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Gather round, young'uns, for the tale of US diplo history, when Frank Costigliola published an article that threatened to destroy the field—nay, history itself!—because GENDER (gasp!). Many scholars (their gender known to you) rode on white horses onto H-Diplo to save the day.
The stakes were high. David Kaiser wrote (this was back in 1997):
"What moves me to write is nothing more nor less than concern for the future course of the discipline of history."
"What moves me to write is nothing more nor less than concern for the future course of the discipline of history."
Archivist Dane Hartgrove questioned not only Frank's interpretation, but the very idea of interpretation:
"Attempting to read meanings into phrases and expressions used in the remarks made by individuals more than 50 years ago borders on taking those remarks out of context."
"Attempting to read meanings into phrases and expressions used in the remarks made by individuals more than 50 years ago borders on taking those remarks out of context."
Should we say "gender"? Some said no, incl. Sally Marks: "Heartiest applause to Leland Barros for his objections to the use of 'gender' instead of 'sex.' I have always found 'gender' offensive because, properly speaking, it applies only to inanimate objects." Also, we need proof:
Lotsa people said — one senses quite ruefully — that they could find no hint of sexual innuendo, or even "tropes," in THEIR sources:
Reid Rozen and others wanted smoking-gun proof that gendered thinking influenced policy (a standard, by the way, that no one demands for claims that geopolitics mattered). Frank addressed this in a reply, asking "w/regard to complex issues, how much do historians really prove."
Indicative of the general flame-fest atmosphere, Michael Sponhour said Frank's article was underpinned by a "fundamental lack of intellectual honesty."
Herbert van Tuyll implicitly compared Frank to Nazis and John Birchers: "agenda-driven." He sniffed that the feminist analyses he'd come across (not many, he admitted) were "too politicized to make a lasting meaningful contribution to the discipline."
Gaddis plunked in briefly to quote his own book and say something weird, and then got prickly when people, er, interpreted his post.
At a time when US dip hist was on the defensive for not being cool, some wanted to double down on traditional approaches. Hartgrove said all we really need to study is war and high politics; the gender+class people can grub for leftovers. Oh, and race? No one cares.
He later clarified: "The profession should get its priorities straight before it concentrates on secondary matters [race, gender, class]."
A few general points.
- The thread was weird. There was a lot of talk about Foucault, but also Galileo and space cults, and way too many wink-wink jokes about "penetration" and what is rape.
Mostly, it makes me grateful that Twitter replaced H-Net discussions. SO MUCH BRIEFER.
- The thread was weird. There was a lot of talk about Foucault, but also Galileo and space cults, and way too many wink-wink jokes about "penetration" and what is rape.
Mostly, it makes me grateful that Twitter replaced H-Net discussions. SO MUCH BRIEFER.
I mean, like everyone else who read H-Diplo in the 1990s, I kept wondering: don't these men have LIVES? I would bet that David Kaiser wrote THOUSANDS of posts. (Women wrote in once in awhile, but it was a very male domain.)
There were plenty of people who wrote in to say: "I dunno, maybe we can live with new approaches." Frank defended himself ably. And he had advocates. People like @foredoma74 had sensible things to say.
It was part of a long "crisis" for US dip hist, when depts. seemed not to be hiring replacement dip historians and the AHA seemed not be putting dip hist on the program. This was the time of Windschuttle, the founding of the Historical Society, etc.
But the picture was mixed:
But the picture was mixed:
It was not that dip hist was necessarily in decline—it was diversifying, and the traditionalists didn't like that they got fewer of the jobs and fewer of the AHA spots because newer approaches were now competing. Historians may study change, but that doesn't mean they like it.
In a state of the field thread the same year, the traditionalists moaned that there wasn't any diplomatic history on the AHA program. But others wrote in to say: Um, hello, I do dip hist and am on the program; it's just that you don't think what I do counts as diplomatic history.
How much have things improved? A lot and a little. The traditional-minded are still prominent and calling for more study of war, with a little less openness about where they'd like to stick the rest of us (and those who don't study war to their taste).
And Frank's article, still widely read in grad seminars, still also gets grossly misinterpreted and dismissed, as this professorial address by T. G. Otte from last year shows:
The Tweet that prompted this thread: https://twitter.com/foredoma74/status/1356652331417415680
And the article that threatened the future of the discipline: https://twitter.com/drewmckevitt/status/1356619220046520323
