Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Going home

After tomorrow morning, I will have gone through London Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, and Luton airports in just over 90 days. Flying budget airlines will do that for you.

I'm unable to upload my dissertation right now since the internet connection in my room has been cut off, but I'll get to that soon after getting home. I also have some pictures from Madrid (flowers and construction, mostly) to post.

At the moment I'm in the process of looking/applying for jobs, which also means that I don't have one. So I'll likely have time for blogging in there as well.

Just in case I don't get around to it in the next couple of days, I hope all the Americans out there have a relaxing and enjoyable Fourth of July weekend. For some musings on early memories of American independence, you can read this paper of mine from a year ago.

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Which history?

In case you haven't realized it yet, Ralph Luker of Cliopatra is a wonderful source for interesting items on history. The most recent of his suggestions to catch my eye is an Anne Applebaum piece arguing that the National Museum of American History should present a chronological overview of the history of the United States.

There are a number of problems with Applebaum's piece, problems that often arise in discussing history in the public sphere. The sooner the relevant issues are understood, the sooner Americans can gain a more sophisticated and fulfilling understanding of the past.

Applebaum's inspiration for encouraging the NMAH to present a complete narrative of American history is the observation that American students don't seem to know much American history. While this might be the case (she cites primarily anecdotal evidence; I’m sure there must be some recent study of students' historical knowledge, but I'm not aware of it), this is not a new phenomenon. Critics have been bemoaning the historical ignorance of American students for decades, if not longer. Applebaum guesses that back in 1964, when the museum opened, there was no need to portray the narrative sweep of American history since everyone already knew it. This is a dubious presumption wholly unsupported by evidence. I don't claim to know how much history Americans knew in the '60s, but I do know that people were criticizing that level of knowledge even then. American ignorance of history is not new. Blaming recent sociocultural developments for that ignorance misses the fact that historical ignorance has its own history and that that history should be considered when addressing the problem of poor knowledge of the past. Plus, as Kevin Drum notes, it's probably not just students who don't know much history.

More discouraging is Applebaum's view on the boundaries and definitions of history. In bemoaning the museum's failure to "tell the whole American story, or even chunks of the American story, in chronological order, from Washington to Adams to Jefferson, or from Roosevelt to Truman to Eisenhower," she reveals an uncritical and old-fashioned view of history. The idea that there is such a thing as "the whole American story" rests on the misguided assumption that it's possible to know, to say nothing of portray, the entirety of the past. Now, I don't think that Applebaum believes we can know everything about the past. Rather, I think she sees the "whole story" as encompassing a particular type of history: political narrative (as evidenced by her seeing American history as divided by presidential terms).

This privileging of high political history is problematic. Now there's nothing inherently wrong with political history. Studying the key political developments and events of American history is valuable and important. But focusing on the story of presidents, congressmen, and senators necessarily excludes other important and interesting stories, stories of industrialization, race, education, labor, finance, gender, agriculture, and countless other topics. These histories are just as real as political history and just as worthwhile to tell. But I get the feeling that Applebaum's vision for the core exhibit of the museum would exclude them.

Here's the key point. There's simply no such thing as the story of American history. There are lots of American histories, asking different questions, examining different sources, and reaching different sorts of conclusions. And there's no obvious reason why these different histories have to gel with each other. Periodization that accurately describes presidential politics might very well be useless in describing gender relations.

Now there's an argument to be made that knowledge of political history is more important to the average citizen than, say, knowledge of agricultural history. But it's telling that half of the examples Applebaum provides of historical evidence have little to do with history; it's not necessary to know much about history to know the three branches of the American government or the first three words of the Constitution. Deciding what counts as history gets more complicated once it's necessary to decide between, say, the presidential election of 1840 and the racial relations of the period.

My point here is not to argue that the NMAH should eschew political history entirely. Far from it. Rather, it's crucial for the museum to maintain exhibits that reflect the multiplicity of the past. A permanent exhibition that tells the "whole American story" (as imagined by Applebaum) would necessarily privilege a narrative that doesn’t fit or describe a large portion of American history. It would be virtually impossible to tell the "whole story," for the very simple reason that there’s just too much to tell.

