Felipe Fernández-Armesto

10 Historically Speaking March/April 2008 Do You Need a License to Practice History? will reach a limited audience. That is not entirely bad. Scholarly studies are often the building blocks of subsequent works of seminal importance. Charles Beard's thinking about the motives of the founders was supposedly influenced by his reading of Charles Ambler's Sectionalism in Virginiafrom 1776 to 1861, a monograph widi a tiny readership. Beard, of course, went on to write An EconomicInterpretation of the Constitution of the UnitedStates, arguably the most influential book written by an American historian in the first half of the 20th century. The endnotes in James McPherson's, Joseph Ellis's, or David Hackett Fischer 's prestigious and widely read histories disclose that they, too, plumbed obscure scholarly books and articles to find important materials. What about scholars writing for a broader readership ? I once had an office mate who told me that he loved conceptualizing and researching a book, but hated putting words on paper. Writing was not just anticlimactic, he said, but a nasty hurdle to be dispensed with as quickly as possible. His outlook may be shared by many scholars. Good writing requires hard work, but with time, considerable thought, and an artist's passion for producing somediing exquisite and captivating, scholars can write books that glow with illuminating ideas set forth in an engaging manner. Some professional historians have succeeded in doing just that. Recently in my field Stephen Taaffe (The Philadelphia Campaign, 1777-1778), Edward Lengel (General George Washington), and Walter Edgar (Partisans and Redcoats) have authored wide-ranging histories filled with nuances, and their books have appealed to botii general readers and scholars. Remarkably , Lawrence Babits, InA Devilof a Whipping, accomplished the feat in his notable study of the Batde of Cowpens, a pivotal Revolutionary War engagement that lasted barely twenty minutes. Professional historians generally spend considerable time teaching, and most are passionately committed to their students. Why not be equally fervent about reaching the general public with what they write? After all, what are books but an alternate form of teaching? With a bit of luck and industry, the book might find as many readers as will enter the professor's classroom during several years. With more luck, and abundant hard work in crafting the manuscript's literary qualities, the book might even attain more readers tiian the author would teach in several lifetimes. In the wake of McCullough's astounding commercial success, it sometimes seems that everyone in search of the elusive pot of gold is writing popular history. Bookstores are filled witii biographies and histories of America's founding, die Civil War, and the 20th-century written by nonacademics. This lends a sense of urgency to the matter. If professional historians do not make an effort to write for a broad readership, those fields, and doubdess otiiers , too, will be forfeited to the popular writers of history, some of whom do not write good history, and virtually all of whom—like Shirer in my youth—fail to provide the perspective that often only a scholar can offer. John Ferling is the author of several books on the era of the American Revolution, most recently Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence (Oxford University Press, 2007). Felipe Fernández-Armesto Plumbers welcome. History is the people's discipline. Anyone who can read and think can do it. There is no need for specialist training. There are many wonderful reasons for being a history student . But to be a historian is not one of them. Some of my favorite historians are scientists, lawyers, and nuns. Anyone can be a historian because , in a way, everyone is a historian . Everyone's life is entirely in the past. The present passes instandy into the past and becomes my subject matter . Everyone has memories, which are always distorted but probably no more so than the work of the most meticulous scholars of remoter pasts. Everyone re-crafts, re-imagines, strives to understand his or her own past. That is just what I try to do for other people's pasts, too. Physicists, neurosurgeons , and bakers are all students of die history of...