Before the whole James Sweet presentism thing went down, American historians were on Twitter arguing about David McCullouugh. Over at History News Network, Rebecca Brenner Graham calls our attention to the debate that took place in the immediate wake of David McCullough’s death.
Here is a taste:
Earlier this month, award-winning and best-selling author David McCullough died at the age of 89. Following his death, historians on Twitter shared condolences, memories, and critical reflections on McCullough’s role in shaping historical narratives and the professional motivations of individual historians. Perhaps not surprisingly, the confluence of personal experience, critique, and the politics of historiography and of speaking of the deceased came together in ways that occasionally became contentious. Yet, this contentiousness is important to consider.
In one exchange, Lindsay Chervinsky penned a Bulwark essay about how McCullough’s John Adams was so artful to her that she dropped her law school applications in pursuit of the historical profession. She thoughtfully included a paragraph criticizing McCullough’s last book Pioneers for its settler-colonialist assumptions. David Waldstreicher posted on Twitter that McCullough’s previous work was not so innocent, that it also perpetuated settler-colonialist assumptions, and that paying homage to McCullough’s body of work upon his death constitutes “founders chic.” Some Twitter fighters pointed out more positively that McCullough was a “gateway drug” whose books originally attracted current historians to pursue the profession, and for good measure some noted that Waldstreicher’s wording came across as sexist in the context of a woman historian’s discussion of her professional development.
Read the rest here.
Here is the twitter discussion:
I’m not sure how to respond to this discussion. I’ve told my McCullough story here. I appreciated him as a stylist. And few historians have taught me as much as David Waldstreicher. He has spent a good part of his career challenging founders chic. I also feel bad for Lindsey Chervinsky who got caught up in all of this drama.