Bertram Wyatt-Brown, 1932-2012

Randall Stephens

Like so many others, I was sad to hear that Bert Wyatt-Brown passed away over the weekend in Baltimore.  His wife Anne relayed the news on Sunday. 

Bert is best known as an accomplished writer, historian, mentor, and leader of the historical profession.

Bert on the Maine coast, 2006

He served as President of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic (1994), St. George Tucker Society (1998-99), and Southern Historical Association (2000-2001).  He was a longtime supporter of the Historical Society and regularly wrote for Historically Speaking.  (See my interview with him here on this blog.)

He was the author over 100 scholarly articles and essays and wrote a variety of acclaimed books.  His Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.  Novelist Walker Percy called the book "A remarkable achievement--a re-creation of the living reality of the antebellum South from thousands of bits and pieces of the dead past."  "Unlike so many historians who have been interested in handing down judgments, favorable or unfavorable, on the Old South," wrote Harvard historian David Herbert Donald, "Wyatt-Brown has studied Southerners much as an anthropologist would an aboriginal tribe. An important, original book which challenges so many widely held beliefs about the Old South."

True to form, Bert just completed his last book not long before his passing.  I saw him and Anne in September and he was thrilled to have completed the project.  We were emailing back and forth last week about the images to accompany the text.  Titled A Warring Nation: Honor, Race, and Humiliation at Home and Abroad, it will soon be rolled out by the University of Virginia Press.

Maybe most importantly, Bert taught and mentored numerous students at the University of Florida, Colorado State University, the University of Colorado, the University of Wisconsin, and Case Western Reserve University.

As one of his many grad students, I can attest to his generous, wonderful spirit.  With funds from the Milbauer chair he filled at the University of Florida, Bert would help students attend conferences like the Southern Historical Association, the Saint George Tucker Society, the American Historical Association, and others.  He provided research money to students as well.  Many a dissertation was sped along by his help and keen interest.  Bert was a great prose stylist, more than happy to help his charges eliminate passive voice, dangling particles, unidentified antecedents, you name it.  He was tireless in his big-picture, content edits to dissertations, conference, papers, and articles.  (I can't imagine that my first book would have ever seen the light of day without his heroic reading of so many of my bad drafts.) Even after Bert retired he continued to meet with new graduate students at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere.

Those who studied with him, knew him as a colleague, or friend will deeply miss his sense of humor, his joy for living, dinners and visits with him and Anne, and so much more.

He is survived by his wife Anne, a daughter, a son-in-law, and two grandchildren.

A Moral Man: A Eulogy for Eugene Genovese*

David Moltke-Hansen

The doorbell rang at the South Carolina Historical Society in the spring of 1987.  When I opened it, the couple standing there asked if David Moltke-Hansen were in.  Then Gene and Betsey introduced themselves and said they had just stopped by to say how much they admired something I had written and to meet me.  That night I told my wife to shoot me; it would never get better than that.

Fifteen or so years later, I was visiting with Gene and Betsey in Atlanta.  Gene was distraught, almost frantic.  It was Betsey’s birthday, and the flowers he had ordered had not come.  Betsey reassured him that she knew he was always thinking of her—except, of course, during baseball games and when he was reading and writing.  That, I thought to myself, doesn’t leave much time except in dreams, at meals, and in the car, with Betsey driving, because Gene never learned how to drive.

Until the last couple of years, when his health deteriorated even further, Gene worked incessantly.  Witness the three books he saw through the press after his beloved Betsey’s death five years and nine months ago.  In addition, he worked on the five volumes of Betsey’s selected, uncollected writings, read manuscripts, and went through four newspapers a day.  He worked like that for nearly sixty years.

That abiding drive hints at another that animated those years.  Gene always was a moralist, whether as a Marxist or as a Catholic.  He recognized the evil men and women do through the acquisition and abuse of power, and he wanted to understand and combat that evil.  At one point scientific socialism seemed the way, but then Communism failed and failed him, even as Marxism continued to influence what and how he wrote.  Last year, rereading old political pieces of his from the ‘60s and ‘70s, he noted wryly: my reasoning was impeccable, just not my premises. 

