historycrapwatch: the beginning

Just as both truly religious people and apostles of Reason (who may agree on nothing else) abhor idolatry, so, too, historians (whether conservative or radical, traditional or populist) despise sloppy history. It's not that we're pretentious. Rather, it's that we take our job seriously and worry when we see the public being fed half-truths and half-digested ideas.

The origins of the problem lie to some extent with us, as we read at the beginning of our historiography class this term. The classic historians were both learned and popular. Gibbon and Macaulay were bestsellers. In recent generations, professional historians have given up or scorned the attempt to communicate with the general reader. As the distance between academics and the public has widened, bad popular history has flooded in to fill the gap.

On the one hand, it is wonderful that American public interest in history is high, as reflected in a variety of measures, from military re-enactments to museum visits and book purchases to the popularity of historical television programs and films. On the other hand, it is worrisome that much of the history remains oversimplified. Bad history is second only to bad science as a threat to the national intelligence and character.

(Evidently the White House and its minions have fallen prey to both: no evolution, no global warming; the war against terrorism is like World War II , &c. &c. Historians look for patterns. Maybe the operative theory for this administration is that nothing changes. Ever. Okay. Wouldn't get an "A" in my class, but then, he was a "C" student at Yale, so what can one expect? Honesty, maybe?!)

One of the missions of this blog (picking up where the rest of the web site leaves off) is therefore to call attention to historical error, oversimplification, grandstanding, puffery, and plain old bullshit.

It is, as the military are wont to say, in their inimitable way, a "target-rich environment." Let us, as befits the season, begin with a confession: I both love and hate to watch this stuff on television. (It's a bit like driving by the scene of a car accident. One wants to avert one's eyes but cannot help watching.)

On the one hand, I just want to see what is covered, and I am interested in some topics even though (or precisely because) they are popular and get mangled. I even find it hard to resist all those supposedly serious programs about aliens, monsters, and conspiracy theories. It can be hard to know what to make of those that earnestly present themselves as "speculation." Usually, it is just an utterly disingenuous declaration that, yes, we know there are standards (and now that we've said that, we feel free to ignore them). Such hypocrisy or disingenuousness is unappetizing. That is why the prostitute is in most ways more admirable than the adulterer.

Ironically, it is the supposedly more "serious" programs that are the most egregious offenders: They do not purvey stupidity and superstition as truth, but they magnify their petty truths (and hosts) beyond all belief.


Some potential targets:

"History Detectives" on PBS: architect, art historian, sociologist, and antiques appraiser. I know people in those fields. These folks wouldn't last five minutes here in this town, much less, with my sharp students. Now I could set PBS up with a real team of interesting people, but they'd have to call and ask...

"Digging for the Truth" on the History Channel. Come on. It's not history, it's not archaeology. It's just a guy who can afford an 800-dollar hat but evidently not a decent razor. If headgear were de rigueur for historians, the old line about the dude cowboy would be even more approriate: all hat and no cattle.

Stay tuned for scandals and breaking news.

Season of Reflection and Reconciliation

This season of change reminds us that change is possible, that we can do better, that we can right old wrongs and avoid past mistakes. I think of a set of concentric circles embracing both the universal and the particular.

Sixty years ago, at the end of World War II, who could have imagined that the Americans and the Japanese and the French and the Germans would become friends and allies, not to mention that Germany would become among the staunchest friends of an Israel that did not even exist?

Just over two decades ago at this season, Arab armies attacked Israel, in what they called the War of Ramadan and Israel and the West generally called the Yom Kippur War. The month of Ramadan and the Days or Awe, or Hebrew High Holy Days--the ten days stretching from New Year through the Day of Atonement during the month of Tishri--are similar in both purpose and origin. Both are particular times of fasting, introspection, reconciliation, and good deeds. In fact, Ramadan derives from Yom Kippur, and Muslims are commanded to keep "the fast as it was prescribed for those before you."

For the first time in many years, Ramadan and Tishri again coincide, but who, thirty-two years ago, could have imagined the changes that have taken place? In 1973, Ariel Sharon commanded the Israel armored forces that led the counteroffensive onto the Egyptian side of the Suez Canal and encircled and prepared to destroy the Egyptian Third Army. In the intervening years, he championed the settler movement. In 1973, Mahmoud Abbas was a young figure in the Fatah movement who had not even gone on to write the controversial Moscow dissertation that questioned the reality of the Holocaust (no gas chambers; fewer than 1 million dead). In the intervening years, he became a leading voice of moderation who initiated secret contacts with Israelis. Egypt and Jordan made peace with Israel. Israel and the PLO agreed to mutual recognition and began the tortuous process of making peace. Sharon pushed through the withdrawal from Gaza. Who, three decades ago, could have imagined that the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Authority would this month exchange holiday wishes (the latter, in Hebrew)? Or that the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs would host a Ramadan Iftar (break-fast) meal for representatives of Islamic countries? Peace is not here yet, but the prospects are better than they have been in a long time.

To believe that coincidences are more than that is, well, just plain naivete or superstition--but coincidences can inspire us to both reflection and action: Not only do the holy months of Ramadan and Tishri both begin on October 3-4. Oct. 2 is the Protestant and Orthodox World Communion Sunday. October 4 is the Feast of St. Francis. Important Hindu and Buddhist holidays also fall this month. For these reasons, the interfaith coalition known as Tent of Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah, characters whose story is part of the Hebrew New Year liturgy, has spoken of "God's October Surprise" and urged all of us to make October 13--Yom Kippur and one of the days of Ramadan--a national day of repentance, and to make this season one in which we "seek peace, feed the poor, heal the earth, and then later to take visible steps in the world to heed God's call."

I was fortunate enough to experience this spirit at the fourth annual community Ramadan dinner sponsored by the Muslim Student Association at the University of Massachusetts last weekend.

Sadly, yet another natural disaster in South Asia provides us with the opportunity to demonstrate our practical commitment to fellowship and shared humanity.

The new Global Giving/Center for International Disaster Information collaborative offers a simple way to make effective donations to reliable relief agencies.