Restoring Dignity to Thucydides’ Profession

Public interest in history is flourishing. An enthusiastic general audience buys and reads books about history, follows the offerings of the History Channel and applauds historical films. All the while, established academic history is becoming increasingly specialized, careerist, bureaucratized and politically conformist. The ironies abound and merit savoring. Academic history has largely effected its work in the name of democracy. History, it claims, must embody the experience and feelings of ordinary people, especially those who have been oppressed, exploited and barred from the corridors of power. Peoples and their victimization have displaced nations and their traditions. Wars, rulers and political contests have given way to sexualities and personal identities. Great religious and intellectual movements have evaporated under the hot sun of “performance” and the vagaries of what is known as cultural studies.

Few would dispute the rich contributions of much of what was once called the “new” social history. Fewer still would deny the value of the historical sensibility that evokes the variegated legacy of different cultures. The call for a renewal of historical study has nothing to do with the politics of left, right or center, much less with the suppression of diversity and multiculturalism. Yet, contemporary academic history is being systematically gutted of all of the breadth, the drama and, most dangerously, the tragedy that have accounted for its abiding hold over the public imagination. What remains is a series of vignettes of everyday life that bear an eerie resemblance to the contemporary sensibilities of identity politics.

Since Thucydides, historians of every century and civilization have focused upon the rise and fall of empires, states and republics, and the subjects continue to fascinate the public. But today’s academic historians contemptuously dismiss this legacy as elitist--dead, white, male history. Sure, at least in Northern Europe and the United States, the main players in this arena primarily have been white and male--and are now dead. But to condemn them for those attributes amounts to a public confession of intellectual poverty. For better or worse--and usually a measure of both--they shaped the world that we have inherited.

History further demonstrates that, given the opportunity, Asians, Africans Middle Easterners--and more than an occasional woman--have done the same, sometimes with more admirable results, sometimes with less. They exercised their power and authority through the wars, diplomacy and political struggles in which they engaged, as well as through their efforts to write laws, build institutions, establish cultural and intellectual hegemony, and otherwise implement their vision of life. In most instances, their efforts demonstrably embodied some measure of self-interest. But the alleged selfishness of individuals or ruling classes does not justify our denying their claims upon our attention.

In recent years, academic historical associations increasingly have tended to invoke precisely that feeble rationalization. Since diplomatic, intellectual, political and economic history, among other subjects, prove resistant to the ideologically loaded, formulaic claims of “race, class and gender,” they are barely tolerated when not treated with open contempt. No matter that, for example, diplomacy may result in a transfer of territory that reshapes the lives of ordinary people, perhaps easing or exacerbating class or ethnic conflict, perhaps inducing a new attitude toward gender roles. It is preposterous to deny the significance of high diplomacy, politics and intellectual life for the lives of ordinary people, which they influence--and are even influenced by--in countless direct and indirect ways. But historians’ interest in them does not require that justification. Their real claims upon our attention lie in their intrinsic interest, and our attention to them, in turn, testifies to our openness to the social life of diverse peoples in its genuine complexity.

These irrationalities are occurring in an atmosphere that uncomfortably resembles the McCarthyism of the 1950s. They have been imposed by presiding cliques that have made ideological conformity the primary criterion for holding office. Some eminent historians are now lecturing us to “work from within” establishment organizations rather than form a new historical society. But have the establishment organizations not imposed the extremism of “political correctness,” for example, by condoning the proscription of those who hold differing views, say, those who oppose abortion on religious principle? Am I being unreasonable when I ask why eminent colleagues have never uttered a word of protest, much less demanded that those responsible be called to account? For ourselves, we do not deny the right of the prevailing academic establishment to do its thing on its own turf, but we believe that we can build an organization that practices academic freedom in open debate over the large themes that lie at the heart of any history worthy of attention.

The Historical Society has been founded to foster the intellectual and ideological openness that alone nurture rich and challenging historical work of every variety--from social history to economic and diplomatic history. Our charter members include people whose politics range from the Marxist left to the traditionalist right, including every position between them. All we ask of our members is that they lay down plausible premises; reason logically; appeal to evidence, and respect the integrity of all those who do the same.

Historians with diverse views are coming together to establish a dynamic dialogue in which history will once more attract the attention of all those who see it as more than fad or fancy. We intend to create a new community in which civilized exchange will be the pattern of intellectual discourse. For the rest, John H. Roper of Emory and Henry College, a man known for his political moderation and tolerant spirit, said it all: “We simply must restore the dignity of our profession.”