Becoming Historians
Becoming Historians
In this unique collection, the memoirs of eleven historians provide a fascinating portrait of a formative generation of scholars. Born around the time of World War II, these influential historians came of age just before the upheavals of the 1960s and ’70s and helped to transform both their discipline and the broader world of American higher education. The self-inventions they thoughtfully chronicle led, in many cases, to the invention of new fields—including women’s and gender history, social history, and public history—that cleared paths in the academy and made the study of the past more capacious and broadly relevant. In these stories—skillfully compiled and introduced by James Banner and John Gillis—aspiring historians will find inspiration and guidance, experienced scholars will see reflections of their own dilemmas and struggles, and all readers will discover a rare account of how today’s seasoned historians embarked on their intellectual journeys.
290 pages | 6 x 9 | © 2009
Education: Higher Education
History: American History, European History, History of Ideas
Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction
James M. Banner, Jr., and John R. Gillis
Chapter 1
Toward Ethnographic History: Figures in the Landscape, Action in the Texts
Rhys Isaac
Chapter 2
Finding Critical History
Joan Wallach Scott
Chapter 3
The Long Way from Euterpe to Clio
Dwight T. Pitcaithley
Chapter 4
History Constructs a Historian
Linda Gordon
Chapter 5
Church People and Others
David A. Hollinger
Chapter 6
Choices
Maureen Murphy Nutting
Chapter 7
Detours
John R Gillis
Chapter 8
A Caribbean Quest for the Muse of History
Franklin W. Knight
Chapter 9
My Way
Temma Kaplan
Chapter 10
Becoming a Gay Historian
Paul Robinson
Chapter 11
Historian, Improvised
James M. Banner, Jr.
List of Contributors