Creating this because I realized I was writing an eight-paragraph reply to the MOC, and wanted the BBQ-lovers and Florida-defenders to have their thread as is right and proper.

Anyway, onward with the Civil War discussion:

--

This is fun! MOC, when I get back to the ATL I'll have to set up a Civil-War-discussing party, and invite you, The Smoker, and my dad (who owns the copy of Arguing Against Slavery I referenced earlier, as well as about 50 other books on the Civil War).

Anyway, it gets into the parsing of "root cause." Was slavery the root cause and states' rights the method of discussion, or was states' rights the root cause and slavery simply the issue that happened to bring the root cause front and center? I'd say the former, and so, if I read your last post right, would you.

And I think your answer about South Carolina is spot on, especially taking into consideration the Denmark Vesey uprising (which was, what, 1820? Let me check -- ooh, I'm good: 1822). And obviously conditions were different for slaves in different places. A candidate for the African-American history position while I was at Swarthmore (yep, we've only got the one) gave an interesting talk about miscegenation laws in pre-Civil War North Carolina: basically, the idea of a white woman and a black man getting together in the area she'd studied was much more threatening after the Civil War than before it. But that's even more off-topic than the rest of this post.

The slavery explanation, though, doesn't answer the question of what the "Southern way of life" was and why non-slave-owning men would be willing to die to protect it. My ancestors were kickin' it Emmie Slattery style in the 1860s, but I don't doubt they fought for the Confederacy, without an economic incentive to do so. If "Southernness," at bottom, meant the ability to own slaves, was a non-slave owner not considered "Southern"? Or even, "white"?

Now, clearly that was not the case (unlike in, say, Haiti, where there was at least the possibility of groups dividing along class, not racial, lines: "small whites" and slaves vs. "big whites" and property-owning mulattos). So how did that come about? It's easier to define what constituted "Southernness" now, but in 1860?

Sadly, my BA is not in American history. (So if anyone has any questions about 20th-century Chinese history . . . )

-- Anonymous, December 11, 2001

Answers

Wow, a lot was in there.

First, although I had to learn a lot about it, the Civil War is really not my thing. I'm really more interested in colonial America. But the slavery issue intrigues me because a professor I had in grad school emphatically proclaimed that it is impossible to understand any major historical development or theme in American history without taking into account the impact of slavery upon it. When you think about it, so much of American history was driven by slavery or the legacy of slavery. In one way, if you had to sum up one major theme of American history, or one constant in American history, it would be the struggle of the races.

Second, secession was driven by politicians, who were mainly slave owners. It would be hard to argue that would have seceded if any other issue was at stake. These were men who were land/slave rich but cash poor. Their fortunes depended on the yearly argricultural cycle proceeding without interruption, which they knew a war would create. They only thing worse than a brief interruption of a few years for a war would be the total destruction of their whole economic structure by abolishing the slave base of labor. So, slavery is the core issue. Take it out of the equation and events wouldn't have progressed as they did.

Third, the trickier issue, as WG pointed out, was why, if so few whites owned slaves, did so many whites flock to the Confederate cause? There is a very interesting book by Jack Greene called "Pursuits of Happiness" that sets up the concept that from the moment of colonization(Jamestown in 1607 and Plymouth in 1620) that two different complete American mindsets/modes of cultural development have existed, a Southern one and a Northern one. I believe this is why so many non-slaveowners fought. It wasn't necessarily to defend slavery as to defend their way of life, their culture, against the Northern one.

Fourth, I really like Chinese history. I took a course in Modern China which was fantastic. I did a seminar paper of the Taiping Rebellion that focused on the religious vs. ethnic origins of the rebellion. Sadly, the course ended at the 1920s, so I really don't know much about 20th Century China.

-- Anonymous, December 11, 2001

Where did you get your MA? Did you study the South much? I get the impression that colonial history is very Northern-centered (i.e., Philadelphia and Boston) and outside Virginia, the southern colonies don't get that much attention. (Similarly, Nathanael Greene is the most underrated general of the American Revolution, because he did all his fighting in North and South Carolina.) Which may help explain some of the gaps in my knowledge of pre-1860 American South. It didn't help that Swarthmore's main colonial history prof retired just before I started school, and died soon after, and was replaced with a Latin American expert.

