The Future of the Past: Academic and Popular History in the Age of the Internet: The Practice of History

2 i a. y. S 2 71Z^ /tore o/7/œ Past:Academic and PopularHistory in theAge oftheInternet THE PRACTICE OF HISTORY by Marshall Pee ears ago Carl Beckerpublished an unjustly neglected essay in which he explored theplace ofhistory— what he called the "memory ofthings said and done"—in human life and thought. Becker explained that the work ofprofessional historians is but an extension and refinement ofthe retrospective investigations all people undertake, and must undertake, in the course of their daily routines. Becker's point was that history has an essential and ineradicable utility such that everyone must, in Becker's striking phrase, be "his own historian." YetBecker was notsuggesting that anyoneshould orcould be a professional historian. He recognized, and most contemporary historians accept, that the practices ofacademic history in fact exclude amateurs from doing much more than reading professional history. Indeed, thegap between academic and amateur historical consciousness hasperhaps never been wider than it is today. Veryfew laymen have the patience to read narrow history monographs. The idea of investigating history through the examination ofprimary sources isforeign to all but professionals. And, ifsome amateur historians do conduct research, they willfind it difficult to publish. Yet all that is changing. The advent of the Internet is calling into question the division between professional and amateur history. Today amateur historians are learning, researching, and even publishing history on the Internet, challenging the professional historian's monopoly on what might Ixcalled the "means ot history." namely, historical training, the research library and archive, and the press. The possibility that, via the Internet, masses of amateurs might become involved in the production and consumption of history raises issues about the place of history in a republic, the future of disciplinary boundaries, and the potential for a truly popular historical discourse. The Breach Between Academic and Amateur History Prior DO the French Revolution, history was a literary genre or ancillary science rather than a distinct discipline taught at universines . practiced by historians, and published in special authorized venues. I here were virtually no professorships in history during the Renaissance or Enlightenment, although history was taught in universities before our age. But history was most certainly not a discipline in its own right, primarily because it had not gamed an independent place in the medieval curricula and was more an auxiliary to more established disciplines. Special chairs were created in legal and ecclesiastical history, but these professorships were designed to provide useful background for lawyers and clerics. not for the study ot history pure and simple. It was not until the nineteenth century, then, that professional history emerged. a result ot both intellectual and political trends. Main ot those who practiced history began to believe that u was. like the evolving Subdivisions of the natural sciences. a discipline m us own right. The experience of several centuries of sloppy antiquarian scholarship demonstrated thai the task required carefully cultivated skills, highly developed documentary resources, and even S[X-CLiI forms of scholarly communication. The ideas of university training in history, research archives and libraries, and the historical monograph and journal were born. Meanwhile, the upheavals of the French Revolution had ushered in a new age in Kuropean politics, one dominated by the twin forces of nationalism and liberalism. The Revolution had changed the basis of political legitimacy: where kings had once ruled by the grace of God, now "nations" ruled bv historical right, and a national history could play a vital role. The state began to subsidize history in earnest: professorships dedicated to the national past were founded: national archives and research libraries were reorganized for historians; and academic journals and university publishers were funded. Ii is ironic that this publicly funded plan to raise aitional historical consciousness has had rather the opposite effect. In the nineteenth century there was an easy and organic connection between most of what professional historians wrote and what their publics wanted to read. There is no cause to wax nostalgic tor a time in which every schoolboy knew about his country's past and even marginally educated people read the same popular history books. No such time ever existed. Nonetheless, there is no doubt that the bond that once united university...