Everyone Has an Angle - Even Historians & Other Academics

Lt. Col. Robert L. Bateman is an infantryman, historian and prolific writer. Bateman was a military fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and has taught military history at the U.S. Military Academy. He is stationed in Washington, D.C.

The opinions he expresses in his columns are his own and do not reflect those of the U.S. government or the armed forces.

A short time ago, during an e-mail exchange with my friend Tom Ricks of the Washington Post, he made an offhanded comment that struck me and that I could not get out of my head. We were discussing the work of a prominent Washington military strategist, a person who is also popularly known for some historical work he has penned. I was pointing out that at least as far as that person’s historical writing was concerned, he had been completely discredited. His magnum opus, the book from which he derived much of his subsequent 30 plus-year reputation, was revealed to be a poor work indeed by another historian in the most prominent academic journal in the field. In reply, Tom referred to two other historians and their dispute: “Sometimes I get the impression that all historians do is sit around and discredit each other … I was impressed with V.D. Hanson ’til I read John Lynn.”

Now Tom is an impressive person – he is a standout journalist, a great writer and master of several genres, and something of a historian in his own right (de facto, if not de jure). So I was a little surprised by his comment. It unwittingly displayed a lack of understanding about the nature of the field of history and the process by which we create history. If Tom did not comprehend how our works are created and shaped, then the odds were quite good that many other journalists were in the same boat. This is significant.

Journalists, we can all probably agree, publish what is proverbial known as “the first draft of history.” Time moves in only one direction, of course, so even the speediest blog-posting or breaking news account is necessarily about an event that occurred in the past. But no historian, and probably not many journalists, would seriously contend that the latest Twitter update is “history.” In part, this is because the processes used in history and journalism are, in fact, so very different.  Both fields deal with facts, and both historians and journalists struggle with the process of creation of a narrative. But we differ not only in the temporal difference between our subjects (most historians do not consider an event “historical” until it is at least 25 years in the past), it is also in the content of that creation where the difference occurs. This gets to the core of Tom’s misunderstanding.

The academic field of history as practiced today is actually only about as old as is the modern practice of journalism. To be sure, there are ancient accounts that form the foundation, but there was a multiple millennia gap after the so-called “Father of History,” the Greek writer Herodotus founded the field, before real history reappeared and developed into the modern form.

The “modern” form of history is essentially one long and sustained argument.  Whereas journalists observe and record, historians recover and then interpret, and those interpretations are subject to re-interpretation. Put into fancy academic-speak, what we historians value is something called the Hegelian Dialectic. This is reduced as a sequential process: Thesis à Antithesis à Synthesis (stating a thesis, which feeds a reaction; offering an antithesis, which contradicts the thesis; and resolving the contradiction through synthesis). In practice, of course, this is somewhat more complex.

At the outset, a historian examines the available evidence about a historical event or period. He or she looks at the primary sources, be they eyewitness accounts or relevant contemporary documents, and from these develops an understanding of the basic outlines. But what follows next is at the core of the difference between journalism and history. The historian is then expected to interpret these sources to create a framework for a new understanding of the events, which goes beyond a recitation of who, what, when, where and why. This first interpretation, therefore, is the first thesis.

Let us assume for a moment that the historian was the first to address a given topic, and therefore his thesis is widely accepted as it is also the only one available. Time passes. We circle the sun. Children are born, raised, go to high school and learn the thesis (albeit usually in a synopsized version) as a part of their general education. Eventually one of them is masochistic enough to go to graduate school with the intent of pursuing a degree in history.

For the youngster, there are only two real routes available when selecting a dissertation topic. The budding historian might attempt to find a brand new area of study that has never been written about (fat chance there, but sometimes it happens), or he or she can read deeply of the already extant body of historical literature on a topic or period, re-examine the foundational materials underpinning the dominant thesis, perhaps uncover some additional material not noticed before. Then the new graduate student will proceed to offer a new interpretation, different and disagreeing with the original thesis in large ways and small, thus creating the anti-thesis. Obviously, if the author of the original thesis is still around, this might not go over swimmingly. Presuming the young historian has done a good job, his becomes the new “accepted version,” and the pendulum swings.

