in brackets, I’m not just referring to cultural historians, but to all academic historians. Granted, cultural historians make up a large portion of academic historians today.
Thanks again!