Uncompromising in his moral judgments, Gene thought it unforgivable weakness to quail from necessary action because of possible collateral damage.  And he was entirely ready to see me become such damage.  Once he told me (after just having handed me a new book that he had dedicated to me) that I should and would die at the revolution.  Which revolution, I asked?  Any worth its salt, he said.  Liberals, social democrats, and other, mealy-mouthed, intellectually flaccid temporizers, the implication was, need to be eliminated.  Or at least have power wrested or kept from them.  He was not fond of libertarians either, thinking radical individualism radically wrong in the face of the collective challenges posed by power’s corruption. 

Now, when I become President, now when I become Pope, Gene would say—suggesting he should be both—things will be different.  The sad difference is that we no longer can hear him say that.  We shall remember, however, more than his humor and passion and moral drive.  We can still celebrate a brilliant interpreter of American slavery and the planter class, a tough colleague, and a generous friend.
________

*Moltke-Hansen gave this eulogy at Eugene Genovese's funeral mass on October 2nd in Atlanta, GA.

History Book Reviews Roundup

.
"Views of the world: There is no such thing as an objective map," Economist, September 1, 2012

AROUND 150 AD an astronomer named Claudius Ptolemy wrote a book about how to make a proper map of the world. Penned in Greek on a papyrus scroll, the work, known as the “Geography”, is one of the most famous ancient texts on the science of mapmaking. It placed the job firmly in the domain of the geographer, who could use astronomy and mathematics to calculate from the stars what the world looked like below.>>>

Richard J. Evans, "Merchant, Soldier, Sage: A New History of Power by David Priestland – review," Guardian, August 23, 2012

In this concise but extremely ambitious book, the Oxford historian David Priestland sets himself the task of taking the long view of the financial crisis that afflicts the world today. His argument is that the year 2008, when the credit crunch began, is as important as 1917, the year of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, or 1945, when the second world war came to an end. Four years on, the crisis shows no sign of coming to an end, and political systems, economies and societies seem in a state of disarray – even looming collapse.>>>

Dan Olson, "Historical accounts of U.S.-Dakota War change through years," Minnesota Public Radio, August 17, 2012
 
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Historians agree that the U. S. - Dakota War of 1862 was one of Minnesota's most momentous events.

The war's history has been documented and shared by people who have a range of perspective and accounts of it have changed over time.

Historian William Lass has reviewed 13 histories of the war, and he recommends reading, "The Dakota War of 1862," for several reasons.>>>

Pat Padua, "Book Review: Atomic Comics: Cartoonists Confront the Nuclear World by Ferenc Morton Szasz," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, August 15, 2012

The year's biggest summer blockbuster, The Dark Night Rises, may be forever marred by a tragic footnote, but the fear that the movie itself plays on is time-honored and even old-fashioned: nuclear anxiety.

Pop culture has a long history of dealing with nuclear promise and danger, and the late historian Ferenc Morton Szasz argues in Atomic Comics: Cartoonists Confront the Nuclear World that the pluses and minuses of splitting the atom were most efficiently conveyed to the general populace in comic books.>>>

Sameer Rahim, "From the Ruins of Empire by Pankaj Mishra: review," Telegraph, August 6, 2012

Reviewing Niall Ferguson’s Civilisation in the London Review of Books last year, the Indian writer Pankaj Mishra was fearsomely critical of the historian’s account of the West’s rise. Ferguson had identified the six “killer apps” that enabled European domination: property rights, competition, science, medicine, consumer society and the work ethic. Emphasising these qualities, Mishra pointed out, underplayed the role of slavery, colonialism and indentured labour in the West’s triumph. Seen in this light, Ferguson’s “killer apps” looked less benign.>>>

Historians in the News Roundup

.
Melody Burri, "Historian Nancy Hewitt to present new work on Quaker Amy Post," MPNnow, August 22, 2012

Farmington, N.Y. - Nancy A. Hewitt, Professor of History and Women's Studies at Rutgers University, will give the fourth talk in the summer series for the 1816 Farmington Quaker Meetinghouse Museum.>>>

Professor Hewitt will present "Faith and Politics: The Spiritual Journeys of Amy Post."