There's a new book out, I think just titled The Colonies; I snagged it from the RCW remainder pile, which was a good idea, and gave it to my dad, which was a bad idea, because I only got to read about three pages in the middle on South Carolina. Okay, it's actually American Colonies, and it's here on Amazon.

By the way, 1920 is a good place to stop, if you're doing Chinese history; the rest is warlordism, which is mostly confusing (one of my most panicky moments during Honors finals occurred when I realized I had to answer an exam question on warlordism), and then the PRC, which is mostly depressing.

-- Anonymous, December 11, 2001

And now that I think of it, have you been paying any attention to the Emory prof who wrote the book on American gun culture and is now being accused of playing fast and loose with his data?

-- Anonymous, December 11, 2001

Colonial American history was focused on the New England region for a long time, mainly because that is the region where "America" was born, at least intellectually, but also because most of the preeminent colonial historians were products of the Ivy League, and if there is a truism to studying American History,it is that you try and study something where the primary research materials are in your back yard.

The definition of colonial American history has been expanding over the past three decades or so to include the southern colonies and the West. Basically, the definition of colonial has lost some its political connotations and become more of a cultural/geographical term.

I received my MA at the University of Texas at San Antonio. I didn't get to spend much time on colonial history there, since the majority of the colonial focus was on the Borderlands, which didn't excite me too much. But I did get to explore my other historical interests, the history of the family and the interaction of academic and popular history, particularly the debate involving the role of the historical fiction film in the classroom and in popular culture. I actually did my comps on family history and political history.

I haven't read the book about the gun culture, but I did read a review of it in The Journal of American History. The reviewer liked it quite a bit. I haven't heard any of the debate involving the data he used, so I would aprreciate it if you have any links to that stuff to send it on, but I would be inclined to take the word of a trained historian in that area over most other people, especially if the criticism is coming from the gun lobby.

-- Anonymous, December 11, 2001

I hope you're an NYT member: Here's their story on the gun book.

I think about doing grad school in history off and on. Mainly because about the time I was writing my senior thesis, there were a whole lot of books popping up on "Shanghai studies" (Policing Shanghai; the really long book on prostitution in Shanghai whose title I've forgotten, but it's Dangerous Something -- Dangerous Pleasures, maybe; Beyond the Neon Lights, which was actually by a Tech prof), which was basically where my thesis fit. And it was really fascinating to be focusing on the city history, especially when the city in question figured so prominently in 19th- and early 20th-century Chinese history, and prior to the 1990s hadn't really received a lot of attention in and of itself. So I think about trying to get back there every so often.

Then I remember: 1) Job market. 2) I don't speak or read Chinese. (Which was one advantage of doing a senior thesis on Shanghai -- plenty of English-language materials.)

-- Anonymous, December 11, 2001

That article certainly is disturbing. It appears this guy has some serious issues to face professionally. This issue seems to come up very ten years or so, where some historian gets blasted for poor research. He certainly seems guilty of bad record-keeping, at least.

I would strongly recommend against graduate study right now. Grad schools are taking about 50% less applicants then they were 10 years ago. And while new hires seem to be on the rise, still less than 50% of new Ph.D.s are hired into tenure track positions right out of grad school( but that is profession wide, not necessarily in your field) You do have two things working in your favor. You are female and you want to study a field which is pretty hot right now. But who nows if it will be hot 5-7 years from now, which is how long it will take you to finish the Ph.D.

And you need to get a PhD since there are very few decent paying jobs for historians with only an MA and even most decent community colleges are now requiring a PhD for their new full time hires.

Do I sound bitter?

-- Anonymous, December 11, 2001

You do have two things working in your favor. You are female and you want to study a field which is pretty hot right now. But who nows if it will be hot 5-7 years from now, which is how long it will take you to finish the Ph.D.

Yeah, that's pretty much my logic; also that I dislike the idea of putting in 5-7 years of training and ending up qualified for fewer positions than I would be before the training. My professor at Swat told me that a wave of "China hands" are going to be retiring over the next ten years or so (and she's in her 50s, so I figure she knows what she's talking about) but still.

What I actually was seriously considering (prior to getting the RCW job) was Berkeley's double M.A. program in Asian Studies and journalism. But since then I've soured on the idea of a J-school degree as well. And now I'm not really in a position to move to California.

