Thread by @BretDevereaux

So this past week, I wrote an explainer on the war in Ukraine read now by more than 60,000 people & even more explanatory material here.

This week I also found out my department likely won't have the resources to renew my contract next academic year, so I'm out of a job in May.

https://twitter.com/dr_tgpeterson/status/1498671891367792643

Since the search I was a finalist for seems to have been cancelled without making an offer, that means that - while I'm still exploring options - chances are I won't have an academic job in the fall.

This also isn't a 'we don't teach military history' rant (we do teach it!)...

...but it is a 'our institutions do not value history (all fields) enough' - often less than the general public - and 'our field doesn't value public education and engagement enough.'

Historians are teaching 'the important stuff' but being made to do it on a shoestring budget.

That isn't a rant against my department, to be very clear. They've been very supportive but they don't pick their budget & are forced to make hard choices. In their shoes, I'd probably have made the same choices, given the constraints.

It's the constraints that are the problem.

Now, I am essentially at this point the crowd-funded-history-'professor,' so I can keep doing the work here, despite the setbacks (thank you patrons!), but this moment ought to make us realize the worth of what historians do and the importance of funding those efforts.

We need more historians doing the work - yes, military historians, but also all of the other kinds too (because fields of history rely on each other, since no one can know everything) - and not every historian can crowdfund themselves.

Fund the humanities (inc. history).

Also here is the explainer (acoup.blog/2022/02/25/mis…).

I'm working on writing at least two more 101-explainers, one on how nuclear deterrence theory works and one on the theory protracted (or people's) war, both of which are of course relevant here.