There has been no shortage of evidence that the times we are currently living in are “historic.” The year 2020 opened with the impeachment of a president accused of soliciting foreign interference to aid his reelection campaign. This was quickly followed by a pandemic which has ground modern life to a halt, a compelling call for racial justice which demands the attention of all citizens, and one of the most contentious presidential elections in recent memory. 2021, not to be outdone by its predecessor, has begun with a low-budget coup attempt played out for all to see in real time in the media, followed swiftly by an historic second impeachment of President Trump. I’ve never empathized more with the refrain echoed across social media in the past year: “what I wouldn’t give to live in ‘precedented’ times again.”
Amidst all of this chaos, historians play a special role. Each of the aforementioned crises and the debates they have engendered stem from problems with deep historical roots; the voice of the historian has been critical in understanding and processing our current moment. It is not enough to simply absorb what is happening around us. In order to understand why public health directives have suddenly become a contentious part of contemporary discourse, one must begin with the push-and-pull dynamic between personal liberty and personal responsibility which has been at the heart of American civic life since at least the country’s establishment during the Revolution. In order to understand Black Lives Matter, one must grapple with the long history of white supremacy and racism still buried deep within the American soul. At the same time, the past year has also underscored the fact that predicting what historical knowledge is “useful” or “relevant” is impossible. At the start of 2020, historians researching topics like George Washington’s stance on smallpox inoculation, yellow fever in the Early Republic, or even the 1919 influenza epidemic, would have never expected that their research would hold such meaning to a wide public or that they would be pushed into such prominent positions as experts with reach beyond academia. Nor, I’m sure, would Joanne Freeman, a prominent historian of political culture at Yale, have predicted on the morning of January 6th, 2021 that by the end of the day it would be appropriate to write a modern epilogue to her most recent book-project, a study of violence in the halls of Congress before the Civil War. These types of examples are only some the most direct and obvious ways in which the study of history has become valuable. Looking beyond them, however, one is left with the fact that the discipline as a whole informs our sense of self. We must continue to study all kinds of history because the study of history is essential to the human experience. This blog is the James Blair Historical Review’s answer to the challenges, opportunities, and calls to action generated by recent events. It is our hope that the format of this blog will allow authors to move beyond the constraints of the traditional long form research essay to explore topics of historical interest in a variety of ways, whether through process pieces on what it means to study history, reviews of historical content, or short form narratives and analyses that expand our understanding of the past. As (aspiring) historians, we feel that the best way to contribute to the present is through enriching our understandings of the past. It is our hope that you, the reader, will find the content we publish to be both informative and entertaining. We look forward to beginning this new journey with you. We are all witnesses to the times we live in. And so, let us move forward, together, into a new period of reflection, learning, and understanding, not only of where we are today, but more importantly, of how we arrived at this moment in the first place.
0 Comments
|
Archives
April 2024
Above: "Bookstore (Taliaferro Hall) - Interior," 1994-06, Special Collections: University Archives Photo Collection.
|