Anyway: history and movies: yay! In my first history class at Swat (a team-taught hodgepodge which has since been discontinued) one of our units was to watch The Searchers while discussing "captivity narratives" of colonial New England. Great fun.

-- Anonymous, December 11, 2001

You want to know what's sad? I didn't take any history classes at school beyond the one required. (I chose History of Western Civ, which I took in summer school.) Oh, and also the History of Miami. I could tell you ANYthing about Miami U.

-- Anonymous, December 11, 2001

Which means you took as many history classes as I did sociology, biology, and English combined. (That would be 0, 0, and 1.)

(I'm a writer. In high school English was my favorite subject. Swat's English department is one of the three most popular departments. I took one English class, and dropped a second. Because I suck? Or because the then-chair had no interest in, and no business, teaching a freshman introductory class?)

-- Anonymous, December 11, 2001

I used to make fun of my friend Jen - she was an International Relations/History double major. "Ha! You're nuts!" I taunted her, I did. Then I realized that by the time I graduated, I would have enough credits to be an IR/History/PoliSci triple major, except that I hadn't taken any of the History or PoliSci senior seminars, so I was stuck with my IR major/English minor.

-- Anonymous, December 11, 2001

When I was applying to PhD programs a lot of people I knew who had PhDs seriously questioned what I was doing, including professors, mainly for the reasons stated above. Although I was upset I didn't get into any programs, I was fairly relieved as well since I had soured on the academic world by then and didn't have to deal with making a decision about going or not.

What had soured me on academia, besides some personal experiences, was what I discovered when I was writing my major seminar paper on film and history. I was a bit disgusted to find that professional historians were very jealous of their territory. They didn't seem to like other people, i.e. film directors like Oliver Stone, providing an alternate interpretation of history.

I always viewed the role of the historian as a kind of keeper of a culture's historic memory and I didn't like that they wanted, in large part, no one else to be involved in that process.

But all that aside, I really enjoyed immersing myself in the world of film and history. One of my favorite historical films is Matewan, which deals with the violence surrounding the efforts to unionize the coal mines of West Virginia in the 1920s.

Anyone else have some favorite historical films?

-- Anonymous, December 11, 2001

Speaking of Oliver Stone, I enjoy the film JFK, not for its historical truthfulness, which I am told is suspect, but for its writing. I like all the dialogue.

If the MOC is going to be explaining things, I'd like to get this explained: The Spanish/ American War. Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?

Anybody?

-- Anonymous, December 11, 2001

Oliver Stone is a major target of historians. Most of them really hate his interpretation of history. While he really does screw with history and is kind of cocky when answering his detractors, I do have to give him his props for actually participating in a panel at a history convention. The man has got brass.

So....The Spanish American War. I actually had to go back to the textbooks on this one just to check my facts. The war was a very insignificant one but had far reaching implications. It is remembered today mostly for two things. The war cry "Remember the Maine" and Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders famous charge up San Juan Hill.

First, a little context. By the 1890s, America was experiencing great prosperity. The country had finally emerged from the horrors of the Civil War, Reconstruction, and an economic crisis in the 1870s. America was booming in the 1890s (the Gay 90s), but problems loomed. The West had been settled, finishing a process started almost 400 years earlier, and, given America's belief in Manifest Destiny, was looking for a new challenge. So like any good country economically sound, geographically settled, and full of its own sense of destiny, was beginning to look overseas in hopes of creating an empire. And then the Maine was sunk.

There had been a crisis in Cuba and, sparing the details, America was unhappy with how Spain was handling Cuba, which it possessed at the time. In April of 1898, an explosion rocked the American Naval ship The Maine and it sunk to the bottom of Havana Harbor. It has since been proven that the explosion was an accident and not the result of a Spanish mine placed in the harbor, but itching for a cause, mainly led by newspapermen like William Randolph Hearst, the American people demanded a conflict and not willing not buck popular opinion, President McKinley complied.

The actual fighting only lasted three months, with only three days of actual battle, one being the charge up San Juan Hill which, in spite of popular myth, was done largely on foot and not on charging steeds.

The result was Spain's defeat, which then agreed to free Cuba and hand over possession of Puerto Rico, Guam and the Phillipines to the U.S.

So if you had to make a general statement about the Spanish American War, it would be that it was about America's need to start the process of becoming a world power by creating its own empire.

