02-01-2010, 11:45 AM
As far as I am concerned, it has little to do with blacklists. There's something more fundamental at issue.
Ancient history -to which, for argument's sake, I reckon archaeology and classics- is becoming increasingly complex. I always like the example that all archaeological dates of sixth-century BC Catalonia are based on the arrival of Greek refugees, whose expedition is dated by a Babylonian reference to the Persian conquest of Lydia. You can hardly blame a Spanish or Catalonian archaeologist for not knowing that the cuneiform date was incorrect.
As a consequence, historians have become increasingly specialized. There are few of them who are really capable of understanding all interregional and interdisciplinary connections. Scholars who refuse to become a one-sided specialist will never write a Ph.D. thesis, and can never work at the university, where generalists are more needed than ever.
Yet, you and I, and everyone interested in the past, love to hear a good story about a great theme. The Rise of Rome. How Christianity Branched Of From Judaism. The Persian Wars. Constantine. We still read Gibbon's outdated Decline and Fall because we want a grand narrative.
The universities have abandoned the people for whom they are working - the taxpayers. So there is a lot of room for generalists, who never know all details. Right now, we see the rise of a lot of poor authors who are not sufficiently trained as historians, but benefit from a justified demand for grand stories. People like Tom Holland are dangerous; they pretend to return to grand narrative, which is indeed a very good thing, but in fact return to nineteenth-century ideas.
I think this is a very bad development, especially as I have seen that the subdiscipline of Iranology is, essentially, outflanked by quacks, and real scholars, who try to keep up with the latest developments in the field, are under attack because they do not subscribe to an older idea of ancient Persia, which is essentially the propaganda of the late Shah.
I think that in the end, poor popularizers will be more influential than true historians. The Dando Collinses will determine what our past will look like. That is essentially the end of true scholarship.
Not all is lost, though. Museums are still capable of attracting people and showing them real scholarly debate. The Teutoburg Forest exhibitions in Germany were very good. But I am not very optimistic about the future. We are losing our past. That may be a step towards greater freedom, as some existentialist philosophers have argued, but I think that it is also a loss.
Ancient history -to which, for argument's sake, I reckon archaeology and classics- is becoming increasingly complex. I always like the example that all archaeological dates of sixth-century BC Catalonia are based on the arrival of Greek refugees, whose expedition is dated by a Babylonian reference to the Persian conquest of Lydia. You can hardly blame a Spanish or Catalonian archaeologist for not knowing that the cuneiform date was incorrect.
As a consequence, historians have become increasingly specialized. There are few of them who are really capable of understanding all interregional and interdisciplinary connections. Scholars who refuse to become a one-sided specialist will never write a Ph.D. thesis, and can never work at the university, where generalists are more needed than ever.
Yet, you and I, and everyone interested in the past, love to hear a good story about a great theme. The Rise of Rome. How Christianity Branched Of From Judaism. The Persian Wars. Constantine. We still read Gibbon's outdated Decline and Fall because we want a grand narrative.
The universities have abandoned the people for whom they are working - the taxpayers. So there is a lot of room for generalists, who never know all details. Right now, we see the rise of a lot of poor authors who are not sufficiently trained as historians, but benefit from a justified demand for grand stories. People like Tom Holland are dangerous; they pretend to return to grand narrative, which is indeed a very good thing, but in fact return to nineteenth-century ideas.
I think this is a very bad development, especially as I have seen that the subdiscipline of Iranology is, essentially, outflanked by quacks, and real scholars, who try to keep up with the latest developments in the field, are under attack because they do not subscribe to an older idea of ancient Persia, which is essentially the propaganda of the late Shah.
I think that in the end, poor popularizers will be more influential than true historians. The Dando Collinses will determine what our past will look like. That is essentially the end of true scholarship.
Not all is lost, though. Museums are still capable of attracting people and showing them real scholarly debate. The Teutoburg Forest exhibitions in Germany were very good. But I am not very optimistic about the future. We are losing our past. That may be a step towards greater freedom, as some existentialist philosophers have argued, but I think that it is also a loss.
