Civil War Talk Radio - public history?

Brett was troubled by Gerry Prokopowicz's line of questioning with guest Scott Patchan on Civil War Talk Radio. There are two possible explanations for the "inquisition" ...

(1) Dr. P was trying to elicit from Scott why his work is important to a broader audience; that is to say, he may have been serving the interest of his general radio audience by drawing Scott out.

(2) Scott is a specialist, the obverse of a "public historian" and GP is self-consciously a "public historian." Ergo, why, why, why.

For some reason, GP really takes that public history stuff seriously despite his own righteous instincts and better nature. Public history is like a last mad youthful adventure. He'll come home eventually.

In any case, everyone should be ready to explain the broader meaning of their work, though nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.

New Lee book

If you are going to offer readers "an authoritative and balanced assessment," why is your book called Robert E. Lee: Icon for a Nation?

(Talking to myself department: maybe "nation" refers to the CSA?)

How do you price a letter from Lee?

I see no pattern in these sales, unless price correlates to buyer familiarity with the surrounding history.

Since no one has the least inkling about the Sherman (right) vs. Lee campaign of late 1861, Lee letters from this period will fetch lower prices (and prompt much head scratching).

The feebleness of ACW history over the last 50 years is thereby felt in the antiquities market...

History for fairgoers

I'm still in the doghouse with Michigan readers.

Perhaps this will explain my outburst.

(1) There is experiential history. You held the sword. You stood on the ground.

(2) There is re-enactment in an attempt to create experiential history. "This must have been what it was like." Is it history if it delivers the right feeling?

(3) There is show-and-tell. "This is a period cannon." Is it history?

(4) There is chit-chat containing history content. "They came around Longstreet's left flank." Maybe that is history, though I think it one level removed.

(5) There is simulated re-enactment out of context: costumed characters wander the fairgrounds charming kids with an experience that is ahistorical. A plastic log cabin is available for play. Children duel with plastic swords wearing blue and gray kepis.

This is the stuff of fairgrounds and festivals. It's just play.

(6) There is history contemplated. The "doer" tries to comprehend the totality of a particular historical moment allowing for as much dimensionality as possible.

For deep readers, (6) is history, much of the rest is just "history-oriented."

Adding some panels and roundtable-type events does not significantly upgrade the history content, given the orientation on "current wisdom" and the state of our current ACW "wisdom."

Maybe I'm just being too restrictive and too grumpy.

An exercise in relevance

Ah yes, the log cabin. How can we ever forget it? Somewhere an exile, an expatriate who has shaken the dust of America from his feet, who has hoped never to see that log cabin again, will empty his pockets for the laundry and there it will be again, the shining cabin on a hill. The cabin that remade America. And then it will fall and roll under the sofa.

And, there he is, the young Lincoln, looking in that book and writing that paper. Is he 14 here? 16? Already he has started work on what will become the Gettysburg address. Here he is writing version 1.0. It's a little verbose, a little childish. Each year he will improve it until The Moment arrives on that train when it is Perfection. On this I meditate each day upon gazing at the penny stuck to the well of the dashboard where I spilled my Coke.

Oh look, it's the young state legislator. Oh, how often we recall those maginficent Lincoln years in the Illinois state legislature, years that remade the state from top to bottom. Who does not know the story of "Abe Lincoln of the State Legislature"? Who does not yearn for a state legislator in any venue to scale the same heights Lincoln scaled in Illinois? I shall think of him each time I pass his state legislative image stuck in the asphalt near the sewer grating at the Seven Eleven.

(Earlier post here.)

Civil War Talk Radio reminder

Civil War Talk Radio will be on at 3:00 pm EST today - you can only listen to it live.

"Students know less after college" (cont.)

An astute reader has taken me to task for not looking at the organization behind this survey ("Students know less after college"). It is ISI, an advocacy group, and any advocacy group can design surveys to produce the results it needs to secure support and highlight "needed change". ISI, in particular, is well stocked with political activists on its board of trustees.

Nevertheless, the proof is in the pudding and to anyone my age who has taken the ISI test, Harvard's D+ average is a shock.Yes, the ISI test was designed to generate stories that invite us oldsters to compare ourselves to today's students. Eric Foner can argue (speciously, I think) that Columbia's kids are better at analysis than facts but that's not the defense to be made of these college students.

The larger question is what has happened to the student body culturally and sociologically.

