11/07/2005
Civil War publishing is ....
If you did not follow the links in yesterday's post on the Civil War publishing experiences of Eric and Mark, please do. They went into a level of detail about their personal experiences that you find only rarely even on the Net.
Recycling secondary sources at a premium
Drew Wagenhoffer spotted a new book on McClellan's first Richmond campaign based entirely on secondary sources - mainly Sears ! - and priced at $45 for 185 pages.
Is this is a publishing house that thinks there's still plenty of money to be made in that old time (1961-1965) religion? Or is this the fruit of an acquisitions editor who does not know which end is up?
Is this is a publishing house that thinks there's still plenty of money to be made in that old time (1961-1965) religion? Or is this the fruit of an acquisitions editor who does not know which end is up?
11/06/2005
On Civil War publishing
Mark Grimsley says - this surprised me -
Mark was reflecting on Eric Wittenberg's comments about University Presses. Let me interleave some comments of my own.
Eric says: The advantage of a university press is that they don’t have to make a profit.
Comment: I think they do: professors used to complain a decade or so ago, that their university presses are more interested in commercially viable stuff than the school's monographs. I think the business model is just different from a trade house. There is a low first press run, keeping expenses down, there is a minimal marketing budget, and there is a hope that the books will become assigned reading - or be embraced by specialists. At a convention of the national organization of political scientists, I heard the director of LSU Press say that Volume I of Eric Voegelin's Order and History (a $45 hardback selling around 1980) had done quite well for them at sales of 1,800 plus copies. (Time frame: middle late nineties. Voegelin publishing is now at University of Missouri Press.)
This sets up explanatory for Eric's main beef:
Eric: ...they can get away with charging absolutely outrageous prices for things.
Comment: It seems to me that there is a cost-per-unit calculation at work in which the low press run is driving up unit prices. This is a hunch: I think in trade presses, some book costs are written off as overhead and in academic houses the full cost is account for in unit pricing. There is also a hope that a limited market of specialists will say "must buy."
Eric: ... although they can charge ridiculous prices, the university presses often cut corners in ways that detract from the overall quality of a book.
Comment: I have been humiliated on the author's behalf reading Oxford University Press offerings in which the author has been compelled to freehand his own battle diagrams using a blunt (damaged) marker.
Eric: ... university presses can take an unreasonably long time to get stuff published. LSU published one of my books in 2002. I submitted the manuscript in 1999. For the record, it took them nearly THREE years to get the book out.
Comment: I'll bet the politics around a university press's release schedule are ferocious. Up to a third of those I monitor will not even have released their catalogs at the start of the season covered by that seasonal catalog!
Eric: Kent State’s marketing efforts are stunningly lame.
Comment: I have never, ever seen a copy of Tom Rowland's George B. McClellan and Civil War History on a bookshelf in any store. I tried to buy the entire press run from them in case they had marked them for pulping or remaindering and the marketing department said, no worries, it may be slightly discounted at worst. At the time, I think they were having a catalog sale and it was 15% off list. So there's an upside: as an author you have years to gin up demand!
I was disconcerted but refreshed by Eric's and Mark's willingness to name names. (Grimsley's criticism of the University Press of Nebraska is here.)
p.s. Don't miss the comments section on both posts.
For someone in my position, even a book that sells poorly still gets me a (usually decent) merit raise in salary. In fact, from a purely financial standpoint that's the main reason for a professor to write books in the first place. The only time a professor is likely to make more money from royalties than raises is when she hits the jackpot on a major college textbook.I would guess that makes for a higher manuscript acceptance hurdle, since the editor reviewing the proposed book has some lingering suspicions in mind.
Mark was reflecting on Eric Wittenberg's comments about University Presses. Let me interleave some comments of my own.
Eric says: The advantage of a university press is that they don’t have to make a profit.
Comment: I think they do: professors used to complain a decade or so ago, that their university presses are more interested in commercially viable stuff than the school's monographs. I think the business model is just different from a trade house. There is a low first press run, keeping expenses down, there is a minimal marketing budget, and there is a hope that the books will become assigned reading - or be embraced by specialists. At a convention of the national organization of political scientists, I heard the director of LSU Press say that Volume I of Eric Voegelin's Order and History (a $45 hardback selling around 1980) had done quite well for them at sales of 1,800 plus copies. (Time frame: middle late nineties. Voegelin publishing is now at University of Missouri Press.)
