Thanks to everyone who has returned once more to the barricades to respond to the #Historiannchallenge, both on your own blogs, on Twitter, and in the comments to the previous post. To recap: the weekend before last, the New York Times published an interview with eminent Civil War historian James McPherson about his lists of “bests” and “favorites,” which struck me and many other historians as rather limited in its vision of current scholarship by American historians. I picked up the other end of the rope and published my own interview of myself listing my own “bests” and “favorites,” which was deliberately aimed to broaden our understanding of what history is, what it does, and who writes it, and issued the #Historiannchallenge on Twitter to invite other bloggers to make their own contributions.
I had a whirlwind of a trip to Boston and back for family matters last weekend, and am finally back at my desk this morning (Pacific Daylight morning, anyway!) I thought I’d commemorate all of the contributions on blogs and Twitter to the #Historiannchallenge by pulling together all of your Tweets and links–I’ve tried to acknowledge each one as they were posted, and I also tried to leave comments on your own self-interviews on your blogs, but please let me know if I’ve inadvertently missed anyone’s contributions by dropping a link in the comments below, and I will update this post to make it the official historical record.
First, take a look at #Historiannchallenge, the Twitter feed! Now, then, in approximate reverse chronological order:
- Mysterious economist and other social-sciencey scholar nicoleandmaggie at Grumpy Rumblings respond with their own joint self-interview.
- Sandvick reports on the controversy and then publishes Nick Sacco’s self-interview at DailyHistory.org.
- Nick Sacco’s interview was originally published on his blog at Exploring the Past.
- Historista (aka Megan Kate Nelson) first reflected on listing of the “bests” in James McPherson’s interview and then published her own interview.
- Ben Railton discusses several recent American Studies titles on his blog over the week of October 7-14.
- Another American Studies scholar, Matthew Pratt Gutterl, published his reflections (get it?) on the controversy in “Like Narcissus.”
- Maura Cunningham writes in from Shanghai about “Books, Books, and More Books” for her contribution, which greatly internationalizes the conversation around our “greatest books.” (This is a point made by several of my commenters on my interview, most notably Profane, Northern Barbarian and Matt L, who all made suggestions based on their expertise in medieval English history, and Russian and Eastern and Central European history.
- Janice Liedl posted a contribution on her blog with loads of early modern British history, including a shout-old to my old friend Alison Games’s The Web of Empire, *and* Cherry Ames!
- Kevin Gannon took up the #Historiannchallenge on his blog, The Tattooed Professor, as did David Salmonson/”Western Dave”‘s response at Looking Out from the Panopticon.
- American legal historian Sara Mayeux interviews herself here. She was the first to pick up the baton and run with it.
There are other contributions that other scholars made over Twitter, so do scroll through the #Historiannchallenge feed. My favorite strange bedfellow “favorite” was a “favorite” from Yelp New York! Apparently, they think the #Historiannchallenge is a pop up restaurant or food truck in Park Slope or something? I’m game! But the only thing on the menu would be. . . humble pie and crow, of course.
Us! Today!
Though our answers are heavily influenced by cliometrics.
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Thanks, n&m–will review & add your link!
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Note: only one of us is an economist.
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What’s the other field, then?
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So many good interviews to plunder for future reading lists!
You missed mine from last week – http://jliedl.ca/2014/10/09/from-historiann-the-new-york-times-book-review-interview/ but I appreciated your dropping by the old blog homestead for a visit.
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That’s a mystery. We’re both social scientists though.
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Sorry, Janice! Of course I remember your post from last week.
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Wow! I’ve got a lot of reading to do.
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