And that's okay. As far as I'm concerned, America's marquee museum of American history should do more than simply present a story of "how the nation got to be here in the first place," a story, according to Applebaum, that excludes the telephone, sewing machine, and Judy Garland’s ruby slippers. The NMAH should reveal to its visitors that history is complex and multifaceted, more than a simple chronology of key events and figures. There's a place for narrative history in the museum, but there's no need to present that any one narrative is the "real" or most important story of American history. Professional historians stopped thinking about history as solely the story of politics, diplomacy, and war a long time ago. They should be encouraging the general public to adopt a broad view and understanding of history, not forcing a narrow narrative of politics down their throats. Simply put, the National Museum of American History should offer its visitors a chance to view the American past in all its quirks and glory, admitting all the while that it's impossible to tell the whole story of the history of the United States.

Saturday, June 18, 2005

Musings on the nature and usefulness of history

Via Ralph Luker at Cliopatra, I came upon this column on history by David Gelernter.

Unlike Ralph, I'm not terribly impressed by Gelernter's claim that "Not knowing history is worse than ignorance of math, literature or almost anything else. Ignorance of history is undermining Western society's ability to talk straight and think straight." Obviously I think history's an important field and one that everyone should study in some way. But I don't view knowledge of history as a crucial underpinning of the "ability to talk straight and think straight," especially given Gelernter's view of what history should be. Studying history can indeed be a wonderful way of developing thinking and communication skills. But history's not the only way to do that. Practically any academic field can enhance those abilities if taught well. History's important, but it's not the linchpin of western civilization.

More troubling than Gelernter's misplaced privileging of history is his vision on what history should be and how it should be taught in schools and universities.

The anecdote that sparked Gelernter's musings is discouraging, perhaps, but not terribly surprising. His son told him of a girl in his school who proclaimed "If I'd lived at that time and been drafted, I would've gone to Canada too." Gelernter's shocked that high school students believe that the military draft during the Vietnam War applied to both men and women. The problem here is that military conscription drew only on men. So the student lacked some pretty basic knowledge about one of the major domestic issues related to the Vietnam War.

This sort of revelation is hardly novel. Critics have been bemoaning the paucity of high school students' knowledge of history for decades, if not longer. While it's disappointing that these knowledge gaps continue, it's not very surprising.

But what's remarkable here is that this has nothing to do with history's potential to enhance the "ability to talk straight and think straight". Knowledge of the facts of history in no way guarantees that students are capable of thinking critically about the past or develop nuanced positions. The facts do not speak for themselves.

And this is Gelernter's real problem. "Our schools teach history ideologically. They teach the message, not the truth." Outside of a bare chronology of facts and dates, there is no such thing as a message-free or non-ideological history. The American history that Gelernter wants taught is one that instills pride in its students based on a glorious story highlighted by the Pilgrims, the revoluntionary ideals of the founding fathers, the fight to end slavery, victory in the First and Second World War and the Cold War, and a continuing commitment to freedom in Iraq. In place of this story of progress, Gelernter sees schools as "teaching ideology instead of facts," completely missing the fact that his version of American history is inextricably linked to his own political ideology.

That's not to say that there's no place in history curricula for celebrations of American achievements. Far from it. History teachers should present the good along with the bad. Schools should be presenting an accurate picture of the past, not one designed to instill pride in America. If students are taught to think for themselves, they'll be perfectly capable of finding key figures in American history who deserve admiration. There's no reason for schools and teachers to force an exclusively patriotic history down the throats of their students.

Gelernter ends by calling upon parents to teach their children U.S. history. "They won't learn it in school," he writes. He's partially right. Students might not learn the version of U.S. history that Gelernter wants them to learn. But if Gelernter really embraces a view of American history that dismisses American failures and consists of a bland narrative of steadily progressing freedom, American students are better off without it. Like Ralph wrote, history should be "a critical engagement with facts at conflict." History's usefulness lies in examining, evaluating, and understanding the past, not solely in its ability to cement national identity.

Thursday, June 16, 2005

Blogging

So I haven't found much to blog about, huh? Like I expected, it's not easy to get back into it. So, starting tomorrow, I'll be going through old drafts of blog posts and ideas for blog posts to get the whole thing kickstarted again.

And I'll post my dissertation in the next few days.

Sunday, June 12, 2005

Dissertation: done

As of 2:00 P.M. Friday, I've completed all the requirements for my MPhil.* I was editing and proofreading up until about 11:00 that morning... there always seems to be one more typo.

I'll post my dissertation online if anyone's interested. I looked at British attitudes towards the French during the early months of the First World War. My non-historian girlfriend found it interesting (and I don't think she's just being nice), so presumably history people would do so as well.

This means I'll be returning to regular blogging. It may take a few days to really get back in the swing of things, but you can expect pretty frequest posting.

*Assuming I don't receive a marginal fail on the dissertation. If I do, I'll have to do a viva.