Comments for Paul Lockhart: Past in the Present

Comment on Comfortable history by Kate

Kate — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:20:25 +0000

For that matter, how many historical novels are “novel”? Granted, people do seem to be more adventurous in their fiction-reading, but not by much. If you peruse the fiction section of a Barnes and Noble, the vast majority of the historical fiction you’ll find will consist of terrible, terrible novels about Tudor England (generally part of a broader, obnoxiously regressive genre I like to call “Ladies Who Slept With Great Men”), some staples of American history (Revolution, slavery, Civil War, pioneers!), and a few pockets in other fields of history (so with Egypt, for example, it’s always Hatshepsut, Amarna, and Cleopatra VII). Sometimes cool and original stuff becomes popular, but historical-fiction readers clearly have their own limited comfort zones. It’s the sort of thing that makes me despair about publishing any fiction I’ve written, because I have no intention of writing the billionth crappy novel about Nefertiti.

Comment on Victory? What the hell is that? We don’t even have a word for it! by Comfortable history | Paul Lockhart: Past in the Present

Comfortable history | Paul Lockhart: Past in the Present — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:34:41 +0000

[...] to you, but…history doesn’t have a course), or “history repeats itself,” or the whole “France has never won a war” meme. [Oh God! I finally used the word “meme”! What’s next – remarking that something is [...]

Comment on History: The Everyman Discipline? by Comfortable history | Paul Lockhart: Past in the Present

Comfortable history | Paul Lockhart: Past in the Present — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:34:39 +0000

[...] Paul Lockhart: Past in the Present Musings and meanderings on history and life from author Paul Lockhart Skip to content HomeAbout meMy booksOther ← History: The Everyman Discipline? [...]

Comment on About me by Paul Lockhart

Paul Lockhart — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:14:14 +0000

Hi Anne — great to hear from you! I’ve lost your email address…please drop me a line at pdl@PaulLockhart.com so’s we can keep in touch — and say hi to Art for me! Let’s talk soon. P

Comment on About me by potsdamsr

potsdamsr — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:19:51 +0000

Paul, it’s been a few years since you visited our home in Potsdam. We would welcome another visit! Your old history prof is teaching again: one course (NY State history) this semester . Hope we can stay in touch! ~ Anne Johnson

Comment on History: The Everyman Discipline? by Paul Lockhart

Paul Lockhart — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 19:56:24 +0000

@kate — yeah, LOL about Timeline. You’re being way too cynical about that, though. I’m sure that Crichton had it covered — the Occitan-speaking guy undoubtedly learned it from Rosetta Stone: Occitan. Or maybe all those videos of the interrogation of Cathars — I’m pretty sure there must be more than a few of them in the Vatican archives. Or on YouTube. Or something. You’re just way too picky.

Comment on History: The Everyman Discipline? by apoetsjournal

apoetsjournal — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 19:41:54 +0000

This was a very interesting read. I think that a lot can be learnt from historians and I think it is important to try to get across to the general public how history relates to them as well as the academic analytical side of the subject. I definitely agree with the need to learn a language. I’m currently studying the French revolution and I quickly realised that I’d need to get a French phrase book..I’m by no means there yet. I have felt a little lost at times but I’m getting there slowly and loving learning about another country’s history.

Comment on History: The Everyman Discipline? by Paul Lockhart

Paul Lockhart — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 15:10:47 +0000

Maureen — thanks. Sounds like we’ve got a lot in common, though I’m still in academia — but if my book income were to significantly surpass my teaching income, well…that’s a different story. Love your blog, by the way; I remember running across your rant about the history of grass-fed beef a while back — great stuff. I’m addin’ you to my blogroll if you don’t mind!

Comment on History: The Everyman Discipline? by Paul Lockhart

Paul Lockhart — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 15:06:14 +0000

Thanks, Steven. LOL — I can picture exactly what you mean — “historians” in archives with beatified looks on their faces. You’re right: the novelty wears off quickly. I remember my very first day in the State Archives in Copenhagen in 1988. The very first document I looked at was a personal letter from Louis XIV (this was dated 1 January 1644) to Christian IV of Denmark. Louis was, what, not yet six years old? I probably had that look of wonderment on my face. I was holding in my hands a letter signed by none other than the Sun King himself, even if he was just a boy. It was written in whatever hand was commonplace at the French court at the time (I know a lot of paleography but I don’t know the term for that particular hand) but I was young and nervous and it took me forever to get through the letter. I think I wasted about two hours on this single document before it finally dawned on me: all this letter said was, in essence, “Happy New Year! And thanks for the condolences on my dad’s death last year!” That was a real eye-opener — I had been in many archives before, but until that moment I didn’t really think of an archive as a place where one does his/her work and nothing more.
And you’re right — professional historians can most certainly be blind to broader context. Being immersed in a relatively narrow topic for years on end can do that to you. I’ll have to admit that that’s why I’ve always been grateful that I get to teach so many sections of intro Western Civ — it forces me to think in a bigger way, and most of my most valuable epiphanies have come from extemporaneous comments delivered in Western Civ classes.

Comment on History: The Everyman Discipline? by Paul Lockhart

Paul Lockhart — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:56:56 +0000

Thanks for the incisive comments, Sean. You’re right — historians are to blame for much of the public’s ignorance; there’s a true hunger out there for some connection with the past, and academic historians have abdicated their responsibility — at least I see it as a responsibility — to satiate that hunger. A good many of them are perfectly content to fulminate about poorly-done popular history (some of the truly awful Tudor stuff that has come out in the past couple of decades, for example), and justifiably so, but aren’t willing to do anything about it. So they — I guess I should say “we,” because by training and profession at least I’m one of them — end up talking to themselves and wonder why no one outside of the narrow horizons of the profession gives a damn about anything they/we have to say. It doesn’t help that most of us, in grad school, are all initiated into the cult of Absolute Originality — i.e., the belief that all good research concerns topics That Have Never Been Done Before. Consequently we end up working with topics that aren’t at all interesting. I remember interviewing a new PhD applying for a tenure-track prof position at my school years ago. The topic of his/her (I honestly can’t remember if it was a he or a she) dissertation was “the uses of land” in a district in Kent over a two- or three-year period in the 1920s. I’m usually of the belief that everything in history is interesting if you dig deep enough, but I took one look at this title and I was absolutely overwhelmed by a great wave of apathy. It just looked boring. It was all I could do to suppress a really loud laugh. Then a colleague of mine on the search committee observed that “this is great, really cutting-edge stuff,” and I couldn’t hold it in anymore. It was just too funny. And what made it funny (and sad, too) was the idea that my colleague didn’t see the same disconnect, between what academics do and what a broader public craves.