Wednesday, August 30, 2006
No wonder I admire Nevins
So, I just accidentally stumbled across Volume 1 of the 8-volume Ordeal of the Union, by historian Allan Nevins. Volume 1 came out in 1947. The last volume, I think, came out in the early 1970s. The complete set is on order.
Wow. This is what his biographer said of Nevins, who -- surprise! -- was also a journalist:
Nevins used narrative not only to tell a story but to propound moral lessons. It was not his inclination to deal in intellectual concepts or theories, like many academic scholars. He preferred emphasizing practical notions about the importance of national unity, principled leadership, liberal politics, enlightened journalism, the social responsibility of business and industry, and scientific and technical progress that added to the cultural improvement of humanity.
*That* is MY kind of journalist-historian.
Read the Wikipedia entry.
--ER
Wow. This is what his biographer said of Nevins, who -- surprise! -- was also a journalist:
Nevins used narrative not only to tell a story but to propound moral lessons. It was not his inclination to deal in intellectual concepts or theories, like many academic scholars. He preferred emphasizing practical notions about the importance of national unity, principled leadership, liberal politics, enlightened journalism, the social responsibility of business and industry, and scientific and technical progress that added to the cultural improvement of humanity.
*That* is MY kind of journalist-historian.
Read the Wikipedia entry.
--ER
Comments:
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"As a historian who now spends more than half his time writing history, and who worked for many years as a full-time journalist, I do not draw any fundamental distinction between the two crafts. In both roles I believe I am doing essentially the same thing. Journalists and historians are both, it seems to me, in the same business: communicating a knowledge and understanding of events to the reader. Both are involved in the discovery and elucidation of truth--that is, the search for the facts that matter and their arrangement in significant form. No one can possibly say where the historian's work ceases and the journalist's begins. The present is continually in process of becoming the past. The frontier of history ends only with today's newspaper. A good journalist casts anxious and inquiring glances over his shoulder at the past, and a good historian lifts his eyes from the page to look at the world around him."
--Paul Johnson
--Paul Johnson
# posted by 
: 10:20 PM
: 10:20 PM
E.R. and drlobojo,
I am an academic biologist and engineer.
"Both are involved in the discovery and elucidation of truth--that is, the search for the facts that matter and their arrangement in significant form."
The second part here, the arrangement of the facts, telling the story is where we scientists really fall down on the job. And this is where our responsibility should be the biggest. Few of us could explain our research to the common person as well as most historians can explain theirs. But, we should be able to. I think this is in part responsible for why the American public is leary of science. Some of it, is of course, related to fundamentalism and economics and people not wanting to hear what science is saying when it disagrees with their personal interets of dogma. But part of it is poor communication.
Anyway, when I think of history-journalism, "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" comes to mind. I enjoyed that book very much, would love to hear what a couple of practical minded historians thought of it too. I have friends who are academic historians who claim that a journalists cannot possibly be historians. I prefer drlobojo's view.
Good luck getting that book out E.R. and at your meeting.
Henry
I am an academic biologist and engineer.
"Both are involved in the discovery and elucidation of truth--that is, the search for the facts that matter and their arrangement in significant form."
The second part here, the arrangement of the facts, telling the story is where we scientists really fall down on the job. And this is where our responsibility should be the biggest. Few of us could explain our research to the common person as well as most historians can explain theirs. But, we should be able to. I think this is in part responsible for why the American public is leary of science. Some of it, is of course, related to fundamentalism and economics and people not wanting to hear what science is saying when it disagrees with their personal interets of dogma. But part of it is poor communication.
Anyway, when I think of history-journalism, "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" comes to mind. I enjoyed that book very much, would love to hear what a couple of practical minded historians thought of it too. I have friends who are academic historians who claim that a journalists cannot possibly be historians. I prefer drlobojo's view.
Good luck getting that book out E.R. and at your meeting.
Henry
Thanks, Henry.
I must admit that I haven't read "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich." (Hangs head in shame).
Academic historians are close to right when they say that journalists who writre history with no training in the discipline of history are not "real" historians.
I have experience and training in both. So, my own snobbery -- :-) -- is towards journalists who write history with no history training, but even more so toward academic historians who can't fricking write, which is the main source of their disdain toward journalists.
Oh, you science types need to hire more daily working-press type journalists as flacks to help y'all tell your stories. Forget marketing. Forget "public relations professionals" -- at least those without long experience in daily reporting and writing -- and there's a another thing I'm snobbish about. Flacks with no news exprience just waste ink, and, I guess, bytes or whatever.
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I must admit that I haven't read "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich." (Hangs head in shame).
Academic historians are close to right when they say that journalists who writre history with no training in the discipline of history are not "real" historians.
I have experience and training in both. So, my own snobbery -- :-) -- is towards journalists who write history with no history training, but even more so toward academic historians who can't fricking write, which is the main source of their disdain toward journalists.
Oh, you science types need to hire more daily working-press type journalists as flacks to help y'all tell your stories. Forget marketing. Forget "public relations professionals" -- at least those without long experience in daily reporting and writing -- and there's a another thing I'm snobbish about. Flacks with no news exprience just waste ink, and, I guess, bytes or whatever.
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