-- Anonymous, December 11, 2001

IIRC, there was a campaign for Filipino independence going on at the time, but I'll have to check with someone who actually has a clue about Filipino history.

As for historical films: hmm. Peking Opera Blues is set in 1920s China, and is on my Best Films Ever list, but the history isn't really the point. To Live is one of the saddest epics I've ever seen: it's essentially the story of one family from 1941 to 1981 (or so) and the trials they undergo as China becomes the PRC. It's not wholly anti-PRC, but it was balanced enough to get Zhang Yimou into lots of trouble.

Let me think . . . Men Who Tread The Tiger's Tail, which was Kurosawa's first film, is based on real events, and I don't really remember it because I fell asleep; I think I'd appreciate it more now (that I'm not a sleep-deprived college student). The Once Upon a Time in China series is based on a real-life martial-arts expert, and the first two films (the only ones I've seen) have all sorts of fun discussing China's relationship to imperialism and nativism, but again, accuracy is not a goal.

Campiest historical film ever: Queen Margot.

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2001

I love Queen Margot! Not so much as a historical film but as a great little period piece that is so cheesy because it takes itself so seriously.

My list of great historical films would include Black Robe, Matewan, The Madness of King George, Glory, Paths of Glory, Birth of a Nation, Breaker Morant, and All Quiet on the Western Front, just to name a few.

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2001

My father and I went to see Queen Margot in the theater (in NYC, I think). During the scene where Isabelle Adjani (as the just-crowned Queen of France) and Vincent Perez get it on, wearing masks and full 16th-century costumes, in a back alleyway, I started laughing. Very. Hard.

My father has not taken me to a French-language movie since.

-- Anonymous, December 12, 2001

On this day in 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright went on the first successful manpowered airplane flights, near Kitty Hawk, N.C.

What else happened today in history? Am I the only one who likes this game?

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

Not a lot has seemed to happen on this date.

After searching my history fact-ridden brain and checking some super secret history sources, I've come to the conclusion that nothing that earth shattering happened today. Except the Kitty Hawk thing, of course.

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

Yeah, let's not downplay the First Flight.

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

So did FDR have knowledge that the Japanese were going to bomb Pearl Harbor or not?

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

Oh, good question!!!!

There is a lot of debate on this issue. It has never really been proven that FDR had specific knowledge about the Pearl Harbor attack (this is not my specialty, so there may be new info I don't know about.)

The people who argue that he knew about it are the most vocal. There is quite a bit of circumstantial evidence to support the idea that FDR knew.

First, they argue he wanted to get into the war. England was close to surrendering when Pearl Harbor occurred. Churchill desperately wanted America to get into the war and FDR agreed but he felt that he couldn't sell the idea of sending US troops to die in another European war without a good reason. He was waiting for a direct reason to declare war. Pearl Harbor provided that reason.

Second, FDR wanted to jump start the economy. The New Deal was grinding to an inglorious halt by 1939. FDR wanted a reason to give industry a kick start and mobilizing for a war would be just the ticket. (Which proved true.)

But the problem is that there is no smoking gun. There doesn't exist any hard evidence, such as a memo delivered to the president stating the Japanese would attack on Dec 7th, that confirms the allegations. It will most likely remain an interesting debate that will never be solved.

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

I wrote a journal entry on this question a while ago. My basic feeling on this issue is that no commander-in-chief would be so stupid as to deliberately abandon his men in order to start a war. I think our surprise at Pearl Harbor was more a question of bureaucratic confusion and unpreparedness (since nothing like Pearl Harbor had ever happened before) than deliberate knowledge in advance.

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

I agree. Maybe it's just becasue I'm an idealist, but I can't imagine any American President throwing that many young men (and women) into the lion's den in that way.

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

Sorry, but that is idealistic.

Politicians have sacrificed innocent lives for purely political reasons quite a bit. The most recent blatant example is Johnson and Vietnam. He knew by 1967/68 that the war was unwinnable. But how many lives were sacrificied from then until the war ended in 1975? For what? To appease the hardliners in Congress who wanted to keep the world safe from the evils of communism.

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

You've got a point; but from the military brass weren't exactly telling Johnson that they had to pull out. Or were they? I haven't read the book based on the Johnson tapes yet.

