This is why you're my favorite historian. I love learning about history, but I don't care about revisions of history or new interpretations of it. I want to know what happened, and I will wonder and contemplate the why, knowing any interpretation, including my own, is merely a guess, no matter how educated.
Excellent post. It seems to me Political Science and Political Economics are among the areas of academia that use the term "science" with reckless abandon. The "follow the science" mantra from our government agencies during this pandemic was used to compel people to behave in the manner desired by government bureaucrats. There was no "science"; only sparse anecdotal evidence.
Thank you for writing this. The weaponization of history is a shame. The percentage of undergraduates who major in history has declined by 75% since I was an undergraduate (c. 1980), and I have to think that at least some of it is because so many of today's historians are so fervent in their pursuit of "useable" history that they undermine their own credibility. Such people remind me of fervently religious people, who mine scripture to prove some contemporaneous political or policy point. Religious scripture will always supply words that superficially support any contemporaneous argument. Well, so it is with history. One can mine history for facts - or factoids - to support any political point. In the case of American history, this might be either triumphalist, or in condemnation of the United States as the root of all evil. It is actually the same exercise, yet people who would condemn the former delight in the latter.
This is why you're my favorite historian. I love learning about history, but I don't care about revisions of history or new interpretations of it. I want to know what happened, and I will wonder and contemplate the why, knowing any interpretation, including my own, is merely a guess, no matter how educated.
Excellent post. It seems to me Political Science and Political Economics are among the areas of academia that use the term "science" with reckless abandon. The "follow the science" mantra from our government agencies during this pandemic was used to compel people to behave in the manner desired by government bureaucrats. There was no "science"; only sparse anecdotal evidence.
Thank you for writing this. The weaponization of history is a shame. The percentage of undergraduates who major in history has declined by 75% since I was an undergraduate (c. 1980), and I have to think that at least some of it is because so many of today's historians are so fervent in their pursuit of "useable" history that they undermine their own credibility. Such people remind me of fervently religious people, who mine scripture to prove some contemporaneous political or policy point. Religious scripture will always supply words that superficially support any contemporaneous argument. Well, so it is with history. One can mine history for facts - or factoids - to support any political point. In the case of American history, this might be either triumphalist, or in condemnation of the United States as the root of all evil. It is actually the same exercise, yet people who would condemn the former delight in the latter.