This sets up explanatory for Eric's main beef:
Eric: ...they can get away with charging absolutely outrageous prices for things.
Comment: It seems to me that there is a cost-per-unit calculation at work in which the low press run is driving up unit prices. This is a hunch: I think in trade presses, some book costs are written off as overhead and in academic houses the full cost is account for in unit pricing. There is also a hope that a limited market of specialists will say "must buy."
Eric: ... although they can charge ridiculous prices, the university presses often cut corners in ways that detract from the overall quality of a book.
Comment: I have been humiliated on the author's behalf reading Oxford University Press offerings in which the author has been compelled to freehand his own battle diagrams using a blunt (damaged) marker.
Eric: ... university presses can take an unreasonably long time to get stuff published. LSU published one of my books in 2002. I submitted the manuscript in 1999. For the record, it took them nearly THREE years to get the book out.
Comment: I'll bet the politics around a university press's release schedule are ferocious. Up to a third of those I monitor will not even have released their catalogs at the start of the season covered by that seasonal catalog!
Eric: Kent State’s marketing efforts are stunningly lame.
Comment: I have never, ever seen a copy of Tom Rowland's George B. McClellan and Civil War History on a bookshelf in any store. I tried to buy the entire press run from them in case they had marked them for pulping or remaindering and the marketing department said, no worries, it may be slightly discounted at worst. At the time, I think they were having a catalog sale and it was 15% off list. So there's an upside: as an author you have years to gin up demand!
I was disconcerted but refreshed by Eric's and Mark's willingness to name names. (Grimsley's criticism of the University Press of Nebraska is here.)
p.s. Don't miss the comments section on both posts.
11/02/2005
The next wave in public history
... appears to be "stop mediating the public's history."
I see that Civil War Preservation Trust, preparing a story of the Battle of Chancelorsville, has invited National History Inc. to create an "interpretation" of the battlefield.
National History Inc. has resolved "to hear from residents about how to tell the story about what happened along a creek called Lick Run west of Chancellor Elementary School."
Perfect. At this rate even Ken Burns will be out of a job soon.
I see that Civil War Preservation Trust, preparing a story of the Battle of Chancelorsville, has invited National History Inc. to create an "interpretation" of the battlefield.
National History Inc. has resolved "to hear from residents about how to tell the story about what happened along a creek called Lick Run west of Chancellor Elementary School."
Perfect. At this rate even Ken Burns will be out of a job soon.
Obligatory McPherson post
C. Vann Woodward's lesser light, James McPherson, has taken his show on the road and landed smack dab on the home ground of Woodward's star pupil Edward Ayers. McPherson, "the dean of American Civil War scholars," will speak at the University of Tennessee at Martin next month.
He is sponsored by something called the Vertical Immersion Program - McPherson is all horizontal immersion to me - and where Tennessee native Ayers has lately and publicly been applying purgatives to McPherson fans, the University of Tennessee can still muster a statement like, "James McPherson is the most prominent Civil War scholar of the past 30 years."
Unless I miscounted, that would be the most prominent since 1975. If memory serves, McPherson was an obscure race relations historian in 1975 with little familiarity with the Civil War.
The habit of praising McPherson extravagantly has passed beyond the bounds of reason, record, or history, or even decorum.
Not that I am an expert on decorum. But really.
He is sponsored by something called the Vertical Immersion Program - McPherson is all horizontal immersion to me - and where Tennessee native Ayers has lately and publicly been applying purgatives to McPherson fans, the University of Tennessee can still muster a statement like, "James McPherson is the most prominent Civil War scholar of the past 30 years."
Unless I miscounted, that would be the most prominent since 1975. If memory serves, McPherson was an obscure race relations historian in 1975 with little familiarity with the Civil War.
The habit of praising McPherson extravagantly has passed beyond the bounds of reason, record, or history, or even decorum.
Not that I am an expert on decorum. But really.
11/01/2005
Team of Rivals - the reviews roll in
Here's a treat for regular readers of this blog. It's a quote from American Heritage about Doris Kearns Goodwin's new Lincoln book Team of Rivals: "Though Goodwin has written a fine, well-researched book, she is stronger on narrative than on analysis."
As I pick myself off the floor, Goodwin herself decks me with this roundhouse punch:
Oh, but we're here for the reviews. Christian Science Monitor: "Goodwin isn't a prose stylist, and she could have included less play-by-play and more color commentary."
