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This is, of course, absurd. Diplomatic history still exists, it’s just called international history now. War history exists, it’s just more than drums & trumpets now. The president of Harvard is one of the preeminent historians of the US Civil War & regularly teaches. 1/ https://twitter.com/juergenzimmerer/status/1356234547621482496
Colonial history not only still exists, it is booming and has been for 30 years.
Seriously, just try to get a job in European history without doing at least some serious research on international or colonial questions. 2/
Seriously, just try to get a job in European history without doing at least some serious research on international or colonial questions. 2/
History’s falling share of undergrad majors is, in large part, a product of a dramatic increase in overall college enrollments since 1970. And of the increase in attention to historical perspectives outside of History depts. Students get lots of history, across the curriculum. 3/
But also, history's share of undergrad majors has fallen because, as @benmschmidt has shown using data, not ideological handwriting, *History departments have lost women students* & *women are now the majority ofcollege students.* https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/december-2018/the-history-ba-since-the-great-recession-the-2018-aha-majors-report
Again, for the TLDR crowd: *NO GIRLS, NO HISTORY MAJORS*
And who are those students, alumni, donors & book buyers invoked by Sir Max & his various "eminent historians"? *NOT GIRLS* 5/
And who are those students, alumni, donors & book buyers invoked by Sir Max & his various "eminent historians"? *NOT GIRLS* 5/
It is not really worth arguing with such a transparently flimsy argument, but I will circle back around to the easily falsifiable premise of his piece, namely that History departments no longer teach courses in diplomatic, military, or colonial history. 6/
This is simply, patently *NOT TRUE.* Anecdata point 1: I do not hold a position in military, diplomatic, or political history. I'm a cultural historian. And yet, here are some of the courses I regularly teach: 7/
1. France in the Age of Revolutions
2. The Struggle for the Republic in 20th Century France
3. War & Society in Modern Europe
4. Modern European Empires
5. France & Algeria
I do serious, academic research in all of these areas. As a cultural historian of modern France. 8/
2. The Struggle for the Republic in 20th Century France
3. War & Society in Modern Europe
4. Modern European Empires
5. France & Algeria
I do serious, academic research in all of these areas. As a cultural historian of modern France. 8/
And that's the tell. What Sir Max & his boys really object to is how histories of diplomacy, war, empire, & politics have expanded to include questions of race & gender, the perspectives of women & colonized ppl, even scholars who are women & BIPOC, M McMillan notwithstanding 9/
Why didn't that "eminent historian" count Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust, Professor of history & University President, as a US Civil War specialist on the Harvard faculty? Maybe because she's a woman who's written most extensively abt the wartime experiences of women & families?
10/
10/
Yes, we should fight to increase the study of History. Yes, we should fight to give History students the widest range of approaches, topics, themes. Yes, that includes war, empire, politics, & diplomacy. 11/
But WE LOSE ALL THOSE FIGHTS if we base them on a wildly inaccurate caricature of our field & equally wild assumptions about who our students are & what they're interested in. /fin.
