The History Channel

When I flipped through the schedule for the History Channel today, I noticed that many of the shows on that channel are now 2 hours long. Thus I had few options; the only shows on during a six hour period were "Monster Quest" (a show about monster legends, not terribly historical) "Modern Marvels," a show about Indiana Jones examining the facts and fictions of archaeology, and another archaeology show titled "Real Tomb Hunters." This was on at the time, and since none of the other options looked any better, this is what I decided to watch.

A common phrase in this show is "...just like the movies..." as it tells the stories of archaeologists who who risked their lives during digs. One story involved an archaeologist who was a spy for America during World War I, while searching for Mayan tombs in Mexico and Guatemala. Another story concerned another Mayan researcher who, with the help of the Guatemalan military, tracked down and arrested looters who stole a relic from his site. Other stories concerned firefights, hostage situations, and other harrowing events. The final story was that of John Pendlebury, a British Archaeologist and spy who was killed during the Battle of Crete.

It was this last segment concerning Mr. Pendlebury that caught my interest the most, because of the discussion about Nazi archaeology. This is the History Channel I remember from a few years ago, when every show seemed to be about the Third Reich. It also resembled a historical documentary more than the rest of the episode, which focused more on the heroism of the archaeologists and the cruelty of the looters and more closely resembled an episode of 20/20.

Over all, I found the episode far more interesting that I anticipated, but it struck me as far less academic than I wanted. The subtitle says it all: "Snakes, Curses, and Booby Traps." Obviously, the drama of archaeology is more interesting than the discoveries made at the dig, and while this may be true for the wider audience, it is an example of the focus of the History Channel shifting to more sensational topics.

My thoughts on Heritage

While I'm not one of the extremists that Lowenthal warns about in The Heritage Crusade, I've always had an anti-Heritage stance as a student of History. My definition of a tradition is "Using previous actions as an excuse to continue doing something in a way that would otherwise not be the best." It's a little harsh, but what I'm trying to say is that I don't value highly the Heritage we have received if it only leads to the continuation of injustice.
My cultural heritage is rather irrelevant to me. What have I gotten from my Norwegian forbears? Blonde hair, a reddish beard, and perhaps a taste for fish and sturdy sea-legs. Am I more inclined to mine coal or complain about British rule because of my Welsh blood? Is my German heritage any use to me except for off-color jokes from my Jewish friends? This sort of cultural heritage is irrelevant to me. I'm an American, raised in the upper-middle class of a town in Michigan, and THAT is the cultural heritage which made me who I am. I agree with Lowenthal that much of who I am is in imitation of or contradiction to my parents, and my grandparents only in the ways that they influenced my parents. While I'm not one of the extremists that Lowenthal warns about in The Heritage Crusade, I've always had an anti-Heritage stance as a student of History. My definition of a tradition is "Using previous actions as an excuse to continue doing something in a way that would otherwise not be the best." It's a little harsh, but what I'm trying to say is that I don't value highly the Heritage we have received if it only leads to the continuation of injustice.
My cultural heritage is rather irrelevant to me. What have I gotten from my Norwegian forbears? Blonde hair, a reddish beard, and perhaps a taste for fish and sturdy sea-legs. Am I more inclined to mine coal or complain about British rule because of my Welsh blood? Is my German heritage any use to me except for off-color jokes from my Jewish friends? This sort of cultural heritage is irrelevant to me. I'm an American, raised in the upper-middle class of a town in Michigan, and THAT is the cultural heritage which made me who I am. I agree with Lowenthal that much of who I am is in imitation of or contradiction to my parents, and my grandparents only in the ways that they influenced my parents.
Reading about inheritance reminded me of running jokes in my family concerning estates and wills. One is that I will inherit my Maternal Grandmother's huge collection of Hippopotamus items. There are thousands of them, and it seems that the reason they are going to me is that I was the last one to express my interest in NOT inheriting them. I don't have a passion for large marine animals of Africa, what use is this heritage to me? Another running joke is that I won't receive my share of my paternal grandparent's considerable wealth if I don't produce a son named Edward. (I'm the third Edward in my family, but I'm not Edward III because we have different middle names. Thank goodness.) These two examples illustrate how much I identified with the negative impacts of personal heritage as discussed by Lowenthal.
Heritage in general has always made me uncomfortable. Be it the heritage of slavery and inequality in this country, the heritage of American meddlings in the affairs of other states, the creation myths of a common man's revolution against the British - these things all result in aspects of our society which I don't like. I'm no slave to heritage: I think the best solution to many of the political problems of today isn't an amendment or two, but a Constitutional Convention. We should not be so eager to allow the continuation of ineffective, inefficient or outdated systems simply because we're proud of our Heritage of self-government. (Maybe I am an extremist.)
I might be rambling a bit here, but my point is that maybe people shouldn't spend so much time reveling in their glorious past, but to use these events to logically inform their actions today while not feeling obliged to follow in the footsteps of their forebears.