If she's no analyst and not much of a prose stylist, what the dickens is this? New York Daily News:
As I pick myself off the floor, Goodwin herself decks me with this roundhouse punch:
After discovering additional passages [in her Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys) that closely paralleled the original sources, Goodwin ordered the book removed from stores and promised a new edition, which has yet to be written. "I just got right back to this (the Lincoln book), which was more important," says Goodwin ...Meanwhile, meanwhile,
Meanwhile, new paperback copies of The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys [unrevised edition filled with "borrowings"] remain on sale, not through the book's original publisher, Simon & Schuster, but through St. Martin's Press. [...] Goodwin said that she knew nothing about the St. Martin's edition until earlier this month, after The Boston Globe noted its availability. Simon & Schuster also expressed surprise.Surprise, surprise. Would she have been surprised if the royalty checks told the story instead of the Boston media? Get this:
John Murphy, a spokesman for St. Martin's, said Thursday that the publisher was hoping to resolve the matter. "We're looking into the history of it," he said.From beneath his rock.
Oh, but we're here for the reviews. Christian Science Monitor: "Goodwin isn't a prose stylist, and she could have included less play-by-play and more color commentary."
If she's no analyst and not much of a prose stylist, what the dickens is this? New York Daily News:
Goodwin's story of his great, troubled, triumphant life is a star-spangled, high-stepping, hat-waving, bugle-blowing winner.Which is what we want from history, I suppose.
10/31/2005
Craziest McClellan replacement idea - your input
Reading about Napoleon B. Buford in these pages, reader Bob Fugate asked for a rundown of McClellan replacements considered during GBM's tenure as G-i-C and AoP commander.
I have my list and am checking it twice. Meanwhile, please send your own ideas and suggestions. Win a prize for the craziest McClellan replacement idea that I never heard of put to the Administration or considered within it.
We're having a contest, would you believe it.
10/30/2005
10/27/2005
A brief message from the AAAARGH! department
Have been posting through my cell phone since March. Painful, painful.
Phone company finally ran lines out to my corner of suburbia - time elapsed, six months from request. Immediately activated an AOL account to take advantage of the mighty 56k bandwidth capability. Hooray.
USB (cell phone connector) gets along with modem port. Nice.
Time for change after one week; everything is too peaceful. Yours truly adds home wireleness network and wireless device addressed to USB where cell used to connect.
Crash burn reboot. Repeat.
It's fixed now and I'll start posting regularly Saturday.
Whew.
Phone company finally ran lines out to my corner of suburbia - time elapsed, six months from request. Immediately activated an AOL account to take advantage of the mighty 56k bandwidth capability. Hooray.
USB (cell phone connector) gets along with modem port. Nice.
Time for change after one week; everything is too peaceful. Yours truly adds home wireleness network and wireless device addressed to USB where cell used to connect.
Crash burn reboot. Repeat.
It's fixed now and I'll start posting regularly Saturday.
Whew.
10/25/2005
Goodwin starts book tour
Author Richard F. Miller mentioned to me that Doris K. Goodwin was having union boycott troubles; a quick news search uncovered a Goodwin news mini-jackpot. Partake with me:
The Boston Globe’s Alex Beam marvels at her "return to polite society" and fantasizes about an interviewer asking her "So, Doris, tell me -- how much of this did you write yourself?" That would certainly be my first question.
In another piece, Beam notes that the striking Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA) has targeted Northwest Airline director D.K. Goodwin for pressure. (Goodwin supervising airline management reminds me of the cliche "That's no way to run an airline.")
You may need an air sickness bag for the next bit, sorry to say.
The Boston Globe’s Alex Beam marvels at her "return to polite society" and fantasizes about an interviewer asking her "So, Doris, tell me -- how much of this did you write yourself?" That would certainly be my first question.
In another piece, Beam notes that the striking Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA) has targeted Northwest Airline director D.K. Goodwin for pressure. (Goodwin supervising airline management reminds me of the cliche "That's no way to run an airline.")
Rogers [an outside PR specialist hired by the union] says he has printed 100,000 copies of a leaflet titled "The Great Emancipator Meets a Great Prevaricator," which revisits embarrassing episodes of alleged copying that bedeviled Goodwin in 2002. Keith Anderson, the head of AMFA's Boston-based Local 2, says the union's 80 local members will hand out leaflets in Concord, where Goodwin lives, at the airport, and at Goodwin's promotional events. In a letter, AMFA national director O.V. Delle-Femine has informed Goodwin that "we intend to notify a great many interested parties . . . that you are unfit to serve on the Northwest board and should resign immediately."I wish I had a way to donate to that worthy cause.