But for Roosevelt to allow Pearl Harbor to be attacked, he had to ignore the messages from his own brass. That would be a sure-fire way to lead your military commanders to distrust and dislike you, at the start of a major war; and while I know Roosevelt had his disagreements with Eisenhower and MacArthur, I don't think the military as a whole thought he'd deliberately sold them out at Pearl Harbor.

-- Anonymous, December 17, 2001

Gah!

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2002

That is really interesting. Espcially given the fact that Ambose is a professional historian. He has written a lot of 'pop' history books, which is usually death for a academic historian, but Ambrose is still fairly highly respected in the historical profession.

I would like to think that the errors occurred because of sloppy records. Writing a book is a huge undertaking. I have seen notes for history books take up a three drawer filing cabinet. But the errors just seem to be to close to the original.

I would hate to see Ambrose get his reputation smeared because he has done a lot for the history profession.

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2002

I have a suspicion that Ambrose had a little help writing this latest book -- it's damned hard to write a book a year, especially when you have to research it, &c. Which wouldn't be a big deal; historians collaborate all the time.

I do think that Ambrose has gotten a lot of publicity for jumping on (or starting, depending on how you regard it) the "Greatest Generation" bandwagon. The writers producing books on, say, World War I aren't seeing HBO specials out of their work (yet).

You know, we never did get to that "what made Southerners Southern before the Civil War" question. And I'm still wondering.

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2002

The writers producing books on, say, World War I aren't seeing HBO specials out of their work (yet).

Blame that on Hollywood directors and producers, WG, not Stephen Ambrose. "Band of Brothers" was written in 1991 and was not well known until Speilberg and Hanks decided to create it for HBO. And it might never have come to existence onscreen if "Saving Private Ryan" hadn't been so successful in 1998. I don't think Ambrose started the "greatest generation" bandwagon and he definitely didn't jump on it after it was already rolling. He has been churning out good war books for years without the bestselling, face-on-TV-every-night recognition Tom Brokaw has experienced.

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2002

Chris, I think you hit the nail on the head - with the volume of research that he does, mistakes are inevitable: here's the latest.

WG, it wouldn't be surprising at all if he had a little help with his research - he is a professor, after all, and what professor doesn't have graduate assistants lend a hand with the grunt work?

I agree with Chris that Ambrose has done a lot for the history profession. Most folks, for example, wouldn't buy a book on the development of the railroad in the US if it weren't for his name on the cover. I also think that the National D-Day Museum wouldn't be in New Orleans if it weren't for Ambrose being there, as well (the fact that the Higgins boats were manufactured in NO isn't big enough to merit a museum on its own, I think.).

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2002

Aidan clearly knows more about the career of Stephen Ambrose than I do. Still, the man did find the right subject (World War II) and right tone (look at our brave soldiers) at the right time. I went ahead and looked at his website -- five books published in hardcover between October '98 and August '01. That's quite a bit.

Has he done a lot for World War II history, or at least the history of American combat in World War II? Undoubtedly. Has he done a lot for the history profession? That's a harder call. I think there are always going to be historians -- James McPherson and Bruce Catton being two who wrote/write on the Civil War -- who become, for whatever reason, more popular than the average historian working in a narrower field; and generally, the narrower the field, the less likely the historian is to achieve Ambrose-like levels of popularity. (Robert Darnton, for example, is a really good writer and a marvel at getting historical observations out of spicy topics, but I doubt many people on this board have read much of his work.)

(While I was writing my thesis I would joke that if you were an established historian, you could write about the French Revolution. If you were a professor with tenure, you'd write about the French Revolution in, say, Marseilles. If you were a non-tenured prof or a grad student, you'd write about the French Revolution in part of Marseilles in 1782. And undergraduates wrote about the French Revolution on the Rue des Fleurs in downtown Marseilles on Jan. 7, 1782.)

I think what rubs me the wrong way about Ambrose is that he seems -- and I should say seems, but I haven't read his work, and I'll be upfront about that now -- to be using history as a way to advance a particular ideological myth, that of the bravery of the American soldiers of World War II. To take his statement on the D-Day Museum website:

Galvanized by the atrocities and conquests of the totalitarian nations, America sent her best and brightest to the beaches of Normandy, Sicily, Iwo Jima, and many other battlefields oceans away from her shores. The American sailors, soldiers and airmen came not to conquer, but to liberate, not to loot or destroy, but to bring life and freedom.