One kind of story that came out of the VT shooter coverage was the mental health crisis on campuses, the lack of capacity for all the students seeking or needing psychiatric help based on stress. I was captivated by this odd combination (college = stress) having myself graduated as a lazy dual major from a party school filled with devil-may-care heirs and heiresses. I needed to understand stressed students.

To summarize my reading, today's student body appears to be filled with children from:

* Broken homes (more progress reports, different expectations, less money)
* Foreign shores (less locally to relate to)
* Families where little English is spoken (comprehension and expression take effort)
* Families in which the kid is the first-ever college attendee (no one at home can help them).

Additionally, aggressive multi-cultural recruiting has inserted many kids into a society they find unfamiliar and disorienting.

Most interestingly, psychiatry's evolution into pharmacology has enabled a significant segment of the population (that would never have attended college in the past) to test their drug-enabled coping skills in a university setting.

"In the past with bipolar or severe depression, you were considered impaired enough not to be able to go (to school,)" said David McBride, director of student health services at Boston University. "With new medications and new treatment, they're well enough to be in school."

(And yet Mark Grimsley, who blogs about his polar disorder, has not only graduated from college but thrived as a professor.)

Psychology Today says that nine percent of enrolled students take their issues to a counselor and of these, "Directors find that 40 percent of their clients have severe psychological problems." Note that nine percent includes only the self-selected troubled youth. UCLA "found that more than 30 percent of students feel overwhelmed a great deal of time." The NASPA Journal had this eye-opener:

According to the National Survey of Counseling Center Directors at 274 institutions ... 85% of center directors reported an increase in “severe” psychological problems over the last 5 years, including learning disabilities (71%), self-injury incidents (51%), eating disorders (38%), alcohol problems (45%), other illicit drug use (49%), sexual assault concerns on campus (33%), and problems related to earlier sexual abuse 34%. They estimated that approximately 16% of counseling center clients had severe psychological problems ...

So, these, too are test takers.

The college students taking the ISI quiz perhaps represent a social mosaic many of us would not at all recognize as "collegiate." Many kids now major in "coping." They are not going to work to get the significance of the Missouri Compromise, they're going to work to get through their day instead. It's sad.

A "Custer Week" organizer replies

From the mailbag:

This is a reply to your blog posting that insults the hard-work of the volunteers who have put together Custer Week 2007. Had you read the schedule of events at georgecuster.com you would have seen that there is much more than just this one event which you feel is only suitable for 10-year olds.

Through the week there will be talks by Civil War historians on Custer's service during that war. There are also going to be presentations about the fighting men of Michigan. Since the theme of Custer Week 2007 is a Civil War Celebration, the planned events are quite suitable.

As you probably know, our part of the country didn't see much action during the Civil War. We're more of a War of 1812 kind of town but the folks who have put this together have done a great job with what our area has to offer.

I feel that if you are a gentleman, you will remove or edit your blog posting that unfairly characterizes the Custer Celebration Committee and Monroe as shallow.

- Myranda Morgan

An event like this has to have family appeal. My core problem is that I don't know how one can make history into a family-friendly-festival without losing the history; adding in some talks just won't do it (witness the low quality of Civil War roundtable events).

Having organized a festival of my own for 11 years, apologies and regrets to your co-workers. The crack about 10-year-olds was uncalled for but neither will it discourage or encourage a single attendee. - DR

The Madness of Mary Lincoln

Jason Emerson, ex-park historian, has written a new Lincoln book with new content, new insights, and I believe new conclusions. It appears to be his first book and has been blurbed "brilliant." The Madness of Mary Lincoln looks very promising.

Editors call for commission

The Patriot News in Pennsylvania has called on the federal government to set up a Sesquicentennial commission.

Why dote on a Civil War opera?

I owe regular readers an explanation. Why dote on a Civil War opera?

Because it elevates the ACW beyond McPherson's and Burns' kid stuff.

Because every Philip Glass interview promoting his opera is an argument made to cafe society that the Civil War is worth a grown man's time (to borrow a cliche from Shelby Foote). (Cafe society has been prepped for this by Doctorow's novelistic plunge into Shermanology.)

Because if the opera succeeds artistically, it will result in a much better influx of readers and book buyers than was generated by previous pop media events, which will result in better reading for all.

Because if the opera succeeds commercially, we may eventually see a production of Updike's play Buchanan Dying. "Let us force no event that gradual causes will in time render inevitable!" (Harrumph!)