You may need an air sickness bag for the next bit, sorry to say.
... in the book-lined living room of her 150-year-old renovated farmhouse in the suburbs of Boston, Goodwin uses just that word to describe the 16th president. Sexy.Have you ever wondered how far you yourself would go to promote a book? Would you go that far?
10/24/2005
Lost continents of understanding - part 1
When James McPherson's Gettysburg anniversary tour guide came out - he is in fact a private Gettysburg tour guide - a number of reviewers were surprised at his fit of pique about mythbusting:
So, on the one hand, McPherson has appeared to trim the revisionists case down to a size where he can declare "draw."
On the other hand, his underlying point is terifically important: "The Confederates may well have thought there were shoes..." Ah, belief is being given a little credence here. Odd for McPherson, but welcome.
Modern Civil War historians, led by McPherson himself, have gone to extroadinary lengths to suppress from the record what the actors believed. If what they believed was not true; why include it? If true, then put it in! That seems to be the rule and it presents a wickedly distorted picture of the Civil War by drowing context and motivation.
Beliefs, misinformation, these are the lost continents of Civil War history.
A Centennial historian, an avid defender of that doctrine, once cautioned me against reading Civil War newspapers. Filled with misinformation, he said, as if this were a revelation. At the same time, this fellow knew and fully credited the notion that Robert E. Lee's best intelligence came from Northern newspapers.
We see the same selective or dual consciousness in McPherson's misguided attack on shoe revisionism. For in the shoe revisionism, at least as summarized by Desjardin, we see exactly the correct way in which to explore a lost continent:
They searched, not only for the shoes, and then the absence of shoes, they searched for a belief in shoes. And when all three searches failed, then and only then did they proclaim the shoe story a myth.
More lost continents tomorrow.
It is obvious from his treatment of these subjects that McPherson strongly dislikes the idea that these myths (which he apparently has repeated on his tours) are now being challenged by more recent research.The case for shoes at Gettysburg being a myth has been nicely covered by author and Gettysburg specialist Tom Desjardin in this interview on Civil War Talk Radio. Here are McPherson's own comments on the matter:
Generations of historians--and battlefield guides--have said that the advance brigade of Heth's division was heading to Gettysburg to find a rumored supply of shoes in town. Young people especially are captivated by the story that the battle of Gettysburg started because of shoes. Recently, however, some historians have debunked this anecdote as a myth. There was no shoe factory or warehouse in Gettysburg, they point out; the twenty-two shoemakers listed in the 1860 census as living in Gettysburg were barely sufficient to make or repair the footwear worn by county residents. And if there had been a surplus of shoes in town, they would have been cleaned out by Brigadier General John Gordon's brigade of Major General Jubal Early's division when they came through Gettysburg five days earlier.If you listen to Desjardin's summary of the shoe story revision, it does not match McPherson's recap. Desjardin says that the only source for any shoe theory is the one remark made by Heth and that the remark is quoted out of context; that the "revisionists" (researchers?) have searched for evidence of Rebel comments about shoes or beliefs about shoes and drilled only dry holes. He says that a certain pop historian took on an out-of-context Heth quote and in the retelling among pop historians using that secondary source, the tale ballooned.
The shoe story, claim these historians, was concocted by General Heth (pronounced Heath) to explain why he blundered into a firefight contrary to Lee's orders not to bring on a battle until the army was concentrated. Heth said that he thought the Union pickets he encountered on the Chambersburg Pike were merely local militia who could be brushed aside, so he kept going to "get those shoes."
The revisionists have made one good point: there were no shoes in Gettysburg except those worn by the inhabitants still in town (many had fled). But that does not necessarily discredit the shoe story. The Confederates may well have thought there were shoes; several of them later said so. In any case, the anecdote serves an important purpose in that it illustrates that the battle of Gettysburg began as a "meeting engagement," or "encounter engagement." Neither commander intended to fight at Gettysburg; the battle built up step by step from that first encounter on the Chambersburg Pike. Let us concede that the shoe story can neither be proved nor disproved; let us follow the current fashion and call Heth's advance a "reconnaissance in force" to probe toward the enemy; the end result was the same.
So, on the one hand, McPherson has appeared to trim the revisionists case down to a size where he can declare "draw."
