Things Noted Here and There
... we live in what is often called a golden age of history and biography, when David McCullough, to cite the most obvious example, has attained fame and enormous sales.Mary Dudziak replies to Tanenhaus at Legal History Blog
But in truth Mr. McCullough and others as talented, or nearly so, don't command the broad cultural authority that Mr. Schlesinger and his contemporaries did. Nor, for that matter, do academic historians like Gordon S. Wood and James M. McPherson, though their books resonate beyond the university.
The problem is not one of seriousness, intelligence or skill. It is rather one of reach. Mr. Wood's Radicalism of the American Revolution is a major contribution to our understanding of its subject, and Mr. McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom enthralled readers. But neither work can be said to have affected how many of us think about current issues.
There's an interesting dustup at Wikipedia about the fabricated credentials of a major contributor. Profiled in the New Yorker,"Essjay" claimed to be a tenured professor of religion at a private American university. It turns out that he is 24-year-old Ryan Jordan, who has no formal credentials or academic position. Hat tip.
Michael Levenson,"A Student's Words, A Candidate's Struggle," Boston Globe, 4 March, looks at Hillary Clinton's senior thesis on Saul Alinsky at Wellesley College. At the request of the White House, it was closed to researchers from 1993 to 2001. On today's 42nd anniversary of the clash at the Edmund Pettis Bridge, Clinton will speak at Selma, Alabama's First Baptist Church and Barak Obama will speak at Brown Chapel AME Church. Then, they'll join John Lewis for the annual re-enactment of the walk across the bridge toward Montgomery. I wasn't there for the initial clash, but flew into the city three weeks later for the final day's march from the City of St. Jude into Montgomery – up Dexter Avenue, where we passed the old slave auction site. We massed in front of the state capitol, where Jefferson Davis had taken the oath of office as president of the Confederacy and George Wallace glared down at us from his governor's office. To our right was Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King had been pastor. And he told us:"How long? Not long, for the arc of moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice ..."
Finally, Kurt Treptow, an American historian living in Romania, gives new meaning to the notion of a sabbatical leave. He was convicted in 2002 of having sex with two underage girls and possession of kiddieporn, including tapes of his encounters with a seven year old. After serving five of his seven year sentence, Treptow's been released because of the publication of his book, Vlad III Dracula: The Life and Times of the Historical Dracula. Hey! They could have given him tenure. Hat tip.
Update: Treptow's release was apparently based on his authorship of a subsequent book, which was counted as community service.