Cross-posted to Cliopatria
John J. Miller of National Review Online was kind enough to email me a heads up that he’s not taking my barrage of posts lying down. He gives me plenty of what-for on the Phi Beta Cons page of National Review Online. The page is subtitled, “The Right Take on Higher Ed.” I’ll give him a paragraph’s head start, then let you jump to the page itself:
Well, my article on the decline of military history as an academic field has at least one professor all atwitter. Mark Grimsley of Ohio State is so flustered by it that I’m having trouble keeping track of his attacks on the theme of the article, the quality of my reporting, and my personal integrity — but the main one seems to be this, followed by this, this, and this. I guess he really takes the whole “publish or perish” thing to heart.
6 Comments
Awww, bollocks. Now actual NRO people are going to be reading the bad stuff I said about NRO.
Mark, I’m not sure why Miller’s NRO piece has got your worked up. Sure, Miller took some stabs at academia, not all of which were fair. But the piece was generally sympathetic to the plight of military history, and there are a sizable number of History departments that will just not hire a military historian. I’ve worked in some of those departments and heard the snarky comments about how worthless it is to study battles and military commanders.
HistoryPhD,
I think I’ve already explained myself. But to repeat: It’s true that there are academics ill disposed toward military history. But boo hooing about that isn’t going to do a lick of constructive good. What is needed is not grousing but intelligent, proactive plans to develop our field. The flagship organizations of other historical fields — the Society for the History of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR), the Society for the History of the Early American Republic (SHEAR), and World History Association (WHA), etc. — take responsibility for building their fields. The Society for Military History (SMH) has displayed little leadership in this regard since Allan Millett and Dick Kohn changed the name from the American Military Institute to the SMH and turned the “barber shop” magazine Military Affairs into a bona fide acaemic journal, the Journal of Military History. That was circa 1990.
The more background I learn concerning John J. Miller’s article, the more I come to realize that his portrayal of an academic military history that is at death’s door reflects not his distortion of what military historians told him, but rather their own defeatist whining. If that’s what passes for leadership among academic military historians these days, then I think the rising generation of military historians should get in the collective faces of their seniors and demand that they do more than piss and moan. The SMH leadership needs to plan and execute measures to grow the field. If it can’t or won’t do that, then new leadership is in order. If academic military history has to go down, let it at least go down fighting.
That’s my philosophy. That’s the commitment of this blog. You can either join me and try to get something constructive going, or you can cry like a little baby about how other academics don’t love you. If the former, welcome to the fight! If the latter, shut the fuck up. I get enough whimpering from other military historians; I don’t need it from the likes of you.
Anthony wrote, “Awww, bollocks. Now actual NRO people are going to be reading the bad stuff I said about NRO.”
Welcome to the big time! Maybe John J. Miller will ridicule you too. Or David Horowitz’s band of toads could splash you all over FrontPage (that happened to me last year).
Whoa there! I understand your impatience. After all, the whole point of your blog these past three years has been just that–gaining respect for academic military history by proving its relevance to other fields. But did you really have to say such a thing? I don’t think you would tolerate such comments from other readers.
Fair enough, Ajay. I’ll let stand both my comment, so people can witness my misstep, and your rebuke, which is wholly justified and well taken. Put it down to my passion for the field. But you’re right — there’s no excuse for incivility. And History PhD, you have my sincere apology.