On the other hand, his underlying point is terifically important: "The Confederates may well have thought there were shoes..." Ah, belief is being given a little credence here. Odd for McPherson, but welcome.
Modern Civil War historians, led by McPherson himself, have gone to extroadinary lengths to suppress from the record what the actors believed. If what they believed was not true; why include it? If true, then put it in! That seems to be the rule and it presents a wickedly distorted picture of the Civil War by drowing context and motivation.
Beliefs, misinformation, these are the lost continents of Civil War history.
A Centennial historian, an avid defender of that doctrine, once cautioned me against reading Civil War newspapers. Filled with misinformation, he said, as if this were a revelation. At the same time, this fellow knew and fully credited the notion that Robert E. Lee's best intelligence came from Northern newspapers.
We see the same selective or dual consciousness in McPherson's misguided attack on shoe revisionism. For in the shoe revisionism, at least as summarized by Desjardin, we see exactly the correct way in which to explore a lost continent:
They searched, not only for the shoes, and then the absence of shoes, they searched for a belief in shoes. And when all three searches failed, then and only then did they proclaim the shoe story a myth.
More lost continents tomorrow.
10/21/2005
Talking points
Had a nice time on Civil War Talk Radio today. Will post a line when the recording becomes available in the archive.
Preparing for the show, I jotted down some talking points in three categories: McClellan, public history, and the effects of the Internet on publishing. The show was conversational, however, and the points were not needed so I present them here as souvenirs of a moment passed. For what it’s worth:
George B. McClellan
+ In the general consensus about the war and its personalities, Grant and McClellan have become archetypes or stereotypes.
+ In this framework, the Grant story represents a fantasy outside of anyone’s experience while McClellan’s experience is part and parcel of our daily lives.
+ Grant: the hard-working apolitical subordinate works for the rational and wise boss who rewards his subordinates based on merit. His worth being recognized strictly through personal effort, Grant is given all resources needed to do his job, plus unstinting personal and moral support and, as he brings the organization success after success, he is showered with popular accolades.
+ McClellan: under-resourced and underappreciated, McClellan is coping with a distant, distracted superior who keeps inserting layers of incompetent micromanagers between them. McC has constraints that cannot be remedied, timetables that are unrealistic, scheming, incompetent subordinates, jealous peers, and an endless supply of supernumerary experts eager to tell him publicly how to do the job better. Try as he might, he is maligned, discredited and complained about.
+ We don’t know anyone like the Grant character; have never heard of such a person; don’t know anyone who knows of such a person; we will die without ever even hearing of a work life like this one. On the other hand we and everyone we know faces a McClellanistic existence every day, all day almost from birth.
+ Somehow the Grant fantasy – which no one can relate to - is more popular than the McClellan reality – which everyone can relate to.
+ McClellan revision currently has four aspects.
Rowland: corrects historians’ excesses.
Rafuse: filters the man’s actions through his political ethos.
Beatie: places the man in a total military context.
Harsh: places the man in specific situational contexts
+ The next breakthrough will come from pop history.
+ McClellan is surrounded by a rich body of unmined personal interest material including many fine unpublished anecdotes. This material is made to order for pop history.
+ McClellan’s family setting is Tolstoyan: he is the poor son of Philadelphia gentry seeking his place in the world while his wife’s family is in rapid decline from former grandeur (the “Albany Regency”). Meanwhile his entire family is embroiled in the war, North and South, and their individual fates hinge not on their own efforts but on the general's destiny.
+ A new pop history that uses all the McClellan materials, especially the anecdotes and family histories, will materially change how this reputation plays.
Blogging
* The Web has absorbed older Internt media: Archie, Gopher, Listserv, and Usenet. But the common technical denominator remains hypertext.
* Links are references and blog writing around the link is in the style of an end note or footnote. Blogs are essentially footnotes and endnotes organized around references (links).
* Blogs have the same reading appeal as footnotes, offering serendipity, random information, surprise and delight. This may find its way back into commercial publishing, which is hostile to notes.
* The echo effect of comment and response among blogs of the same topic represents something like a roundtable discussion but is deeper – responses are more thoughtful and referenced. This can accumulate into a creative collaborative effect.
* Using hypertext, an argument can be constructed of scarcely connected links. “Proof” can be made out of artfully managed hypertext.
* As McLuhan would say, the medium is trying us on and we fit.
