Actually there are a few common sayings that I find annoying. In particular, the idea that history repeats itself really bugs the hell out of me. History never repeats itself. Situations, people, circumstances, and contexts always change. There might be some vague similarities, but that’s it.

One inaccuracy/misperception that really, really annoys me is that this country was somehow founded as a Christian nation and that the founding father were good Christians. This is simply not true but constantly spewed by people on the political right. Jefferson for example was a noted deist, not Christian. The Declaration of Independence is practically a textbook example of Enlightenment deist language. Many of the founders were Christians, but many (and many of the most prominent) were not Christians. And they certainly did not think they were founding a Christian nation. To say that the founding fathers created this nation in the 1770s and 1780s as a Christian nation is vastly oversimplifying it.

I’m reluctant to even bring this up, b/c I don’t want this to turn into a religious war. Please let that not happen. Mods feel free to delete this part if it does go in that direction.

dale, regarding the prehistory/founding of our nation, you might enjoy this:

http://www.sidis.net/TSContents.htm

written by William James Sidis, who was a sort of prodigy in the 20th century.

Very cool thread. I love reading anything I can get my hands on about Ben Franklin, and it seemed like 1700s French loved him. He was clearly a worldly man, but do you have any take on why the French specifically seemed to be so enamored with him? Or is their interest over stated by American-centric historians?

dalerobk, if you think of any other things that irk you about common beliefs, or have any other rants or things you want to post unsolicited about the profession, please do. We find it very interesting.

You keep saying "every source has an agenda," and I find it very interesting.

I am all in favor of skepticism, and in seeing through bias, but I can't see how "every source has an agenda," can ever get us to the point of correctly identifying the objective reality that occurred.

Is that something you're even interested in? Does it matter to you, for example, to try to figure out how many American soldiers were actually killed in the D-Day landings? (I'm using that as an example because all my life I heard the same figure, and just recently heard a historian say that the historically accepted figure is almost certainly an intentionally false (low) count FDR insisted on.)

Another question: after you have worked your ass off writing a book that you consider a significant contribution to the history of the French banking system or w/e, does it bother you that other historians will read it as just another (secondary) source with a Nixon-memoir-like agenda?

I've always wondered about both the short-term and likely long-term views of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan. Even as a sheltered kid, who bought into the 'USA = right' perspective, I come to the dropping of the bomb with a "Really?" response.

With the war clearly tilting toward the US, it's so hard to see such a drastic solution as necessary. Anyway, I wonder about an historian's view. 200 years from now, how will the world judge the US?

Not an "ask mpethy" thread, but read some about the casualties they were predicting for an invasion and it becomes pretty clear that they believed (justifiably, imo) that the bombs would save both American and Japanese lives.

Seems like a no-brainer, imo, and, in any event saving lives was the rationale for dropping the bomb.

If we had had less altruistic motives, we would have bombed Tokyo and wiped out their cultural and political center and killed several times as many people. Why do you suppose we didn't do that?

I get your point, but then why not drop it in the ocean and wipe out a few fishermen and get it done that way, then? So you're arguing that the manner that was dropped was just the "optimal" play?

No, not optimal; in fact, a compromise.

Destroying Tokyo was optimal from a military/political perspective, but killed more people than necessary.

Staging a demonstration (at sea, for example) ran the risk that the Japanese would not be sufficiently impressed that they would immediately surrender, and, remember, we only had 2 or 3 nukes and it took a long time to make more--nuking Japan with the implied threat of more to come was one of the bigger geo-political semi-bluffs in history, imo. But staging a demonstration was optimal from a humanitarian perspective.

nuking an important site that was nevertheless not Tokyo was a compromise between the two optimums, and, iirc, this was more or less expressly the thought process behind the target selection (but I'd have to do some research to come up with a citation).

yes, by optimal i meant enough to get the job done (end the war) while killing minimal lives

Where does the worth in history come from; teaching us how we should live in the future, or remembering/commemerating/ understanding the past? Or some bridge between the two?
If the first one, do you feel that you also therefore need to understand all the other "humanities" e.g. economics, politics etc., to be able to discuss with correct information?

Franklin was very popular among literary types when he was in Paris. In large part it was because of his own self-presentation. He basically represented himself as a frontiersman type; he even took to wearing a ‘coon skin hat. It was actually pretty ridiculous considering Franklin was a printer from Philadelphia. Nonetheless, the French were fascinated by the naturalist and frontier image Franklin presented, even if it was a total pose.

Again, everything is a text and must be read within a greater context. I really don’t believe necessarily in an “objective reality” per se. As for finding the exact number of people killed in a battle, or whatever, I don’t really find those kinds of things particularly interesting. History is all about interpretation. You can try to count how many bullets were fired at Gettysburg, but what is much more interesting is interpreting why those armies were there in the first place, how the public reacted to the bloodshed, how it changed the course of the war (and American history), etc.

As for your last question, I think every historian expects their work to be greeted with a critical eye by other historians. We expect historians to challenge our interpretations, our reading of various texts that brought us to that interpretation. So, no, it doesn’t bother me in the least. That’s just part of the business.

