popular history

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• SOURCE: A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry
  8/29/2022
  

  What Happens When People Who Don't Know Historical Methods Spout Off About Historical Methods

  by Bret Devereaux

  "It is going to end up being rather involved because to explain why a shallow critique of a discipline’s methods is shallow, you have to explain how that discipline functions and why it does so."

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• 8/28/2022
  

  The Personal is Critical: How Should Early Americanists Think of David McCullough as a "Gateway" to History?

  by Rebecca Brenner Graham

  Historians' tributes to David McCullough underscore the need to respect popular "gateways to history" but to also find gateways without gatekeeping. 

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• 8/21/2022
  

  Ultimately, David McCullough Succeeded by "Writing the Book I Wanted to Read"

  by Cary Heinz

  When the author loaned his father a copy of McCullough's Truman biography, "he not only read it, but loaned it to enough people that I eventually got it back with the book’s spine split in half," a testament to his narrative gifts.

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• SOURCE: The Bulwark
  8/9/2022
  

  The Rediscovery of David McCullough

  by Lindsay M. Chervinsky

  A presidential historian now at work on her own book on John Adams reflects on how McCullough's blockbuster inspired her own career, and his hits and misses as a chronicler of overlooked or forgotten people and events in American history. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  8/8/2022
  

  Two-Time Pulitzer Prize Winner David McCulloch Dies at 89

  "Mr. McCullough, long regarded as a master storyteller of American daring, endeavor and perseverance, died Aug. 7 at his home in Hingham, Mass. He was 89."

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• SOURCE: Perspectives on History
  6/8/2022
  

  Dirtbag Historicism

  by Leland Renato Grigioli

  While historians have long been embattled to demonstrate that their discipline contributes to some external standard of usefulness, the profession now must also content with the political abuse of history through narratives of identity-based nostalgia. 

• 
• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  4/20/2022
  

  Journalists and Academics: Stop Fighting!

  by Maggie Doherty

  How can academics and journalists better understand the relationship between their two camps? 

• 
• SOURCE: The Chatner
  3/29/2022
  

  The Popular Medieval History Hated by Medievalists

  by Daniel Lavery

  "It’s the most prominent example of a type of book that fascinates me: The amateur/popular history of an entire field that’s largely beloved (or at least successful) outside of said field and widely loathed within it."

• 
• 1/30/2022
  

  Popular Histories Have Influenced World Leaders, Sometimes For the Better

  by Robert Brent Toplin

  Although the popular history genre is often maligned, historians should reflect on the role of Barbara Tuchman's 1962 "The Guns of August" in guiding JFK away from the brink of nuclear war and recognize the power of a story clearly told.

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• SOURCE: Aeon
  12/16/2021
  

  What "Big History" Misses

  by Ian Hesketh

  "Big History" has become established in the popular media and in some academic quarters, telling global-scale narratives of human and even planetary history. After 30 years, it's time to evaluate its successes and failures. 

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• 8/8/2021
  

  What Can We Learn from Historians vs. Malcolm Gladwell?

  by Gregory A. Daddis

  As the discipline's claims to authority are under attack, it would be a mistake for historians to sacrifice rigorous pursuit of truth to be "interesting."

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• SOURCE: Substack
  5/1/2021
  

  On Popular History: Rebecca Traister

  by Alexis Coe

  Historian Alexis Coe interviews writer and essayist Rebecca Traister on the historical research informing her work and the links between popular and academic audiences for historical knowledge. 

• 
• SOURCE: Mother Jones
  4/2/2021
  

  Can America’s Problems Be Fixed By a President Who Loves Jon Meacham?

  The popular historian and biographer Jon Meacham has been a major influence on Joe Biden's political outlook, and potentially on his policy agenda. Does a view of history informed by conflicts of virtue and values offer a path to fixing corrupted or hollowed-out institutions? Are academic historians jealous? 

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  10/12/2020
  

  How We Lie to Ourselves About History

  At its best, the "You're Wrong About" podcast transcends fact-checking and debunking to ask why so many of the stories we know are wrong, and why they persist nevertheless. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  9/26/2020
  

  Re-Watching ‘The Civil War’ During the Breonna Taylor and George Floyd Protests

  by Gillian Brockell

  Ken Burns's Civil War documentary series sparked tremendous interest in history, but the series has a big Shelby Foote problem. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  5/24/19
  

  Readers can’t get enough World War II fiction, and authors are happy to keep the books coming

  You can’t throw a potato peel without hitting a new bestseller about the perils of Nazi Germany.

• 
• SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
  2/6/19
  

  A World War I Documentary Becomes ‘Event Cinema’

  ‘They Shall Not Grow Old’ breaks box-office records

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• 4/1/18
  

  For Whom Should Historians Write and How?

  by Walter G. Moss

  Reflections of a master historian.

• 
• SOURCE: The American Conservative
  9-12-13
  

  A.J.P. Taylor Is History

  by R.J. Stove

  Is the popular historian worth another look?

• SOURCE: Cosmic America
  2-12-13
  

  Keith Harris: Can Social Media Bridge the Gulf Between Academic Historians and the Public?

  Keith Harris blogs at Cosmic America and holds a PhD in history from the University of Virginia.Greetings Cosmic Americans!Of course, I believe that the answer is yes. This summer, I will take part in a panel at the Civil War Institute’s annual conference at Gettysburg College with fellow Civil War bloggers Kevin Levin, Brooks Simpson, and Mark Grimsley. The so-called “gulf” is one of the principal issues that I will be addressing.Years ago, before the Internet opened the doors for real-time access to just about anyone anywhere in the world, the television historical documentary probably stood alone as the medium most likely to serve as the middle ground on which academic historians and an informed public might relate.