Edward Helmore, "UK Harvard star Niall Ferguson accused of intellectual fraud," The Week, August 22, 2012

 THE British-born journalist and Harvard-tenured historian Niall Ferguson has landed himself in a nasty spat with some of America's most distinguished economists, among them Princeton's Nobel Prize-winner - and venerable New York Times columnist - Paul Krugman.

Ferguson is a promoter of Chancellor George Osborne's cut-to-growth economic philosophy. Krugman is a spend-to-grow man, as is President Obama.>>>

An interview with Victor Davis Hanson on his essay "There is No One California," Forum, KQED, August 20, 2012

California has become a target of mockery in the presidential campaign, with GOP challenger Mitt Romney holding the troubled state up as an example of where the country is headed under Barack Obama. Historian and conservative columnist Victor Davis Hanson also slams the state in a recent article entitled, "There is No One California." He joins us to talk about the piece, and to give us his take on the presidential campaign.>>>

Rebekah Higgitt, "(Pseudo)scientific history?" Guardian blog, August 16, 2012

There have been many writers who have claimed that history can be, or should be, scientific. Different things are meant by this, of course, and such statements are provoked by different motivations, although generally they trade on the perceived successes, rewards, professionalism and certainty of the sciences.>>>

"Historian Taylor Branch Critiques College Sports," Only a Game, WBUR (rebroadcast), August 25, 2012

The NCAA is facing growing scrutiny from college athletes, coaches and the people who follow college sports. The September 2011 issue of the Atlantic Monthly featured an article by Pulitzer-prize winning historian Taylor Branch — author of Parting the Waters, The Clinton Tapes, and others — entitled “The Shame of College Sports,” which criticizes the corruption within the NCAA.>>>

American History TV at the OAH

Randall Stephens

Readers might be interested in the latest from C-Span's American History TV. On C-Span 3, the program offers "event coverage, eyewitness accounts, and discussions with authors, historians and teachers. Click here to learn more about American History TV."  Here are selections from the show's Organization of American Historians conference coverage:

History of Birth Control - NYU Historian Linda Gordon at OAH in Milwaukee

History of Beer and Spirits: Backstory with the American History Guys in Milwaukee

See more OAH interviews here.

And speaking of interviews and C-Span, our very own blogger, Philip White, recently appeared on BookTV to speak about his new book, Our Supreme Task: How Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain Speech Defined the Cold War Alliance.

Roundup: TED Talks by Historians

.
David Christian: Big History, April 2011

Backed by stunning illustrations, David Christian narrates a complete history of the universe, from the Big Bang to the Internet, in a riveting 18 minutes. This is "Big History": an enlightening, wide-angle look at complexity, life and humanity, set against our slim share of the cosmic timeline.

George Dyson: The Birth of the Computer, June 2008

Historian George Dyson tells stories from the birth of the modern computer -- from its 17th-century origins to the hilarious notebooks of some early computer engineers.

Alice Dreger: Is Anatomy Destiny? June 2011

Alice Dreger works with people at the edge of anatomy, such as conjoined twins and intersexed people. In her observation, it's often a fuzzy line between male and female, among other anatomical distinctions. Which brings up a huge question: Why do we let our anatomy determine our fate?

Niall Ferguson: The 6 Killer Apps of Prosperity, September 2011

Over the past few centuries, Western cultures have been very good at creating general prosperity for themselves. Historian Niall Ferguson asks: Why the West, and less so the rest? He suggests half a dozen big ideas from Western culture — call them the 6 killer apps — that promote wealth, stability and innovation. And in this new century, he says, these apps are all shareable.

