James Cobb, the Spalding Distinguished professor of history emeritus at the University of Georgia, is the author of C. Vann Woodward: America’s Historian. It is the most satisfying work of American history I have read thus far in 2023. You...
Historian Jon Lauck‘s editorial at Middle West Review has been making the rounds on social media. The piece is behind a paywall, but here are the first couple of paragraphs: You can see it in the empty chairs. History conferences...
Over at London Review of Books, Columbia University Eric Foner reviews James Cobb’s new biography of C. Vann Woodward. It is a fascinating review. Here is a taste: As he approached retirement, Woodward entered what one former student called his...
Longtime listeners of The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast may remember our interview with historian Erin Bartram in Episode 37: “Should You Go Grad School?” In that episode we discussed Bartram’s February 2018 blog post “The Sublimated Grief of...
The number of full-time faculty jobs in history has declined over the past year, but the history job market appears to be stabilizing. The number of Ph.D.s in history is dropping. Here is Colleen Flaherty at Inside Higher Ed: The new...
Here is the latest from the American Historical Association: After years of declines, undergraduate enrollments in history courses held steady in the last academic year. Last summer, the AHA conducted its third annual survey of history departments and joint academic...
What’s an education for? University of Connecticut English professor Gina Barreca answers in her recent op-ed: An education is about learning things you don’t know. Just as we need to try foods we’ve never eaten before, we need to approach...
Do you want to be on the front lines of college history education? Then consider a job teaching history at a community college. Fewer students are entering college these days, but History majors are growing at 2-year institutions of higher...
This dispatch from the annual meeting of the American Historical Association comes from Zachary Cote, a middle school history teacher in Los Angeles, California. Some of you may remember his great posts from the 2017 AHA in Denver. Enjoy! –JF...
Apparently a high school student is sending e-mails to historians asking them about 19th-century German historian Leopold von Ranke. The student is interested in whether or not these historians believe in “objectivity” in the writing of history. As some of...
Fred Johnson, a history professor at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, insists that we “claim some territory” for history at our colleges and universities. I appreciate Fred’s spirited call. Here is a taste: After years of sniping and hurling poisonous...
I usually do a few of these posts a year, as the spirit moves. Having a blog means that I can occasionally write autobiographically. Sabbaticals provide opportunities to do more of it. So here we go again. Over at the...
Over at Comment, Kevin Flatt, a Christian historian who teaches at Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ontario, enters the ongoing conversation about why Christians should study history. I love the way he frames his essay: When I was in graduate […]
What makes good history? Should journalists be writing history? Keith Harris explores these questions at his blog. aptly named “Keith Harris History.” Here is a taste: I suggest that not all best-selling journalists – even Pulitzer Prize winners and...
History is back! Or at least it is back in New Haven. According to an article in the Yale Daily News the history major at Yale University is growing. Here is a taste: Amid national discussion decrying the decline of the […]
Adam Rothman suggested the creation of these shirts and Mike O’Malley posted them. Perfect gifts for the history conference-goer in your life. See them all here.
Over the past few weeks there has been a very interesting conversation going on at New York History, a blog that should be getting more attention due to the thoughtful posts from blogger and public historian Peter Feinman. Recently Feinman...
Eric Herschthal is absolutely correct. Most of the new popular histories of the American Revolution ignore existing scholarship. I am not sure if this is a good or a bad thing, but for Herschthal, a graduate student at Columbia University,...
Jonathan Rees reports that his panel, “How Should Historians Respond to MOOCs,” will be on the program at the annual January meeting of the American Historical Association in Washington D.C. Rees is one of the more prolific critics of MOOCs...
My family and I raced home from a volleyball tournament in Philadelphia last night in order to catch the latest episode of The Bible on the History Channel. (Unfortunately we did not make it in time and decided, cheeseheads that...
