Cambodia and the rest can rejoice, those that survived.
In an interview, Schell said that after the Berkeley speech, he, his wife, Liu Baifang; "New Yorker" staff writer Mark Danner; and NPR documentarian Sandy Tolan, joined Halberstam at Chez Panisse, where the five closed down the restaurant discussing the similarities between the Vietnam War and the current quagmire in Iraq.
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I've got one of Halberstam's books on the shelf, The Fifties. It's alright. The problem is that it's impossible to follow the paper trail, and reconsult the primary sources he used -- no foot- or end-notes in the entire work!
His generation is obsessed with making every contemporary event relate back to the Vietnam War -- jam that evidence in there! it'll fit! -- and what happened in the Sixties. Some might describe this an extension of the socio-self-absorbed Sixties. Real historians have shown repeatedly better comparisons and similarties with Jefferson's response to the Barbary Pirates.
But oh well: rebuttles are all just like pissing in the wind.
As a historian I have no opinion on him. As an American, I place him near Benedict Arnold. RIP, but good riddance.
He's a journalist (Halberstam), not an historian. A criteria for being an Historian, for myself anyhow, requires a paper trail of foot- or end-note primary source citations. There's nothing magical about it. It just lets us consult the documents used to make the case.
Then Herodotus, Thucidides, Livy, and Tacitus weren't historians? Historians are people that write history. Those that are careful about method are academic historians. Neither is greater than the other, but both write history.
Then Herodotus, Thucidides, Livy, and Tacitus weren't historians? Historians are people that write history. Those that are careful about method are academic historians. Neither is greater than the other, but both write history.
Herodotus is more of an ethno-historian/proto-anthropologist, even a mythologist. Thucydides more of a military journalist. And all have made grand contributions to our understanding of the past.
Still, your definition of Historian is pretty, ah, "interesting," JJ. Let's apply your formula to the other Arts and Sciences:
1.) I just added 2 + 3 = 5, so I guess I'm a mathematician now.
2.) And I can paraphrase the second law of thermodynamics, so I guess I'm a physicist now too.
If you wanna call yourself a Historian (from David Hume and Edward Gibbon on down the line to the present day), then leave your reader an outline of your method and a foot- and/or end-note paper trail so they can check the data/primary sources and agree or argue with your respective interpretation.
But, MFT, are you considering our contemporary sense of the term as the only appropriate sense of the term? For example, did Thucydides, Herodotus, Livy, Dio, Polybius, Sallust etc..... NOT consider themselves historians?
I do think that JJs distinction here between "academic historian" and historian in a more general sense has some value to it. "Academic" meaning one who has incorporated the scholarly methods you've indicated [ methods developed for very good reasons!] and the other referring to enquiry or discourse on events in an historical vein. This distinction would have the merit of not throwing out 2,000 years of writing on history [and not just the west! Think of the many historical chronicles of the Chinese --alas not classically foot or end noted] while giving proper due to the deepening of method which distinguishes, say, "Mediteranee" from "Twelve Caesars".
Of course you have the right to decide that "academic history" is "The Real McCoy", whereas "historian in a more general sense" is just journalism, or popularization, or some other form of "Not the Real McCoy". But I would suggest that however reasonable a cut that is in the contemporary state of things, it does not do justice to the evolution of historical study which has led to the current state of things.
As for your examples of being able to state
2+3=5, or paraphrase the second law of thermodynamics, as making one a mathematician or physicist [to suggest something absurd about JJs distinction?] methinks they would be apt IF ol' JJ had said something akin to: "Igor says that Boudicca's soldiers daubing themselves with a bluish clay failed to intimidate Julius' legions. Johnny says that techniques of metal work show an overall steady increase in sophistication from the Dharappa civilization to the Damascus Caliphate. Hence Igor and Johnny are historians".
But patently JJ said no such thing. He said "Historians are people that write history", and quoting an historian or discussing something from the past does not make you one who writes history.
Note that by current standards Archimedes, Galen, Ptolemy, Al-Haytham, Galileo, Descartes, Kepler, etc.... fail to follow "proper procedure", this in methods of enquiry and treatment of "experiments" and data and criteria for "a proper mathematical model" etc..., absolutely never mind their actual way of communicating their thought and results to others! Yet they are considered as scientists, [seekers of knowledge of the natural world] and justly so in my opinion, as much The Real McCoy as Newton, or Faraday or Watson&Crick.
Hmmm... on a related note, have you ever read "The 8th Day of Creation" by H. F. Judson? Judson was a journalist who evolved into a very very good historian of science, and it was this book, roughly speaking a history of molecular biology centered on a genetic theme, which made the transition. In it, as far as an historian's method goes, he scrupulously hews to all the proper academic procedures, yet argues for a melding of techniques we'd ascribe to journalists [interviews, for example, play a prominent role. Artifacts a non-negligible role]] with the mainstream emphasis on text and record.......It is excellent.
JJ said "Historians are people that write history", and quoting an historian or discussing something from the past does not make you one who writes history.
Keep in mind, I'm not trying to start a pissing contest or chest-beating argument about whether Academic History is better or worse than mythology or folk lore. The latter comes from individuals, and that they are stories that originate from individuals (to reference J.R.R. Tolkien) makes them a component of history. What's necessary is a distinction, and it somewhat goes back to that old R.G. Collingwood argument: there are Positivists who believe that their scientific findings are Absolute; and then the Collingwood school of thought, which encourages an understanding of why people think the way they do.
For example, Herodotus talked to some Egyptians, and wrote it down on a long scroll using the methods familiar to him in the day -- writing it down. For whatever reason, his stories were preserved and are accessible to us today.
Perhaps we need to think a bit more carefully about if Each Man His Own Historian (the Carl Becker/JJ approach?), or if there's some type of rigour we should expect from our own contemporaries before we give them "Historian" status.
At the outset of my post, I was merely judging Halberstam (as I should be able to) with contemporary standards. Then JJ -- perhaps thinking I was getting Too Elitist for My Own Good -- took it and questioned if I thought Herodotus and Co. weren't historians too. JJ projected my contemporary interpretation on the past (or suggested that that's what I was doing). That's fine, too. We often look and pull from the past to help us sort through the present. Herodotus wore many hats, that's for damn sure.
However, I'm unwilling to even begin making the comparison between Herodotus and Halberstam. The former was intellegent, the latter a Journalist. And no: one doesn't need to be academically trained to be a Historian. If they are calling themselves such (and again, I'm speaking of contemporaries), they need to show me where they are getting their quotes, and those quotes need to be accesible.
Otherwise we might be in danger of another "History" Conference of the Tehran sort.
I'll have to amazon H. F. Judson upon my next payday. Sounds good.
By 'academic' I mean 'jerkoff'. Sorry if I started a meaningful discussion.
JJ said...
"By 'academic' I mean 'jerkoff'. Sorry if I started a meaningful discussion."
Apology accepted
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