Edward Tenner: Unintended Consequences, September 2011

Every new invention changes the world — in ways both intentional and unexpected. Historian Edward Tenner tells stories that illustrate the under-appreciated gap between our ability to innovate and our ability to foresee the consequences.

Jared Diamond: Why Societies Collapse, October 2008

Why do societies fail? With lessons from the Norse of Iron Age Greenland, deforested Easter Island and present-day Montana, Jared Diamond talks about the signs that collapse is near, and how -- if we see it in time -- we can prevent it.

Jack Rakove on Why I Became a Historian

Randall Stephens

For the last year I've been kicking around an idea for a new series of video interviews. I thought it might be interesting to ask various historians why they decided to study history. In the short responses that I'll post

you'll hear about what drew a scholar to the field and what engaged them on a personal level. I've always enjoyed reading autobiographical reflections of historians, and this is, in some way, a little extension of that genre.

The first installment features Jack N. Rakove, who reflects on his early fascination with history and his later pursuit of graduate study and career as a professor and author.

Rakove is William Robertson Coe Professor of History and American Studies and Professor of Political Science and Law at Stanford University. He received his PhD from Harvard University in 1975. Rakove is the author of a variety of books on legal and political history and the American Revolution, including: The Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the Continental Congress (Knopf, 1979); James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic (Scott Forsman, 1990); Declaring Rights: A Brief History with Documents (Bedford 1997); Founding America: Documents from the Revolution to the Bill of Rights (Barnes & Noble, 2006); and Revolutionaries: Inventing an American Nation (Houghton Mifflin, 2010). His Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution (Knopf, 1996) won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize in History. Rakove is currently working on a book titled Beyond Belief, Beyond Conscience: The Radical Significance of the Free Exercise of Religion for Oxford University Press.

Eric Hobsbawm and History in the States and Over the Water

Randall Stephens



I've been reading Tony Judt's collection of essays, Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century. One chapter in particular, "Eric Hobsbawm and the Romance of Communism," struck me. (That piece originally appeared in the New York Review of Books in 2003.)



Judt covers Hobsbawm's incredibly long, productive career:

At the age of eighty-six, Eric Hobsbawm is the best-known historian in the world. His most recent book, The Age of Extremes, was translated into dozens of languages, from Chinese to Czech. His memoirs, first published last year, were a best seller in New Delhi; in parts of South America—Brazil especially—he is a cultural folk hero. His fame is well deserved. He controls vast continents of information with confident ease—his Cambridge college supervisor, after telling me once that Eric Hobsbawm was the cleverest undergraduate he had ever taught, added: “Of course, you couldn’t say I taught him—he was unteachable. Eric already knew everything.”

It all got me thinking about the influence of historians on the continent, the UK, and this side of the Atlantic. I do recall reading Hobsbawm in graduate school, but, I believe, only in a seminar on Modern Europe. Does that towering historian--born in 1917 and still kicking--still rank as one of the most influential historians in the United States? Does his work on 19th-century history, social banditry, and liberal capitalism still drive historical debates?



Judt's essay also made me wonder about the canon of history books in the US and in Europe. What are the key differences in method, style, and interests in the Old and New Worlds? What have been the most critical 10 works of history published since 1970 in the states and in Europe? Have American historians and their European counterparts reflected on the differences that still shape the field?

Historians in the News Roundup

.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, "The Civil War Isn't Tragic Cont.," The Atlantic, August 16, 2011



Anyone who's going to deal in Civil War studies really needs to take a moment to grapple with James McPherson's This Mighty Scourge. I doubt that this was McPherson's intent, but the first essay in the book is really what set me on the path of questioning the "Civil War as American Tragedy" narrative on to the "Civil War as American Revolution" line of thinking.



I suspect McPherson might not agree with my reframing--I'm probably being a bit too pat. Nevertheless, his essay demonstrates that the idea of the Civil War as avoidable tragedy didn't materialize out of thin air; it comes not just out of American popular memory, but right out of American historiography.>>>



Charlotte Higgins, "Historians say Michael Gove risks turning history lessons into propaganda classes," Guardian, August 17, 2011



Leading historians are to hit out against Michael Gove's plans for history teaching, saying they risk "going down the route of propaganda".



