It's more a matter of the zeitgeist behaving badly and these profs following fashions (as usual) rather than seeking the truth.
Jim Devine, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://myweb.lmu.edu/jdevine/ > -----Original Message----- > From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of > Eubulides > Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2005 5:23 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: [PEN-L] more on the Academics Behaving Badly > front.......... > > http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1415508,00.html > Historians in cahoots > > Tristram Hunt > Wednesday February 16, 2005 > Guardian > > In his messianic inauguration address, President Bush spoke of > America's > global duty being defined by "the history we have seen together". > Inevitably, this was a reference to the events of 9/11. But given > how much a > sense of US revolutionary heritage is now informing current policy, > the > broader history that Americans are experiencing together should be > an equal > cause for concern. > > The latter half of the 20th century saw US scholars lead the way in > popular > social history. The world of the workplace, family life, native > America and > civil rights was chronicled with verve and style. The delicate oral > histories of social chronicler Studs Terkel opened up the local and > working-class past to mass audiences. He showed how the second world > war was > as much the people's as the statesmen's war. On National Public > Radio and > the Public Broadcasting Service, history was dissected > professionally and > polemically. > > Today, you would be hard-pressed to find such broad-ranging > investigations > of the American past. Instead, the bookshelves of Borders and Barnes > & Noble > are dominated by a very specific reading of the 18th century. This > does not, > in God-fearing America, represent a new found interest in the > secular ideals > of enlightenment and reason. Rather, an obsessive telling and > retelling of > that great struggle for liberty: the American Revolution. > > Heroic biography has become the bestselling history brand of Bush's > America. > Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, Benjamin > Franklin, > John Adams and Abraham Lincoln are all speaking from the grave with > new-found loquaciousness. Barely a week passes without another > definitive > life of a Founding Father, Brother or Sister, each one more > adulatory than > the last. > > Not least the vice-president's wife, Dr Lynne Cheney, whose recent > contribution, When Washington Crossed the Delaware: A Wintertime > Story for > Young Patriots, is the kind of "history" that any ministry of > information > would have been proud of. Museums and TV schedulers have not been > slow to > catch the mood. The New York Historical Society currently hosts a > vast > exhibition celebrating the life of Alexander Hamilton ("The Man who > Made > Modern America"); the History Channel has even cut into its second > world war > telethon to offer a series of bio-pics of great American > revolutionaries. > > Sadly, none of this has resulted in any substantive reinterpretation > of the > revolution or its principal actors. As Simon Schama rightly puts it, > this is > history as inspiration, not instruction. Instead of critical > analysis, the > public is being fed self-serving affirmation: war-time schlock > designed to > underpin the unique calling, manifest destiny and selfless heroism > of the US > nation and, above all, its superhuman presidents. > > Needless to say, this goes down very well at the White House. We are > told > that the president's current reading matter includes biographies of > Washington as well as Alexander Hamilton. For the biographical > emphasis on > the Great Man who has the character and vision to transcend as well > as > define his times fits well with a presidency that values personal > instinct > and prayer above reason and empiricism. > > In fact, the historical community seems to be providing the ideal > conditions > for the Nietzschean approach of the Bush administration. As one > senior > presidential adviser scarily informed journalist Ron Suskind: "We're > an > empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while > you're > studying that reality ... we'll act again, creating other new > realities ... > We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just > study > what we do." > > Rather than tempering such terrifying ambition, US scholars are > happy to > play up to it. Historian Eliot Cohen penned an administration- > friendly > account of how former US presidents have instinctively been right in > matters > military, compared with their hapless, diffident generals, while > prolific > biographer Joseph Ellis has sought to offer posthumous suggestions > from > George Washington to George W. > > At a time when the US imperium is rampaging across the globe, you > might have > thought there would be a historical concern to enlighten the > domestic > citizenry about foreign cultures and peoples. Instead, public > scholars are > feeding the nation's increasingly insulated mentality with a retreat > into > the cosy fables of their forebears. Amid the biography and > hagiography, > stories of Islamic civilisation or Middle East nation-building are > among the > many histories the American people are not seeing. > > . Tristram Hunt is the author of Building Jerusalem: the Rise and > Fall of > the Victorian City > > [EMAIL PROTECTED]