I think this is more of a moral question than a history question. I think most people assume that the Japanese were prepared to fight till the death and wanted to end the war without an invasion. The justification for going nuclear is that it actually saved many more lives in the end than an invasion. One of the arguments against the use of the bomb is that Japan was basically completely incapable of offensive action by that point and they could have been worn down and demoralized in a way that resulted in less loss of life.

By the way, the firebombing of Tokyo killed more people than both nuclear bombs combined. Allied firebombing of major urban areas was at least as horrific as the use of nuclear weapons (whether Tokyo or Dresden).

Ha, yeah I knew the part about the hat. Franklin was all about telling his own story and tailoring it to his audience. Interesting take though, thanks for responding.

Do you read historical fiction? If so, favorite and least?

I assume you mean this on a big picture level. It simply sounds like you are not interested in the details?

I don't know how you meant this, but I read this also as trivializing the importance of facts.

In my view, this makes your "everybody has an agenda" statement comprehensible. You seem to be focused on the overarching narrative, and comparatively unconcerned with the details from which it is built.

Fair?

History is about thematic concepts, and analyzing the larger significance of movements, events, people, etc. While knowing specifics is important to support your work, it is not most important.

Lol the only reason why US dropped the atomic bomb was:

1) To show they were more powerful then the Soviet Union

2) To claim the victory, as the Soviets were in Manchuria and would of won anyways.

To say that it saved more lives is as ridiculous as it can get. You dropped a bomb on civilians, yes just the people, not on the army. Would love to see you be in that spot. Some can argue it was a genocide. And Americans are yet to admit they were wrong. Don't forget all the long-term effects after as well.

For me personally, I think the greatest value in studying history is to better understand the present. I don’t mean necessarily the events leading up to the present, but rather being able to read a news story critically and understanding it within the larger context. Or watching a presidential debate and understanding the various forces at play; or analyzing the tea party rhetoric and what cultural, ideological, and discursive forces it taps into. Or even watching a TV show, cartoon, whatever and being able to analyze and understand it in a more thorough and richer way. Basically, I think the study of history makes people better able to understand their own cultural, political, and ideological context by analyzing past cultures.

Sorry, I can't think of any.

I honestly think you’re drawing too strict of a dichotomy here between “details/facts” and textuality (agenda/interpretation).

Not sure if this is a good example, but here goes.

Was Obama born in the United States? Liberals say yes. They would show a birth verification thing from the state of Hawaii and an announcement in a local newspaper. Conservatives say no. They would argue that no birth certificate has been given as evidence and that’s the only legitimate way to prove place of birth. What are the “details/facts” there? Do they even matter? Facts/details are almost always contested or can be contested. What is interesting to me is not whether Obama was born in the U.S. but why each side is so vested in their position and how they position themselves vis-à-vis the other. That’s what makes history interesting and an intellectual exercise rather than simply recording “facts,” which are never so clear as people would like to think.

After all, what is a fact? A fact, imho, is nothing more than socially accepted knowledge. Everyone has come together in consensus to recognize something as a fact. Does that mean it is? Maybe. Maybe not. Facts are always constructed and thus need to be deconstructed by historians.

This is another common interpretation of the dropping of the bombs on Japan.

I was, for the record, in no way supporting the use of nuclear weapons against Japan. Neither, for that matter, was I arguing against it. I was simply presenting various interpretations that historians have given.

I guess a few more things come to mind. During the lead up to the Iraq invasion in 2003, there were a lot of people hating on the French. Many, many people referred to the French as ungrateful for what we did to help them in WWII. The one thing that really bothered me, and every Frenchmen would point out, is that the French were instrumental in helping the Americans during the Revolution against Britain. In fact, they helped so much that it basically bankrupted the French. The American Revolution was in many ways a world war, even the Spanish got involved toward the end (in support of the French war efforts).

Another thing that bothered me from that time period was when Bush said that America has never been an empire and never would be (meaning Iraq). This is entirely untrue. One could even argue that the entire history of the U.S. is one of imperial expansion. After all, the Indians were here before us. There is, of course, also the example of the Mexican-American War and the Spanish-American War. After the latter war, Americans fought a deadly counter-insurgency war in the Philippines to maintain control of that country. And Hawaii was basically overthrown by Americans.

I’m sure I’ll think of others, but those come to mind right now.

It's interesting that we can have such differing perspectives on this.

To me, an historian should be a news reporter who works in a time horizon longer than "since yesterday's edition hit the streets."

A person with an agenda other than faithfully doing his best to report what happened (and maybe supply some analysis/lessons learned) is more akin to a political pundit; he is, in fact, a political pundit, who simply operates in larger time horizon than "since O'Reilly's show ended last night." If there exists a difference between a political pundit and an historian s you describe historians, I guess it would only be that an historian lays claim to a specific methodology he uses to develop his opinions.

Your view on facts strikes me as entirely too malleable. You are basically arguing for truth by majority vote.

Obama was either born or not born in the U.S. (he was, ldo). I am absolutely amazed that an historian would nonchalantly express disinterest in the truth of the matter. I would have thought that impossible--I mean, literally impossible.