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Divided By A Common Passion

Cross-posted from Blog Them Out of the Stone Age

A vigorous exchange is underway in the U.S. Civil War blogosphere about the relationship between "amateur" and "professional" historians: essentially meaning non-academic and academic historians, respectively. It reminds me of that song from the musical Oklahoma: "Oh, the farmer and the cowman should be friends." And it reflects a perennial issue when it comes to historical periods that interest both academics and lay people.

To follow the conversation, start with non-academic historian Eric Wittenberg's musings about whether to bother getting a graduate degree in history (and scroll through the numerous comments), then go to academic historian Brooks Simpson's thoughtful response (which has also generated a lot of comments). Eric replies and provides links to other blogs that have entered the conversation; e.g., J. D. Petruzzi and Kevin Levin. The tone is that the division between "professional" and "amateur" historians is unfortunate and leads to needless friction.

Ethan Rafuse offers a dissenting view to the "love fest" and attracts his share of comments, most of them critical of his insistence that there really are important distinctions between academic and non-academic historians. Among the commenters is Brooks, who promises -- and delivers -- a follow-up post.

The debate is still in full cry, and well worth checking out.

Posted on Friday, January 26, 2007 at 8:55 AM | Comments (1) | Return

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