Public history
# The preservation movement has hardened into a shape where there is an overwhelming sector leader with a hard-and-fast preservation ideology.
# People who contribute to preservation groups do not understand that they are endorsing very specific philosophies: of land management; of public access; of ranking merit or worth; of responsibility and maintenance.
# Local history is moving online and becoming visible. History clubs are going digital.
# Meanwhile local history is subject to pressures of heritage tourism.
# Heritage tourism develops a story that will sell to budget appropriators. This story then seeps into official accounts of events.
# Heritage tourism looks to commercial media (publishing, film, TV) for validation of its money-winning messages.
# Sophisticated readers constitute a reserve of healthy skepticism towards public history projects.
Preparing for the show, I jotted down some talking points in three categories: McClellan, public history, and the effects of the Internet on publishing. The show was conversational, however, and the points were not needed so I present them here as souvenirs of a moment passed. For what it’s worth:
George B. McClellan
+ In the general consensus about the war and its personalities, Grant and McClellan have become archetypes or stereotypes.
+ In this framework, the Grant story represents a fantasy outside of anyone’s experience while McClellan’s experience is part and parcel of our daily lives.
+ Grant: the hard-working apolitical subordinate works for the rational and wise boss who rewards his subordinates based on merit. His worth being recognized strictly through personal effort, Grant is given all resources needed to do his job, plus unstinting personal and moral support and, as he brings the organization success after success, he is showered with popular accolades.
+ McClellan: under-resourced and underappreciated, McClellan is coping with a distant, distracted superior who keeps inserting layers of incompetent micromanagers between them. McC has constraints that cannot be remedied, timetables that are unrealistic, scheming, incompetent subordinates, jealous peers, and an endless supply of supernumerary experts eager to tell him publicly how to do the job better. Try as he might, he is maligned, discredited and complained about.
+ We don’t know anyone like the Grant character; have never heard of such a person; don’t know anyone who knows of such a person; we will die without ever even hearing of a work life like this one. On the other hand we and everyone we know faces a McClellanistic existence every day, all day almost from birth.
+ Somehow the Grant fantasy – which no one can relate to - is more popular than the McClellan reality – which everyone can relate to.
+ McClellan revision currently has four aspects.
Rowland: corrects historians’ excesses.
Rafuse: filters the man’s actions through his political ethos.
Beatie: places the man in a total military context.
Harsh: places the man in specific situational contexts
+ The next breakthrough will come from pop history.
+ McClellan is surrounded by a rich body of unmined personal interest material including many fine unpublished anecdotes. This material is made to order for pop history.
+ McClellan’s family setting is Tolstoyan: he is the poor son of Philadelphia gentry seeking his place in the world while his wife’s family is in rapid decline from former grandeur (the “Albany Regency”). Meanwhile his entire family is embroiled in the war, North and South, and their individual fates hinge not on their own efforts but on the general's destiny.
+ A new pop history that uses all the McClellan materials, especially the anecdotes and family histories, will materially change how this reputation plays.
Blogging
* The Web has absorbed older Internt media: Archie, Gopher, Listserv, and Usenet. But the common technical denominator remains hypertext.
* Links are references and blog writing around the link is in the style of an end note or footnote. Blogs are essentially footnotes and endnotes organized around references (links).
* Blogs have the same reading appeal as footnotes, offering serendipity, random information, surprise and delight. This may find its way back into commercial publishing, which is hostile to notes.
* The echo effect of comment and response among blogs of the same topic represents something like a roundtable discussion but is deeper – responses are more thoughtful and referenced. This can accumulate into a creative collaborative effect.
* Using hypertext, an argument can be constructed of scarcely connected links. “Proof” can be made out of artfully managed hypertext.
* As McLuhan would say, the medium is trying us on and we fit.
Public history
# The preservation movement has hardened into a shape where there is an overwhelming sector leader with a hard-and-fast preservation ideology.
# People who contribute to preservation groups do not understand that they are endorsing very specific philosophies: of land management; of public access; of ranking merit or worth; of responsibility and maintenance.
# Local history is moving online and becoming visible. History clubs are going digital.
# Meanwhile local history is subject to pressures of heritage tourism.
# Heritage tourism develops a story that will sell to budget appropriators. This story then seeps into official accounts of events.
# Heritage tourism looks to commercial media (publishing, film, TV) for validation of its money-winning messages.
# Sophisticated readers constitute a reserve of healthy skepticism towards public history projects.
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