Better Living Through Chemistry (and a little Historical Fiction)

The Cavalcade of America was an old radio show sponsored by the DuPont Chemical Company between 1936 and 1953. I listened to the Buffalo Bill episode on the Internet Archive, and it was unashamed of its sponsorship.

The life of William Frederick Cody was presented through a collection of vignettes, featuring dramatized conversations between Cody and others at different points of his life. These included moving west with his wife (an apparently fragile and dependent woman) fighting Indians, and the early stages of planning his Wild West show. Obviously, no records of these conversations exist so the authors Cavalcade essentially wrote Historical Fiction. I like Historical Fiction as a rule, for capturing the spirit of an era and creating an interest in events of the past, but keeping this in mind Cavalcade isn't history at all; it's drama.

The most startling of the short stories was one where Cody was talking to someone about the "Battle" of Wounded Knee. (I always thought that was a massacre.) Cody said how it was so unfortunate what happened there, and if only he could have been there he could have stopped the violence. "The Indians would have listened to me!" The whole section was just so weird and seemed so ungrounded.

Much of the information given in this Cavalcade installment was true. He was a scout for the army, a Pony Express Rider, an Indian fighter and a world famous showman. Clearly the heroism of Indian killing and forcing them to be a part of a wild west show has been rejected over time. The main problem is that this is all conveyed through dramatized fiction that shouldn't be mistaken for history.

The Search for an Audience.

I don't think that there is anything "wrong" with history. It has experienced the same specialization that every other academic subject has. The western University system of professors and graduate students constantly rethinking old problems and researching previously unexplored topics, the collective body of human knowledge has increased drastically. However, as a result of the requirement that the academics at universities be constantly breaking new ground, so much work has been done that no one can be an expert on the subject as a whole. As a result, the trend of specialization inevitably occurs. So nothing is "wrong" with history that isn't wrong with math, where the last person to truly have mastery over the entire subject died before America abolished slavery.

Since the specialized and specific nature of modern historical inquiry makes it irrelevant to the reading public, historians and their institutions need to make some kind of a compromise. Groundbreaking research in a specialized field is important to the advancement of the field, but historians should also be encouraged to try and apply these new concepts to a broader view of history. Otherwise, no one will read about it. Historians need to find a way to then reintegrate their newest conclusions into more accessible books.

The issue does not lie solely with the nature academia. The fact is that for all the knowledge and research skill that a historian may have, they don't have to be good writers to be published. While using the full arsenal of the very significant English language makes one look smarter and more educated, it also can kill prose if it's not used well. The problem with most history books that I've read in my undergraduate history classes is that they're not interesting. I once had to read an entire book about hops farmers in three counties of upstate New York during the nineteenth century, even though the class was about all of American History up to reconstruction. It's true that this is an example of incredible overspecialization, but it was also just not written in a compelling way. I've also read countless books on subjects that legitimately interested me, but often they're a constant battle with the sandman because the historians who wrote them are not well trained in prose!

I guess that most people read books about history by Journalists because journalists write with the goal of people reading it. Historians often seem to write with something else in mind. Now, I have read books by Historians by choice, outside of any class. Often they are more general in scope than the books my professors assign, and are probably less respected by the academic community, but they are still authored by professors. I'm probably unusual in doing this, I certainly don't invest an inordinate amount of my time to it, and it isn't my "first resort" in learning about history. More often I learn about history from the internet, which is far more dependable than many give it credit for. So long as sources are cited, and I can look at the bibliography, I feel okay about refreshing my memory about the Napoleanic Wars or the Punic Wars or the Cola Wars from Wikipedia. In the end, those boring books written by academics are cited frequently by wikipedia's authors, who can boil it down to the broad overview that I want on a subject for which I have only passing interest in.

So I've set this thing up.

Right! So I had my first lecture of HST 480 with Knupfer today and this isn't going to be your average history seminar. Having just finished writing my 60 page senior-year honors thesis, I have to say that I'm not disappointed that we won't be living in the east wing of the MSU library.

Before this assignment, I've always hated blogs, and been of the opinion that about 4 people write blogs for everyone that reads them. I've also had very little exposure to them, so I'm probably wrong. I guess I'd better change my attitude for the sake of this course. Who knows? Maybe I'll like it.