There's truth in that, and there's also a lot of oversimplification -- America was "galvanized" not by Japan invading Manchuria in 1932 or Hitler eating up Poland in 1939 but by Pearl Harbor; and certainly not every American soldier, etc., went in with his patriotic heart on his clean sleeve. The aim is laudable; I'm just a little wary of the packaging.

But this also has to do with my belief that it's a mistake to discuss the American government's actions in moral terms; and that would lead us way the hell off topic.

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2002

But here's what I'm not getting: even if the error was due to poor notes/record keeping, it's STILL plagiarism, right? I mean, he still used words that were not his own verbatim.

Or is he saying that it's poor record keeping because he didn't footnote properly? I don't buy that either.

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2002

WG, you seem to be saying that Ambrose is an opportunist who writes about WWII because it suddenly came into vogue with Saving Private Ryan et al. and was a subject sure to sell a lot of books. I so don't know a lot about his career or even his writing or research methods, but I question the original publication dates of some of his work (I can't find them because I don't own all the books and Amazon doesn't show it). In my opinion, the publishing companies shoulder more responsibility for the recent "flood" of his WWII writing than he does. They are out for a buck, perhaps moreso than he is. Not that he doesn't make a buck, but why, if that's his intention, churn out that railroad book in the middle of it?

As for his statement on the D-Day Museum web site: I think you're nitpicking a sentence that in spirit is essentially true. And I don't know what you think he's supposed to write in tribute to an event in which thousands of American soldiers lost their lives. Certainly it's not the forum to talk about some of the things he DOES discuss in his books -- that the vast majority of citizen soldiers were miserable in the army, that looting was the favorite pastime of many of them, that there were drunken brawls every night within and between platoons during training. If you had read his books you would know he concentrates on the bravery and sacrifices of MEN, normal everyday men, not the power and the glory and morality of the almighty American Military.

As for if he plaigiarized -- I wouldn't say no.

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2002

WG, I could not disagree more strongly. Don't hate the man because he's popular -- being popular doesn't make you a bad historian, or less valuable to the profession.

I think what rubs me the wrong way about Ambrose is that he seems - - and I should say seems, but I haven't read his work, and I'll be upfront about that now -- to be using history as a way to advance a particular ideological myth, that of the bravery of the American soldiers of World War II.

You know something? I'd argue that every historian does that -- and every literary critic, political scientist and so on. Everyone starts there research with their own biases and ideals, and sees events through those eyes. It's tough to truly be impartial. What matters is whether a historian skews the facts to fit those purposes, and I'd argue that Ambrose does not.

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2002

First, I have to say how entirely happy I am that we get to discuss these things.

Second, the plagiarism issue is sticky. He obviously did plagiarize, the question is whether he intented to. I can see how it is possible to confuse a paraphrase, which simply needs to be generally footnoted, and a direct quote, which needs to be specifically footnoted and quoted. This once again comes down to the volume of material researched and the the possibility of inaccurate record keeping.

I don't think that Ambrose would intentionally plagiarize. He has too much to lose.

As far as the quest for objectivity in historical writing, it is a big issue amongst historians. If you have some time to waste I would recommend "That Noble Dream" by Peter Novick. It is the cornerstone of the debate right now.

Of course the writings of historians are influenced by their own beliefs but the issue is whether they intentionally slant their writings to their viewpoint by leaving out information that doesn't support their viewpoint. I would say that they don't, at least not the good historians. I believe that most historians consider the quest for "truth" to be more important than supporting a particular interpretation.

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2002

I don't think that Ambrose would intentionally plagiarize. He has too much to lose.

Agreed. Which is why the whole thing is so weird. Do you think maybe they were pushing to get it published and he just got sloppy trying to get it together quickly?

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2002

In Ambrose's defense, he did give the Penn prof who originally wrote those paragraphs a footnote. Which sounds trivial, but if that footnote hadn't been there, the plagiarism charges would be much more serious. I still think that Ambrose was not the sole author of the work, and that someone helping him screwed up, but I don't have any evidence for that.

Aidan is right to wipe the floor with me when I haven't read his work. Maybe the analogy I should make is to Oprah's Book Club books. People see the Oprah sticker on a book and assume it's about Abused Woman Learns to Feel Good About Herself; similarly, I see a Stephen Ambrose name on a book and assume it's about Brave Young Men Making the World Safe for the Marshall Plan and the Japanese Constitution (both of which, I should add, were and are good things).