Gove has said history in schools ought to "celebrate the distinguished role of these islands in the history of the world" and portray Britain as "a beacon of liberty for others to emulate".



But Tom Devine, professor of history at the University of Edinburgh, said: "I am root and branch opposed to Gove's approach. It smells of whiggery; of history as chauvinism. You cannot pick out aspects of the past that may be pleasing to people.">>>



Karen Valby, "Black Women Historians come out against 'The Help,'" Entertainment Weekly, August 11, 2011



The Association of Black Women Historians released a statement today, urging fans of both the best-selling novel and the new movie The Help to reconsider the popular tale of African American maids in 1960s Jackson, Miss., who risk sharing their experiences with a young white journalist. “Despite efforts to market the book and the film as a progressive story of triumph over racial injustice, The Help distorts, ignores, and trivializes the experiences of black domestic workers,” the statement read.>>>



David Barrett, "Historian Starkey in 'racism' row over riot comments," Telegraph, August 14, 2011



Dr Starkey cited Enoch Powell’s infamous “Rivers of Blood” speech from 1968, which criticised Commonwealth immigration, and suggested it had been “absolutely right in one sense”.



He was described as a “racist” and accused of “tribal bigotry” for his provocative comments.



Referring to last week’s riots, Dr Starkey told BBC2’s Newsnight: “But it was not inter-community violence, this is where he (Powell) was completely wrong.>>>



Richard Florida, "The inchoate rage beneath our global cities," Financial Times, August 16, 2011



. . . . Then there is this: our greatest cities are not bland monocultures but the very features that make them dynamic also contribute to their instability. Eric Hobsbawm, the Marxist historian, long ago noted that a combination of density and the poor being close to centres of political power transformed old-style cities into centres of insurrection. It is no accident that the most innovative US cities also have the highest levels of protest and among the lowest levels of social capital and cohesion. Much the same is true of London.>>>

Historians as Public Intellectuals

Randall Stephens

Our first session of the Second Annual Conference on Public Intellectuals (James Hall, Harvard) dealt with a theme that would interest readers of this blog. Thanks are due to all those who took part. Historian Larry Friedman (Harvard's Mind/Brain/Behavior Interfaculty Initiative) deserves special thanks for making this and last year's conference so productive.

9:00 - 12:00pm: Panel 1: HISTORIANS AS PUBLIC INTELLECTUALS
James Hall 1305

Chair: Jill Lepore (Harvard University)

Bertram Wyatt-Brown (Johns Hopkins University), “C. Vann Woodward and W.J. Cash: Similarities and Contrasts”

Joyce Antler (Brandeis University), “Gerda Lerner, Citizen-Scholar: ‘Why What We Do with History Matters’”

Ray Arsenault (University of South Florida), “The Freedom Writer: John Hope Franklin as a Public Intellectual”

The three presenters spanned the career's of historians who wrote and spoke to a large public. All had a very interesting, complex relationship with the American past, and, even had a moralist tone to some of their work. Jill Lepore (Harvard) offered comments before our general discussion. Lepore wondered about how the public reacted to each historian and how they encountered opposition. All of these figures spoke to a large audience and, at times, faced opponents. Gerda Lener, said Antler, encountered Nazi and anti-communist hostility in Europe and America. Wyatt-Brown mentioned that W. J. Cash, not long before his suicide, had a deep sense of persecution, largely imagined, which had spun off into delusion. Arsenault pointed out that there was less persecution in Franklin's case. Though Franklin long resented the exclusion and discrimination he faced in his early years. Bill Clinton eulogized Franklin at his funeral, said Arsenault, as: "a genius in being a passionate rationalist, an angry happy man, a happy angry man."

Like John Hope Franklin, Lerner, Woodward, and Cash all struggled with the burdens of the past and understood history in light of present divisive political and identity struggles. How does a public intellectual historian relate the past to the present?

