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The decline and fall (?) of traditional history
If you step into a Borders or Barnes & Noble and head to the history section, you are likely to find a good selection of books covering war, diplomacy, and the lives of great statesmen. Indeed, the public continues to devour volumes from authors such as David McCullough and the late Stephen Ambrose. On college campuses, however, traditional diplomatic, political, or military history is becoming an endangered species. Patricia Cohen reports in today's New York Times that diplomatic, economic, and intellectual historians comprise significantly lower percentages of faculties than thirty years ago, while social and cultural historians increased significantly--and continue to form a larger and larger share of history departments on many campuses.
To put it in military terms, the assault on traditional history is not usually a frontal one. Rather than announcing their intention to eviscerate traditional subfields, today's universities often redefine them--meaning that a course in "military history" could spend more time examining cultural or social topics rather than studying how diplomacy and war unfold. For example, a course on World War II could focus on battles and strategy, or it could "ascertain how elites and different social strata were affected by the impact of war and occupation," as one course description from Princeton reads. Similarly, as Brown University historian Gordon Wood has written, partisans of the "new political history" often "seek to transcend the usual stuff of politics--elections, parties and the political maneuvering of elite white males in government--and to provide a history that views politics through the lenses of race, gender and popular culture."
The marginalization of traditional military history in university history departments has been noted by a number of authors (see here, here, and here). While it is undeniable that the new perspectives offered by social and cultural history have greatly enhanced our understanding of the past, including the study of war, it does not follow that history focusing on institutional actions and figures needs to be pushed to the sidelines. Public discourse about national security and foreign policy are always enriched by an understanding of the way people in the past have handled--or mishandled--these challenges. With numerous challenges confronting our nation today, it seems that the enlightenment gained from traditional diplomatic and military history is as important as ever. Congress realized this when it authorized funding in the new Higher Education Opportunity Act for traditional American history programs. Would that more of those in power on our campuses did the same.
Posted by Sandra E. Czelusniak on June 11, 2009 at June 11, 2009 04:56 PM
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