Because the Civil War as a subject is made for opera; this may inspire better work. The foundation for a profound ACW opera has already been laid by an immortal Hindemith/Whitman "collaboration."

Because, like spinach, it is good for you...

(Cartoon by Tony Millionaire.)

Squabbling over pennies

Believe it or not, the Mint is at loggerheads over a Lincoln penny redesign.

There will be four new pennies. The Mint has picked out three designs for the first three "stages" of AL's life and agreed upon them. Each stage is depicted as a rank falsification, a Disneyfied fantasy scene. Having saved the last penny for the important part of his life, the Mint cannot decide on emancipator or commander.

Hint for the Mint: eliminate one of the earlier depictions and you can have both emancipator and commander.

Appomattox imagery

The poster looks promising.

The set looks absurd.

The generals have deployed their beards.

Two for Kevin Levin

This survey is preposterous. This is a ranking of the most respectable blogs - the blogs you would be proud to take home to mother. Blogs you would marry. Respectability and popularity are two incongruent concepts that Technorati has not yet mastered, so don't take their word on popularity. Kevin is justly suspicious of his own place in the list.

***

Do you ever get the odd feeling that a movie has been made based on a book by Richard G. Williams without his knowledge (he would have blogged about it)? I get that feeling.

Students know less after college

I thought we saw this story already.

Students at many of the country's most prestigious colleges and universities are graduating with less knowledge of American history, government, and economics than they had as incoming freshmen, with Harvard University seniors scoring a "D+" average on a 60-question multiple-choice exam about civic literacy.

You can take the test yourself.

Eric Foner (right) blames the format of the test:

A professor of American history at Columbia University, Eric Foner, said that a multiple-choice exam testing factual knowledge of history could exaggerate student ignorance of American history.

"The study of history has changed enormously," Mr. Foner said. "It's become much more broad and diverse. The study of facts about particular battles has diminished, but maybe students are in a better position to answer questions about the abolition of slavery."

Oh dear. These battle questions are impossible:

5) Which battle brought the American Revolution to an end?

A. Saratoga
B. Gettysburg
C. The Alamo
D. Yorktown
E. New Orleans

I imagine Foner's students are in a better position to opine about slavery in all-night dorm room bull sessions. And that's hard to capture in a multiple choice exam.

Here's another question:

Which author's view of society is presented correctly?

A. Edmund Burke argued that society consists of a union of past, present, and future generations.
B. Adam Smith argued that the division of labor decreases the wealth of nations.
C. Alexis de Tocqueville argued that voluntary associations are usually dangerous to society.
D. Max Weber argued that the Jewish work ethic is central to American capitalism.
E. John Locke defended the divine right of kings.

Pity all those poor little noggins faced with challenges like that.

p.s. Chris Wehner noticed this story before I did.

p.p.s. Can you spot the Civil War historian?

Civil War Ironclads

This invaluable book is out today in a paperback edition.

The Civil War is a field abounding with the question, "What is success?" The pop histories keep it simple, stupid: success is accomplishing what Lincoln tells you to do, when he tells you to do it.

The more prestigious Centennial authors go just a little further, giving you "on the one hand this, on the other hand that" - that seems to push the limit of complexity.

The actual Civil War data is immensely more difficult. Taleb would say, fairly treated, its dimensionality is almost unmanageable. The whole problem of McClellan shows us, for instance, that you can do your uttermost for the cause, seem to succeed, seem to fail, and then be publicly reviled until the end of recorded history. That's "dimensionality" non-history readers rarely encounter except in their private lives.

In Civil War Ironclads, we find just such a problem on the institutional level: a successful shipbuilding program that wins control of the seas in such a way that no one wants anything to do with it ever again. Or as the publisher says, the U.S. Navy's shipbuilding programs were set back a generation by Union "successes" in the ACW - if they were in fact "successes."

p.s. I have arrived home this evening to find a copy of the paperback has been sent me by Johns Hopkins. If you'd like a copy of this book drop me a line - I have the hardback already.

"Appomattox" stirs media interest

As the premier of Philip Glass's opera "Appomattox" draws closer, culture reporters are filing more and longer stories.

The New York Times: We find, in this piece, the hook that has snared modern reporters, Appomattox as a symbolic starting point for modern race relations history:

The time-tripping second act includes an account of an 1873 massacre of a black militia unit by white supremacists in Louisiana; an original folk ballad about Jimmie Lee Jackson, a young black civil rights marcher killed by an Alabama state trooper in 1965; and a soliloquy by the aged Edgar Ray Killen, a Ku Klux Klan member convicted in 2005 of manslaughter for organizing the murders of three civil rights workers in Mississippi.

