A vigorous exchange is underway in the U.S. Civil War blogosphere about the relationship between “amateur” and “professional” historians: essentially meaning non-academic and academic historians, respectively. It reminds me of that song from the musical Oklahoma: “Oh, the farmer and the cowman should be friends.” And it reflects a perennial issue when it comes to historical periods that interest both academics and lay people.
To follow the conversation, start with non-academic historian Eric Wittenberg’s musings about whether to bother getting a graduate degree in history (and scroll through the numerous comments), then go to academic historian Brooks Simpson’s thoughtful response (which has also generated a lot of comments). Eric replies and provides links to other blogs that have entered the conversation; e.g., J. D. Petruzzi and Kevin Levin. The tone is that the division between “professional” and “amateur” historians is unfortunate and leads to needless friction.
Ethan Rafuse offers a dissenting view to the “love fest” and attracts his share of comments, most of them critical of his insistence that there really are important distinctions between academic and non-academic historians. Among the commenters is Brooks, who promises — and delivers — a follow-up post.
The debate is still in full cry, and well worth checking out.
3 Comments
Very instructive discussion.
It is of interest that the debate is couched in terms of “amateur” and “professional.” Does professional mean “academic”? I think some folks do make the connection there, and others equate the terms. I do not. A high school history teacher who publishes in the field is a professional, but not an acacademic as most would define the term. Perhaps the term might be “scholarly” history, which is to say, history practiced with careful research, an interpretive theme, and connections made. This way, one’s occupation would not dictate which camp into which one fell. The opposite in my mind would not be amateur (which means someone who does an act out of devotion) but “non-scholarly.” I almost said “popular” history, but decided against it.
Anyway, these definitions can get us into trouble, as exceptions abound or those who do not seem to fit into any category serve to confuse the debate. I think this is true especially in military history.
For example: David McCullough wrote “1776″ a few years ago, which as most of us know is a work of military history of the AWI. Is McCullough an amateur, a popular historian, and academic, or a scholarly historian? To me, the only category he does not fall into is “academic,” as he is not employed by a college or university to teach/research.
Dr Grimsley,
I would be interested in your thoughts on the value of an on-line MA program, like that of AMU, Norwich, or Sam Houston State. If I remember correctly, you had mentioned in a previous post (of several months ago, at least) that it was perhaps time to reconsider the value of an on-line degree…