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2002

Maybe the analogy I should make is to Oprah's Book Club books. People see the Oprah sticker on a book and assume it's about Abused Woman Learns to Feel Good About Herself; similarly, I see a Stephen Ambrose name on a book and assume it's about Brave Young Men Making the World Safe for the Marshall Plan and the Japanese Constitution (both of which, I should add, were and are good things).

But the fact that you see Ambrose through that particular filter is not his problem, nor is it his fault. It does not make his books any less valuable to historians or to the public, nor does it make them worse (or better) works of history.

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2002

Suddenly I have become the scourge of Stephen Ambrose fans, which was not my intention. I don't think I ever said he was a worse historian, but perhaps I was being more strident than was meant. I still want to go on record as being wary of the "Greatest Generation" mythmaking, and you can pick whether the fault lies with Tom Hanks, Tom Brokaw, The Majestic, what have you.

But the fact that you see Ambrose through that particular filter is not his problem, nor is it his fault. It does not make his books any less valuable to historians or to the public, nor does it make them worse (or better) works of history.

Well, if he's under that much pressure to get books out quickly, it might have adverse consequences. Obviously someone had to have screwed up somewhere for this plagiarism problem to have come about.

(And Mike, with you having said that, I'd love to get your take on the Jonathan Franzen fracas.)

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2002

While there is a lot sentimentality tied up in WWII, I don't necessarily think it's unwarranted. I'm no historian, and my facts about the war are mostly limited to listening to my dad speak of his fascination with B-52s and the men who flew them and my uncles' stories of paratrooping and submarines. However, I think the Greatest Generation moniker is not unearned. It was an amazing time, and the boys who left for Italy and the South Pacific from towns like Greenfield, Ohio didn't know politics or whether we were really fighting because of Pearl Harbor or the Nazis. All they knew was that they had to go, and so they did. Then they came home, had families, and many of them lived in silence of the things that they saw and they things that they did.

I have no point, I guess. Except to say that something like that can never truly be understood from our generation's vantage point. Up until 3 months ago, what did we know of war? And even now, what do we know of anything?

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2002

If they were called "The Great Generation" or something similar, I wouldn't have a problem with it. I don't care for The Greatest Generation because I think it's presumptuous. The Greatest. Generation. Evah.

Sure I agree with Hannah, those of us of succeeding generations don't really understand the horrors of war. I only have the vaguest memories of the Vietnam War. But the "Greatest?" All throughout history?

How did the "Greatest Generation" moniker get started, anyway? Please tell me it's not a jingoistic American term and applies to our European allies too.

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2002

As I understand it, the term implies that that's the Greatest Generation of Americans -- I don't think it's meant to refer to anyone else in the world. That would be even sillier (I think the Ancient Greeks had a couple of great generations, to say nothing of David and the Israelites).

I don't take it seriously, any more than I take any "greatest" title seriously**. It's just fun to argue.

**Well, except for Ali, who was THE GREATEST!

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2002

Ha HA! I was thinking about Ali as I wrote that.

Well, if you look at it as the greatest generation of Americans and DO NOT include the rest of the world maybe I can deal a little better. There's still the argument that the generations that fought the Civil War were pretty great and how about them Revolutionary dudes? I

think I'll mark up the 'GG' name to marketing. I wonder if the AARP is involved in any way...

So! I've never read any Stephen Ambrose. After I get done with the Lord of the Rings for the nth time, which Ambrose book would the forum recommend?

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2002

I loved his first book on Nixon.

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2002

here's my problem with the whole "Greatest Generation" thing. First, doesn't it seem odd that so many men 'did their American duty' by signing up when we still in the Depression and job prospects were few and far between?

Also, this is the generation that, in part, fought vehemently against Civil Rights, supported if not directly participated in, McCarthyism, helped create the Cold War and started the Vietnam mess.

I just don't buy it.

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2002

Oh WG, you're not a scourge. But I do think you've jumped to conclusions about Ambrose's work and should give it a chance to inform your opinion.