The San Francisco Chronicle: We learn that Grant and Lee are to be "battling baritones." And Glass recalls his youth as a child in WWII:

My memory of the war is the women, the sorrow of women, the anxiety of women.

He seems to appreciate the principals as people:

"Grant was a man of tremendous intellectual scope," he says. "It occurred to me that there are no people in public life of his and Lee's stature. I don't mean just in America, where we always have to beat up on ourselves, I mean globally. We don't have statesmen anymore, we have politicians."

The San Jose Mercury News: This is a fairly perfunctory interview per the standard rock-and-roll formula; it has no musical content and is focused on career developments and the subject's likes and dislikes.

Contra Costa Times: We receive assurance here that this is is Civil War opera.

The meeting of Grant (sung by Andrew Shore) and Lee (sung by Dwayne Croft) is at the core of the opera, and Glass says that everything in “Appomattox” is drawn from history.

This piece also contains a wonderful observation:

“For any composer, all we can do is visualize and imagine a piece. We need musicians and singers and performers to bring it to life, and that transaction, going from the imagination of the composer to the stage, is an extremely interesting time. We talk about a piece being realized—made real—and it can only happen once like that. There will be other productions, other performances, but it’s that first time that is always so exciting. It’s like watching an infant stand up and walk.”

A carnival of comments

Brian Downey writes, "Email is no way to respond to a blog post. Please enable comments."

Well then, here we are. A post that contains within itself a comments feature. A virtual comments feature inside the post itself. A win-win for all.

Brian points out that a certain history carnival mentioned here does indeed have exactly one link to an ACW blog, Civil War Women. Sorry, Maggie.

He further notes that carnival listings are a function of reader participation:

Carnivals are accumulated from posts submitted by excited readers or (more frequently) the bloggers themselves promoting their own work. Although the host of the Carnival may seek other recent MilHist posts on his/her own, most only use the ones submitted. That may well be the case in the latest instance on Armchair General.

The answer to the lack of CW representation--if that is a problem--is for more CW bloggers and readers to nominate posts to the Carnival host.

I think we Civil War blogreaders and writers are an insular bunch. It's hardly surprising that a carnival would pass us by.

The deeper matter is whether the "carnival" is a failed, boring blog activity held over from the old days (like tagging other bloggers) out of some misguided sentimentality. This may be a good way to find blogs you are interested at the first visit. After that? It becomes a writing exercise in which the host has to connect disparate nominations in a single thread of narrative and the reader must be satisfied with the entertainment value of the host's tying together of odds and ends.

Perhaps I'm too jaded, but hold your carnival once per year. That should be enough.

***

Richard Williams writes, about Stanford's John Hennessy associating D.K. Goodwin with risk taking,

I'd like to ask Mr. Hennessy if he considers plagiarism an "intellectual risk"?

The cute aspect to this story is that with Doris's agency booking over $40,000 per speech, Hennessy must have felt he could save Stanford some bucks by delivering her standard Lincoln talk himself (paraphrased, and with attribution).

***

Well there we go, two comments, anyway. Not much of a carnival of comments but it should hold us for awhile.

Author: Maryland was not ready for secession

I have been quoting Maryland Voices in the Civil War and the Baltimore Sun has just run an article on its author/editor Charles Mitchell.

As you have seen from the Dix material that Mitchell included in his book he has a revisionist sensibility:

Mitchell has helped to dispel the notion that Maryland was ready to secede from the Union and join the Confederate cause, which would have had major economic consequences for Baltimore."I hope this book punctures the myth that Maryland was ready for secession. Baltimore's businessmen were against it," he said.

That may be getting ahead of the influence of Maryland Voices. And we all understand that one can dispel anything with selective quotes and that a title like Maryland Voices does not provide readers with insight into what sources were excluded.

But I do have a weakness for re-looks, anytime and anywhere. I and do think it is legitimate to compile material excluded (or underweighted) into its own volume specifically to challenge the status quo - especially if it is identified as such a challenge.

p.s. It seems from this piece that we worked for the same publisher in the same office in Baltimore 2003, though I don't remember Mitchell.

p.p.s. Shown top right, the flag of the 6th Maryland Infantry.

Rafuse's Antietam talk

Thanks, Harry.