Good lord, why have you put your article in Courier? Too much time writing academic papers?

I do wonder whatever happened to the study of history as an analysis of events in the context of their own time rather than trying to impose a modern ideological model on the analysis. I think this practice has made the practice of studying history increasingly hollow and meaningless.

Dave

Studying history is not as enjoyable as simply reading it, Dave. When you read history with all your mind intent upon it (and agree with yourself to reread as you learn new things), it can be enlightening.

History used as a crowbar to pry up analogies and bludgeon opponents in a debate, however, is what made the practice of studying history increasingly hollow and meaningless.

The Courier font was off-putting, David - but where you really lost me was These people are morons.

I'm not sure what period of historical writing you are holding up as a golden age of non-ideological/non-analogical splendor, Doc...

on the morons comment--did you think I was attempting to be conciliatory there?

I have to say that my historiography seminar in grad school was torturous. It's one of the few courses where I had to read books which were truly idiotic, trying to cram ill-fitting historical events into the boxes of particular quasi-political philosophies.

Dave

"trying to cram ill-fitting historical events into the boxes of particular quasi-political philosophies"

that must have been a badly-designed historiography course... the whole point of historiography is that it's a history of historical writing (which is the only interesting way to look at history--as a record of the various narratological power-plays made by a succession of scholars... it's the way the story is told that's interesting--not the story itself...of course, there's no such thing as the story-in-itself anyway! adapting from Emerson--"there is properly no history, only historiography"...)

my problem with contemporary historical writing is that the power plays (and they're still power plays) are far too weak, and serve no helpful cultural purpose...

I guess I'm a bad historian then - maybe that explains why I stopped teaching - I find the story way more interesting than the study of the way the story was told. Sitting through day after day discussing the somewhat crazed views of history of Wallerstein and Hegel and Marx strikes me as uniquely pointless when compared to studying actual history.

I do like the Annales School, though. I think they were on to something with focusing on how people lived and what they did and telling the story of a place or a movement or a time. An approach I can relate to.

Dave

but what is the story? stories don't tell themselves...

Yes, but historiography is more the study of the storytellers and why they tell the story and what they think the story means than the study of the actual story and experiencing the telling of it.

I guess I went into history because I liked history, and I find overanalyzing history takes a lot of the attraction away.

Dave

again though--no one can ever possibly come into contact with the "actual story"... stories are told, not discovered/unearther/etc... the historian always interposes him/herself between the reader and the subject matter...

as for "experiencing the story", well, this sounds a lot like the whole "suspension of disbelief" thing--which might be defensible in the aesthetic realm, but not when you're talking about something as loaded human history... there's always something motivating the historian to put together his/her history in the specific way that s/he does! it's part of your job, as a reader, to keep that in mind (and--even if you agree 100% with the author's point of view--to make judgments about the workings/effectiveness of the strategy)

History should be about dates, names, and events. The reader can then look for motivations, agendas, etc.

Spoon-feeding the reader with their personal spin on why so-and-so did this or that isn't helpful.

But after you have the dates, names and such down, it IS what makes history interesting.

History should be about dates, names, and events. The reader can then look for motivations, agendas, etc.

Spoon-feeding the reader with their personal spin on why so-and-so did this or that isn't helpful.

Does this mean that you would like to close down all university history programs? (and high school classes too--I guess?)

after all--the names and dates can be found in any almanac...

I want less PC spin, is all.

Look. I relatively recently took a US history course. It focused in part on the plight of Native Americans. Fine.

There was much subject matter on the forced relocation of these people to Oklahoma, and other such places.

But there was relatively little about the FACT that SOME Native American tribes attempted (though the failed) to commit GENOCIDE against European settlers.

I mean, European settlers are hardly blameless here. But why minimize the murderous intentions of some tribal leaders? Their goal was to kill ALL pale-skins, whereas the European goal was simply to move them to someplace else.

Let's see...what is worse? Failed genocide or successful ethnic cleansing? Tough call, I know. But why not report it fairly?

but RJ--the no-spin zone is a fantasy...

there's always spin!

I have no investment in making one (artificially constructed) group of human beings look any more pure or noble than any other group, so there we agree--but I have a feeling that we don't agree on much else, politically... the "PC spin" on the conquest of the Americas is rooted in a critique of the persistence of a white supremacist logic in the economic structure of our society...

LOL, read that last sentence and see if you can continue standing in the wind as David spins out of control.

Dave

sure it's a spin--but so is "reality"

you don't have to be in the KKK (or a mean/violent/"racist") to buy into a white supremacist logic...all you have to do is refuse to tamper with historical processes that were set in motion by people that were mean, violent, racists...

I just liked the Voltaire quote: "Crush the vile thing."