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The heart of the matter is not whether we engage in public debate. Of course we do. It is not whether we attend to political, diplomatic and military history. Of course we do. This is a debate over who sets the terms of the nation’s history and from what point of view we tell it.
I am a legal historian who writes about citizenship (for specialists and a broad public.) I write from the point of view of black Americans; for some that will always mark my work as “esoteric.” To that I say I write the past, with rigor and integrity, to illuminate our own time.
I urge us not to fall for this trap. There’s not debate about whether historians are engaged with broad audiences. The debate is about who our audience is and what they need and want to know and learn. Own your so-called esoteric work; be clear that the margin in now the center.
This is an essay about the power that is without a doubt embodied in the capacity to write this nation’s history. (It is poorly masked in some sort of parlor game of pop-quizzes.) Make no mistake, we have long been in a struggle over the future, by way of the pasts that we write.
Our mistake is not overlooking subjects or producing specialized prose. Our mistake is overlooking the degree to which writing history, wherever we publish or disseminate it, is infused with power. If you don’t know why you write or for whom, this is your wake up call.
