Yale historian David Blight talks about the differences between history and the past on the “Live the Best Version of You” podcast. It is a nice introduction to how historians work and how the work historians do must contribute to […]
historical practice
Should Historians Judge People by the Standards of Their Time?
I get this all the time: “Let’s not judge slaveholders based on present-day morality because they were products of their time.” Indeed, slaveholders were products of their time. The historian’s primary goal is to try to understand them in context […]
Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story?
Today was the last day of my Age of Hamilton class. This song is fitting on the day the Judiciary Committee votes on two articles of impeachment. It will soon be in the hands of the historians. Who lives, who […]
Carlo Ginzburg on the Study of History and the Boundaries of His Commitments
Historians know Ginzburg as the founder of the “microhistory” and the author of The Cheese and the Worms. In a recent interview at Verso Books with Claire Zalc he talks about his career and the current state of the historical […]
Historians and the Nooses at The National Museum of African American Life and Culture
Over at the Reformed African American Network, University of Mississippi graduate student Jemar Tisby writes that historians of race in America “have to possess a special kind of fearlessness.” He writes in the wake of the news that nooses were […]
“Threshold Concepts” for Digital History Courses
Sharon Leon is teaching a digital history course this semester at George Mason University and she is realizing that not all of the students taking the course (non-history majors) know how historians do their work. In response, she is thinking […]