Hence, there was a brief discussion after the presentations about how each of these dealt with a usable past. Most know, for instance, that Woodward, Franklin, and Lerner had an enormous influence on the field and well beyond it. C. Vann Woodward's Strange Career of Jim Crow (as I mentioned on this blog not long ago) powerfully affected Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders. Gerda Lerner established the first Women's Studies program in the country and served as a role model for thousands of scholars in history and the humanities. And John Hope Franklin turned the public's attention to some of the most desperate moments in American history. Does advocacy history differ from the history written by the deeply committed historicist? The audience and participants considered the work of Howard Zinn and other historian-activists in light of that question.

Like the other panels at this small conference (really like the best kind of grad seminar in its freewheeling discussions) wonderfully illuminated the role of the public intellectual. Later panels on race, religion, the cosmopolitan generation, and a discussion with Robert Jay Lifton further plumbed the areas where scholars interact with a larger public. (Keep an eye out for Lifton's memoir, which he spoke about, due out in June. It will be well worth reading!)

Roundup: Historians

Neal Ascherson, "Liquidator," London Review of Books, August 19, 2010.

Seven years after his death, Hugh Trevor-Roper’s reputation is still a cauldron of discord. He would have enjoyed that. Steaming in the mix are the resentments of those he expertly wounded, the awe of colleagues at the breadth and depth of his learning, dismay at his serial failures to complete a full-length work of history, delight in the Gibbonian wit and elegance of his writing and – still a major ingredient – Schadenfreude over his awful humiliation in the matter of the Hitler diaries. >>>

"Cambridge University connects communities with Domesday," news.bbc.co.uk, August 10, 2010.

When William the Conqueror wanted to consolidate his power over his new English subjects he created the Domesday Book.

It was a comprehensive list of who owned all property and livestock.

Now Cambridge University historians have digitised the information in an interactive website.

"It's possible for anyone to do in a few seconds what it has taken scholars weeks to achieve," said Dr Stephen Baxter, a co-director of the project.

PASE Domesday was launched on 10 August 2010 and is the result of collaboration between scholars from Cambridge University and King's College, London.

Tax collection?

The Domesday Book was collated between 1085 and 1086.

Most historians believe it is some sort of tax book for raising revenue.

Dr Baxter, a medieval historian from King's College, London, has a different theory.

He argues its real purpose was to confer revolutionary new powers on King William.

"The inquest generated some pretty useful tax schedules," he explained. "But the book gave him something altogether more powerful." >>>

Daniel Hernandez, "Mayas protest monument to Spanish conquistadors," La Plaza, LA Times blogs, August 11, 2010.

The city of Merida on Mexico's Yucatan peninsula is reviewing a petition to remove a recently built public monument to the city's colonial founder, a figure whom some indigenous Mayas regard as a violent conquistador. The municipal government accepted the petition from a coalition of Mayan organizations to reconsider the monument and statues depicting Francisco de Montejo, known as "El Adelantado," and his son, also named Francisco and known as "El Mozo." The younger Montejo established Merida in 1542, on the site of the former Maya city of T'ho. >>>

"Tony Judt, Historian And Author, Dies At 62," NPR, August 8, 2010.

Much to his presumed irritation, historian Tony Judt, who died on Friday, might be remembered for one word: anachronism.

That's what he called the idea of a Jewish state in Israel in a widely read essay in the New York Review of Books. But Tony Judt was, first and foremost, an intellectual historian.

His book Postwar, about the history of Europe after 1945, became an instant classic. And he made it his mission to try to unpack the nuances of 20th-century history. >>>

Faye Fiore, "Guardians of the nation's attic," Los Angeles Times, August 8, 2010.

When Paul Brachfeld took over as inspector general of the National Archives, guardian of the country's most beloved treasures, he discovered the American people were being stolen blind.

The Wright Brothers 1903 Flying Machine patent application? Gone.

A copy of the Dec. 8, 1941 "Day of Infamy" speech autographed by Franklin D. Roosevelt and tied with a purple ribbon? Gone. >>>