Skip forward a few more years, and the third phase comes into effect. This time, however, it is usually an older, more experienced and already established historian who completes the cycle. Age and experience have given the older historian some ability to read across multiple interpretations as well as the wisdom to craft his ideas carefully. The senior scholar, recognizing that there are some positive elements in both competing ideas, also brings to bear a much broader understanding of the field overall, and he has time on his side. (He is not living the life of penury, eating macaroni and cheese meals, that young grad student had been.) To this person is left the task of melding thesis and antithesis into a new and greater whole, the synthesis. This, then, becomes the new narrative, necessarily upsetting both the adherents of the thesis and the anti-thesis, but accepted by the larger field as superior to both.

Thus does one cycle of history end. It may have taken five years, or perhaps as many as 50, but at every step there was dispute and criticism flowing from one historian against another. (It’s a dynamic not usually seen within journalism except in the case of egregious acts of ethical violation such as Jayson Blair’s.) The arguing among historians, you see, is very much a part of what makes history.

So why does this matter to journalists? It comes down to a matter of disclosure.

We historians are often used by you journalists as something of a thickening agent for your stories. On a topic with even the slightest historical implications (and frankly, I defy you to find a topic that does not have a historical antecedent), journalists often will reach out to academic historians for a few well-chosen opinions and quotes. Our presence in your stories makes them appear a tad bit intellectually deeper and perhaps a little more well-rounded. But that can be misleading if you do not know who the historian is beyond his general field and area of specialty. You might unwittingly be contributing to bias and obfuscation instead of clarifying an issue. The easiest way to explain how that may be the case is to draw a parallel to another contentious field, politics.

No journalist worth his salt would quote a political actor without noting the subject’s political affiliation. It would be sloppy at best and disingenuous at worst to fail to note that opinion X, Y or Z on a particular topic came from a de facto spokesman of the Republican or Democratic Party. Political figures, after all, have political biases. In other words, they adhere to a specific thesis. Yet we perpetually see that journalists make no such disclaimers when they quote historians. This is a problem.

As you can now see, by definition being a historian usually means that one believes in a particular thesis about a topic. Indeed, if one has written on that same topic, the belief may be very deep indeed. But it is a rare event when an academic historian is identified on the basis of his affiliation with a particular thesis. Rather, one generally sees this:

 “Professor Gobbledegook of the University of Nonesuch agrees that event X is unheard of in all of American history …”

In this, Gobbledegook is presumed neutral, and his presence at Nonesuch University is his passport to having an opinion worth repeating. But unless one knows that he previously wrote a book using Marxist (or Communist, or right-wing, or fascist) theories as the intellectual foundation on that same topic, one does not get the full story. Historians, in short, are generally not only opinionated, they often can be fully as biased as the most dedicated political actor. For example, there are few business historians who don’t at least slightly incline to the right, nor are there many labor historians who do not lean left. Similarly, gender historians often slide left, while diplomatic historians can be to the right of the field.

Context, that all-important element for both historians and journalists, is important. Accurately describing your historian source is therefore important for journalists. Such disclosure can still be succinct. “Professor Gobbledegook of the University of Nonesuch previously wrote a book admiring the order and discipline of Benito Mussolini, which runs exactly opposite of the actions in event X and has been involved in debates arguing against X. He agrees that event X is unheard of in all of American history…”

In other words, while journalists may write the first draft of history, among historians there is no such thing as a “last draft.” There is only the most current, and the one certain thing within history is that it will change again soon enough.

The author owns no stock in any media company, holds no appointments to any boards and is generally entirely beholden to the U.S. government for his monthly wages. You can write to him at R_Bateman_LTC@hotmail.com [1]