Thread incoming.
1. The main problem I have with Magness's article is its air of "objectivity," when it is anything but, and its pretensions to be an omniscient arbiter. Also, he often refers to the five critics of 1619 as "the historians," which makes it sound like they speak for the rest of us.
2. Twitter isn't the medium for extended historiographical discourse, but briefly, here are some issues w. Magness's argument. First, he minimizes the effect of Somerset and Dunmore on deep South colonists' decision to fight the British-mosrtly bc he doesn't take his analysis +
3. into the war years themselves--the issue wasn't truly forced in SC and GA until the British invasion of 1779, for example. And just bc Dunmore's offer of "freedom" proved largely illusory doesn't mean it didn't profoundly affect southern white colonists' motivations.
4. Magness also dismisses the so-called "New History of Capitalism" out of hand, saying it has "not fared well under scrutiny from outside its own ranks." To support this apparent consensus against the NHC, he links to articles from Reason and the National Review. Ummmm...
5. It's not surprising that a new historiographical interpretation that is scathing in its treatment of capitalism and its intimate association w. enslavement isn't going to go over well the Supply-Side Right and the libertarians. This is like citing Hayek to "disprove" Marx.
6. The third link Magness uses to criticize the NHC is an article from John Clegg, which is a much more nuanced and responsible examination, but is premised on a fundamental difference over how he and the NHC folks define capitalism as a system.
7. As such, the Clegg article isn't the decisive refutation that Magness thinks it is. Rather, it underscores the debate over capitalism as primarily a system of economic organization versus capitalism as a more totalizing ideology. That's a debate to have, but it's far from over
8. (Also, perhaps the most visible work of the NHC is Sven Beckert's Empire of Cotton, which won the Bancroft Prize. If this is 'not faring well,' sign me the fck up.)
9. But Magness wants to dismiss the NHC because it would allow him to dismiss the 1619 Project as a whole. But he's too eager to do so, and it shows here. You gotta do better than the National Review and Reason. (Oh, he links to two of his own articles, so there's that, too)
10. Magness, though, saves most of his ammunition for the inclusion of Matthew Desmond (who, Magness is eager to point out, is a SOCIOLOGIST and not a historian), and his "overtly ideological and anti-capitalist" arguments that slavery was the key economic driver of the US and +
11. that slavery's brutality has shaped capitalism to the present day. In Magness's eyes, this is an attempt to "enlist slavery as an explanatory mechanism for a long list of grievances he has against the Republican Party's positions" today. ZOMG PRESENTISM THE HORROR OF IT ALL
12. First, Desmond studies the intersections of race and economics, and if you think he can do that without exploring slavery and the rise of capitalism, then you're daft. Much of Magness's indictment reads like sour grapes and credential-bashing gatekeeping.
13. (I'd also like to note that many of the critics of the New History of Capitalism, including himself [repeatedly], that Magness cites use Max Weber's discussion of capitalism to attack the NHC's framing. So his bashing of sociologists seems a bit disingeuous, no?)
14. Again, Magness falls back on his dismissal of the NHC to argue that Desmond's essay, and thus the entire 1619 Project, has been tainted by this presentist and ideologically-driven historiographical agenda. Somewhat remarkably, he is blithely unaware of the irony here.
15. Magness argues that, even in the editorial defense of the 1619 Project, the NYT doesn't address the VERY SERIOUS charges against the New History of Capitalism, and indeed "continues to extend this defective body of academic work its imprimatur and credibility."
16. Yeah, how DARE the New York Times be informed by cutting-edge scholarship that includes (checks notes) a Bancroft Prize winner. SO ILLEGITIMATE. The economic historians hate the NHC bc it introduces ideology into their neat formulae and "objective" measurements.
17. So the New History of Capitalism is absolutely controversial. It is an extensive critique of dominant systems and ideologies--within both the US and the historical profession itself.
Remember: the Dunning School didn't go down without a fight, either.
Remember: the Dunning School didn't go down without a fight, either.
18. What Magness is doing is amplifying a sector of scholarly critique (one borne largely out of pro-capitalist sentiment and turfiness) to argue that the 1619 Project is dependent upon some fringe theory that "real" historians have rejected. And that's just wrong. Don't buy it.
19. The major problem here, though, is Magness's scorekeeping. He's gaming this framework--HISTORIANS 3, HANNAH-JONES 2. TAKE THAT, 1619 PROJECT--to appear as a neutral arbiter. Like John Roberts, he wants to come across as a mere umpire, callin' 'em like he sees 'em.
20. But when you create your own strike zone, and impose arbitrary professional standards (No sociologists allowed!) like an angry-white-dude version of Calvinball, you aren't a neutral arbiter. You're engaged in an ideological project of your own. One Andrew Sullivan loves. Yay?
21. Magness also chides the NYT for not including enough experts in the Revolutionary through Civil War era (by which he really means the five historian critics), and ignores the fact Hannah-Jones and the Times employed a welter of scholarship and fact-checkers in this project.
22. I would counter that we can read a lot into the fact that these 5 critics approached a range of well-known, prize-winning historians who work in the revolutionary through civil war eras, and none signed their letter. None.
23. I pointed out earlier that none of these 5 critics, or any of the other scholars who've publicly taken issue with the 1619 Project, is a scholar who actually studies the experience of the enslaved themselves, or the Black experience. That is also important to note.
24. If you look at those who are taking an almost morbidly gleeful delight in attacking the work of the 1619 Project, it's a handful of senior scholars who made their reputations largely via traditional political/military Great-Man (or at least Great-Man-adjacent) work +
25. a collection of libertarians and other capitalist fanboys who have several axes to grind against the New History of Capitalism and are furious that its influence is so visible in this project, Andrew "race science is good" Sullivan, & a bunch of 'class>race' white Lefty bros
26. To the WSW folks (who've been a platform for Oakes, Wood, and McPherson's critcisms of the 1619 Project and thus taken this whole thing to the level of performance art), read Manning Marable's _How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America_ and Cedric Robinson's _Black Marxism_
27. In the United States, class and race are thoroughly intertwined. You cannot stir them apart. Even Marx knew this--though this thread is way too long and that's another thing I'm writing anyway.
28. To conclude: Magness's attempt to settle scores isn't nearly as substantial as he pretends. In the words of Althusser, "Ideology never says 'I am ideological'." There is no more potent form of identitarianism than white dudes telling everyone else to stop being identitarian.
"did you really just post a 28-tweet thread? who do you think you are, @KevinMKruse?" 
