3 ms·
The Future of History? It's Already Here
- 6stringmerc 11y agoArticles like these typically puzzle me. For all the love of the discipline, there's a constant struggle to contradict the, well, rather bleak job prospects upon achieving a PhD. The subjects interviewed were interesting case studies, but from my perspective, also 'got lucky' in finding a niche. Getting a degree and trying to get lucky in the liberal arts/humanities isn't what I'd advise for young people looking to have a stable, well-compensated, non-transient career. The failure of American universities to support young academics does not, however, mean that history itself is dead. That may be true, but I get the feeling it's "alive" much in the same way that sculpture is still an available major and profession.
- benbreen 11y agoI can't disagree with you about the academic job market (full disclosure: I'm actually one of the people interviewed in the article). But I do think it's useful to draw a distinction between the tough job prospects for professional academic historians and the discipline as a whole. The rise of the internet is fantastic news for the latter and ambiguous at best for the former. I worry sometimes that all of the "humanities in crisis" articles (often written by historians) will become a self-fulfilling prophecy and drive down interest in history itself, whereas they're typically not so much reflections on the field as they are inside-baseball reports about yearly job statistics. History, taken broadly as a domain of knowledge that includes both academics and non-professionals, is actually in a golden age right now, in my opinion. Our stock in trade is primary sources, and this is the best time in history to be able to access them. I'm excited to see what historians in, say, 2040, will be able to do with the incredible wealth of new historical sources being created every second in the present.