Should professional historians write for the general public? If so, who is the "public" they are trying to reach? And when historians do write for the public how do they manage to make their work readable and accessible without sacrificing scholarly integrity? What role does politics, and even activism, play in popular history writing? These are questions that the historical profession, and in some respects, the nation, are currently wrestling with. Our guest today, historian Nick Witham, author of Popularizing the Past: Historians, Publishers, and Readers in Postwar America, reminds us that these questions are not new. Some of the country's most prominent writer-historians, including Richard Hofstadter, Daniel Boorstin, John Hope Franklin, Howard Zinn, and Gerda Lerner, grappled with how to reach the public with good historical scholarship.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Episode 26: The Way of Improvement Returns to the Classroom
Episode 25: Thinking Historically About Charlottesville
Episode 24: The Way of Improvement Leads to Ben Franklin’s World
Episode 23: Giving in America
Episode 22: The History of American Healthcare
Episode 21: Why We Need More Historians in the Silicon Valley
Episode 20: La Vida Baseball
Episode 19: American Prophets
Episode 18: The Way of Improvement Leads Abroad?
Episode 17: The Way of Improvement Leads to Mount Vernon
Episode 16: Abolitionism
Episode 15: The Civil War
Episode 14: 107 Years in the Making
Episode 13: Finally, it’s Election Day
Episode 12: How to be a Historian in Public
Episode 11: Biography: an Appraisal
Episode 10: On Historical Reenacting
Episode 9: Baby, We Were Born to Run (Home)
Episode 8: All Things Jefferson
Episode 7: The Way of Improvement Leads to the Ballpark
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Modern West
Voices of Misery Podcast
House of Whimsical Terror
Dairyland Frights
Stuff You Should Know
Timcast IRL