Mar 30, 2006
nobody likes him, he's too popular
An irritation plagues the reviews sections of serious journals. It is an irritation that, so far as careful diagnosis can tell, erupts in response to perceived popularity, particularly in history-writing. Increasingly, this irritation appears symptomatic of an auto-immune disorder—the defenses meant to guard the body are instead attacking it, and stand possibly to destroy the system these defenses are supposed to preserve.
Nor, apparently, was he wise in his choice of wives, or indeed particularly nice, so as you would notice—but then, again.... well, you get the point.
There remain only two Taylorian abuses that might have anything to with being popular.
The first is error:"almost nothing he says can ever be accepted without corroboration." If this is true—it seems exaggerated—it indicates a real sin, which surely derives at least in part from speed of production, and also from the sense, to which popular writers are subject, that they can sacrifice scholarly rigor in the name of fluency.
But even this seems a little misplaced, or anyway under-argued. Error thrives also in more academic publications. Almost any time an author looks beyond from the specific datum actually under his gaze to gesture toward other issues he begins to err. Whether the error is the grosser one of unfamiliarity—like getting a number, name, procedure or title wrong—or the finer one of excess generalization, such mistakes occur in all nonfiction writing. We should strive to avoid them and correct them, but we cannot hope utterly to eliminate them. Taylor's sin was probably not error per se, but a cavalier attitude toward error. And while I can imagine an argument that this attitude is particularly rife among those striving to reach a larger audience, Wheatcroft doesn't make it here.
The second Taylorian abuse is popularity itself. Taylor's"epigrammatic and wisecracking" prose is so accessible, Wheatcroft" can’t help feeling that it was indeed designed to appeal to adolescents." Well, yes: it is generally said that the average American reads at something like a junior-high level. More importantly, a major audience for serious works of history exists among adolescents—the undergraduate students of history classes in universities. Writing to reach that audience does not sound like a bad idea.
Perhaps most bothersome about the essay is Wheatcroft's linking of Taylor with Schama and Ferguson, who only obviously share the final Taylorian characteristic, that of seeking a larger audience. There is no case made here—or anywhere else, that I know of—that they share any other of the bad behaviors on the list.
And while it is possibly true that seeking a popular readership either requires, or tends to lead one into, an unfortunate attitude toward errors; while it is possibly true that there is a definite point at which writing for a larger audience requires, or tends to lead one into, an unforgivably general—Wheatcroft would prefer to say"vulgar"—style of discussion, I have not seen anyone make the case that such vices belong especially to historians writing for a larger public.
And so long as nobody pins down problems of popular history that are particular to popular history, we're beating up on people simply for being popular. Which strikes me as an unproductive activity for a profession with a not-undeserved reputation for insularity.
A couple of friends have recently emailed a case in point, Geoffrey Wheatcroft on A.J.P. Taylor in Prospect. Wheatcroft appears at first to admire Taylor for his writing—"intensely readable" and"unstoppable"—and his influence—"In a modest way, some of his books did change the way we look at history." This faint praise shades swiftly into an indictment against Taylor as"the first of the 'hackademics,' or 'telly dons.'" We are with Wheatcroft to bemoan"One last legacy of Taylor’s career ... the 'journo-don.' He blazed a trail later followed by Simon Schama, Niall Ferguson and others."
Yet Wheatcroft's actual indictment of Taylor has little to do with the alleged or real vices of popularity.
- Taylor had"silly" politics, and specifically was soft on the Soviets—scarcely a vice unheard-of among drier scholars.
- He unhealthily admired the abuse of authority, at least from afar—again, as above, hardly an absent attribute in the academy.
- He toadied to higher-ups and logrolled friends—again, something the most scholarly professors are rather more often accused than acquitted of.
Nor, apparently, was he wise in his choice of wives, or indeed particularly nice, so as you would notice—but then, again.... well, you get the point.
There remain only two Taylorian abuses that might have anything to with being popular.
The first is error:"almost nothing he says can ever be accepted without corroboration." If this is true—it seems exaggerated—it indicates a real sin, which surely derives at least in part from speed of production, and also from the sense, to which popular writers are subject, that they can sacrifice scholarly rigor in the name of fluency.
But even this seems a little misplaced, or anyway under-argued. Error thrives also in more academic publications. Almost any time an author looks beyond from the specific datum actually under his gaze to gesture toward other issues he begins to err. Whether the error is the grosser one of unfamiliarity—like getting a number, name, procedure or title wrong—or the finer one of excess generalization, such mistakes occur in all nonfiction writing. We should strive to avoid them and correct them, but we cannot hope utterly to eliminate them. Taylor's sin was probably not error per se, but a cavalier attitude toward error. And while I can imagine an argument that this attitude is particularly rife among those striving to reach a larger audience, Wheatcroft doesn't make it here.
The second Taylorian abuse is popularity itself. Taylor's"epigrammatic and wisecracking" prose is so accessible, Wheatcroft" can’t help feeling that it was indeed designed to appeal to adolescents." Well, yes: it is generally said that the average American reads at something like a junior-high level. More importantly, a major audience for serious works of history exists among adolescents—the undergraduate students of history classes in universities. Writing to reach that audience does not sound like a bad idea.
Perhaps most bothersome about the essay is Wheatcroft's linking of Taylor with Schama and Ferguson, who only obviously share the final Taylorian characteristic, that of seeking a larger audience. There is no case made here—or anywhere else, that I know of—that they share any other of the bad behaviors on the list.
And while it is possibly true that seeking a popular readership either requires, or tends to lead one into, an unfortunate attitude toward errors; while it is possibly true that there is a definite point at which writing for a larger audience requires, or tends to lead one into, an unforgivably general—Wheatcroft would prefer to say"vulgar"—style of discussion, I have not seen anyone make the case that such vices belong especially to historians writing for a larger public.
And so long as nobody pins down problems of popular history that are particular to popular history, we're beating up on people simply for being popular. Which strikes me as an unproductive activity for a profession with a not-undeserved reputation for insularity.