Posted on 06/13/2009 7:32:51 AM PDT by reaganaut1
To the pessimists evidence that the field of diplomatic history is on the decline is everywhere. Job openings on the nation’s college campuses are scarce, while bread-and-butter courses like the Origins of War and American Foreign Policy are dropping from history department postings. And now, in what seems an almost gratuitous insult, Diplomatic History, the sole journal devoted to the subject, has proposed changing its title.
For many in the field this latest suggestion is emblematic of a broader problem: the shrinking importance not only of diplomatic history but also of traditional specialties like economic, military and constitutional history.
The future of the history profession (as well as the journal’s title) are the subject of a roundtable discussion to be held this month at the annual convention of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. Many historians “are on the defensive,” said Thomas W. Zeiler, the executive editor of Diplomatic History and the moderator of the panel. (Mr. Zeiler, who floated the name change, said he did not have a particular replacement in mind.)
To Mr. Zeiler there is no doubt that the days when diplomatic history dominated the profession are gone. Fewer traditional courses in the subject are taught, fewer articles are published in refereed journals, and graduate student training has changed. Nonetheless Mr. Zeiler is not as worried as some of his colleagues. The shift does not necessarily mean students aren’t learning the material, he noted, but rather that a new approach to teaching it has developed.
The shift in focus began in the late 1960s and early ’70s, when a generation of academics began looking into the roles of people generally missing from history books — women, minorities, immigrants, workers. Social and cultural history, often referred to as bottom-up history, offered fresh subjects.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Traditional history courses have long since vanished, which is why so few people recognize 0bama’s Treasury Department enacting Fascist economics.
Even worse is the decrepit state of history education in the secondary schools, where it is usually taught by some idiot athletic coach and/or lumped into the amorphous glop known as "social studies." Thank the NEA for that one.
I challenge any parent of college age kids to attend classes just to see what is happening to their kids.
I agree with the article. Having graduated from university in 2005, all of my knowledge of history beyond “Honest Abe and George and the Cherry Tree” all comes fom my own reading outside the classroom.
My son-in-law took a world history class at college a few years ago. The teacher was a moslem who didn’t know the difference between Martin Luther and Martin Luther King Jr.
I graduated from college in 2001 and saw this transition occur from elementary, middle, high school and then in college. Everything gradually moved toward the ‘bottom-up approach’.
US History in college was essentially broken into chapters like “History of Women in America”, “History of Africans in America”, “History of Chinese in America”, “History of Hispanics in America” and all essentially outlined the challenges (racism of course) they faced here.
Of course the Italians, Germans, Irish and other “white people” were lumped together into a two page chapter on “mass immigration”. Nothing was said of the challenges they faced.
Our own Freeper, LS, author of “A Patriot’s History of the United States” might have an opinion to share about this article.
And while you're contemplating this, ask your local hiscrool history teacher to explain the Diet of Worms and the Peace of Augsburg, or even what team we were on in WWII.
Also please note that Cousin Odinga, the Christian-Massacring, Marxist Jihadist, who holds a special place in his black heart for Obamalini, is conducting talks with Achmedananutjob in Iran. No doubt but that he is opening back channel communications between Cousin Barack and the 12th Imam's chief nuclear engineer.
Got any spare foil?
Objectivity in historical studies went out the window a long time ago. History departments of universities are one of the few remaining places where Marxism is considered relevant. That’s because many of the professors learned Marxism on their way up to their present positions.
Patricia is late to the dance isn’t she?
Recently experienced the same thing via a grandchild. What is really distressing is when I try to tell my friends about it they act as if I’m a little nutty. I’ve just about come to the conclusion most people won’t/don’t learn until it happens to them personally. Sad for them and even sadder for our country.
Speaking of Martin Luther, my daughter had to do a porject on Martin Luther. All she could find were oodles and oodles of stuff on Martin Luther King and Martin Luther King Jr. at her local library. It was as though Martin Luther, the German Reformer didn’t exist. I had to use the internet to get material on him.
Thank you!
We will order that -
A Diplomatic History of the United States”
by Samuel Flagg Bemis
The Ancient World: From the Earliest Times to 800 A.D. (Allyn and Bacon's Series of School Histories) (Hardcover_)
I got them at Amazon and recommend any home schooled or history buff to get them.
It's almost enough to make you take it to the schools and show them what was expected of an educated person and what drivel is pushed out by the "education" industry. pfft...
I've told my 4 children and pounded into their heads everyday that the people in charge WANT you to be stupid. That's the whole point of the "group" projects, dioramas (make work bullsh#t) in high school and the whole gender/race/politics studies programs... Stupid people are lazy and easy to dominate.
As Freepers we should try to get a home school list of books from K-college that are in order by subject and have great lesson plans as well as content. I can vouch for this series of books. They are by Willis Mason West... look them up and be amazed.
I have NO financial benefit from this book only the knowledge that I'd be helping those that want a great series of history books.
For our America to survive as a great nation, we must take back the education system, and the media, to once again spread the truth.
Thanks for that book suggestion. I put it on my ‘Wish List’ at my library online account.
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