make fun of historians? A straw man is an inaccessible, ideologically driven historian who is employed to undermine the process of producing history.
The Awadh Times: I see myself as being in the midst of a recent upheaval that was brought on by some comments made by a friend, the wildly successful William Dalrymple, on writing history—more specifically, the tension between popular and scholarly writing.
Why is it so popular to make fun of historians? Academics are not the answer.
I have some academic expertise because I worked in university departments for a few years conducting research. However, because I have written for a general audience, I have some understanding of the popular side of things. I sense that history is losing in this fight.
Contrary to common belief, it may be helpful to list some of the things that historians do or do not do. However, this is not the place to discuss the more general issue of what the job of the academic historian is. For starters, gathering as much knowledge as possible about the past is not the goal of the historian (or even of the entire body of historians).
Historians aim to comprehend how change has occurred in human civilizations while concentrating their own study on specific locations, periods, and events. Each historian’s own time and location, personal preferences, and, most importantly, contemporary trends and movements in history writing all have an impact on the times or places they decide to highlight and the topics they want to address.
Our overall knowledge of the past is advanced by such study, in which discussions among historians also play a significant role. Historians are aware that they are unable to answer every question; their only option is to continue posing new ones. However, the general public has a propensity to interpret any apparent information vacuum as an indication of incapacity or, worse, a conspiracy of silence.
And it is considered proof of a reprehensible and pervasive subjectivity when historians have quite legitimate disagreements.
The emergence of historians on WhatsApp
The impenetrable manner of academic historians’ writing is another frequent criticism leveled at them. This is sometimes interpreted as a continuation of the earlier argument, i.e., an attempt to purposefully hide the truth. For several reasons, this objection is not totally justified. The primary audience for academic literature, such as that found in peer-reviewed publications, is academics. Historians are not the only ones who experience this.
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This is also how academics from various fields converse with one another, with the primary goal being to communicate with their colleagues. Speaking to the public is not their main objective. Nevertheless, a few of historians do take up the challenge of speaking to a broad audience. Specifically, historians who write popular textbooks and other publications for a non-academic audience typically do it in a way that is both entertaining and educational.
So why has it become so popular to disparage and denigrate historians in general? I think the answer is mostly found outside of academia. It is seen in the growing use of history for purposes other than advancing our understanding of the past in general.
Today, history is meant to give us pride in our linguistic, regional, sectarian, and other identities, which almost always entails demeaning others. Since a detached analysis of the past typically paints a far more nuanced image, these goals frequently clash with the production of actual history. The emergence of pseudo-history, of which the WhatsApp brand is the most well-known, may be explained by this.
This type of history must present itself as a fact that historians have purposefully concealed since it was constructed to achieve very specific goals that may not be supported by historical study. It is no accident that the phrase “historians will never tell you this” appears at the beginning of a lot of these social media posts. I contend that the inaccessible, ideologically driven historian is a straw man—a mostly fabricated idea meant to undermine the process of creating history.
Respect for one another is necessary
This leads me to the crucial topic of writing popular history. The optimum format for this type of writing is a historical book that is intended for a general audience yet is based on scholarly historical research.
A historian is not necessarily required to write this. By reading historians’ research and occasionally studying original materials, a non-specialist writer can get insight into the topic. The ability to convey a compelling tale while still being grounded in sound research is what such an author primarily contributes.
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More respect for one another is what we need now. The author of popular history should interact with academic historians more. Recognizing that fresh discoveries can originate from any source is a good place to start. In any case, a critical assessment of claims and stories that frequently gain significant popular circulation through these types of literature is unquestionably necessary. A useful starting point for this kind of discussion is the assessment of popular history literature by academic historians.
On the other hand, popular historians must recognize the importance of academic historical research, even if it isn’t always presented in an interesting fashion. It seems sense to want to portray one’s own work as a remedy for “boring academic writing” or as an area that academic historians overlook.
However, one should avoid the urge to assign blame and use dishonest arguments, which support the often used WhatsApp cliché that “historians will never tell you this” and compromise accurate historical writing.
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