I totally relate to your cynical feelings regarding the exaggerated hero worship of the "Greatest Generation" by Tom Brokaw and others. I have an appetite for all things WWII (my husband bought me a pair of paratrooper jump wings from the 101st for Christmas) and even I had to change the channel when Brokaw was wiping a tear for the vanishing heroes on TV every night (read: using the freakin evening news to sell his book). I'm with Hannah, it's impossible to overappreciate the bravery of these guys, but damn. For awhile there is was getting gross and borderline exploitive. The WWII vets in my family refuse to talk about their experiences. One was a POW in Germany and another lost two brothers in the war -- they don't want to be thanked or worshipped or appreciated. They want to live the rest of their lives without being constantly reminded of that horrible, horrible time.

I agree with Chris, it was a generation that did a great thing for a period of time. They also made mistakes just like any other generation. It is essentially a marketing phrase. But you have to remember, a lot of this marketing coincided with fundraising for the WWII memorial in Washington DC. Not all of it was to sell books or movies or line a corporation's pockets.

Melissa -- reading "Band of Brothers" and watching the miniseries at the same time was an amazing experience. I would recommend that when the show comes out on DVD. So many war books deal with broad overviews of battles and focus on strategy and timelines, and if you hear anything about the soldiers, it's expressed as troops or casualties. I am reading "Brave Men" by Ernie Pyle right now and he has the opposite problem -- he's big on the experiences of individual men (not the least of which is himself) but never gives a sense of the strategic value of their fighting. BoB is good because it offers a nice balance between individual experience and the military operations. I also recommend "Citizen Soldiers."

-- Anonymous, January 08, 2002

Aidan, I don't really have a problem with honoring the men who fought in World War II -- check that, that's way too weak: I think we should honor the men who fought in World War II, because if they hadn't, the world would be a very different place. Where I think things get slippery is when people get sentimental about the war itself, if that makes any sense. And that's what I was afraid Ambrose was doing in on the website (the nitpicking). I think talking about the US government's actions in 1939-41 in moral, rather than political, terms obfuscates the issues going on (populist isolationism led by Father Coughlin, the Depression, the generally passive European reactions to Hitler -- as one famous French magazine article put it, "Why die for Danzig?") and creates confusion about how our government works.

Which makes me, I guess, Kissingerian. And I don't like Kissinger. But anyway, that's why the "Greatest Generation" stuff makes me nervous -- not because the men who fought in WWII weren't capable of real heroism, but because it seems to cast a rosy glow over the entire period and slightly distort answers to the question of why the US fights when it fights and why it doesn't when it doesn't.

(The Atlantic piece that ran a few months ago, detailing the Clinton administration's response to the Rwandan massacres, is really fascinating on this topic.)

Anyway, the reason I'm posting again is to tell you to turn your rhetorical guns onto Josh Marshall, who makes essentially the same argument I was making earlier but is more sloppy about it.

-- Anonymous, January 10, 2002

Did anyone catch the Daily Show last night? They did a segment on the Ambrose scandal, but Jon said basically - what do you care. Like you read either of them.

And I said, Word Jonny S. Word.

-- Anonymous, January 10, 2002

I think Ambrose had a bad research assistant. BAD BAD. Someone might not be graduating anytime soon. That's my two cents.

-- Anonymous, January 10, 2002

In other history news, Danial Goldhagen (Hitler's Willing Executioners) is apparently about to put out something on the Catholic CHurch and the Third Reich (Pius X, anyone?).

Now, I only read excerpts of Goldhagen's book, but I did read all of Ordinary Men, which came out about the same time. They're both fascinating books about the everyday men that were enlisted to fight for the Nazis, and in the process, do horrible, unspeakable things. Goldhagen has had his share of controversy, though - making old Stevie A.'s problems pale in comparison...

Any opinions?

-- Anonymous, January 10, 2002

I've never read "Hitler's Wliing Executioners" but have wanted to for awhile. If I remember rightly, the flack over the book was centered more around two issues. One, that although he presented an interesting and possibly plausible thesis, he never really proved his point and, two, that he didn't treat the subject with enough sensitivity and subtlety.

He certainly got a lot of flack for it, but of a much different kind. A lot of people had problems with his thesis, but at least that is a legitimate issue and from what I can tell, his research was good enough that the flack didn't fatally hurt his reputation.

Ambrose has a much more serious threat, in that he is being accused, (not seriously, though) of being academically dishonest. In a profession that prides itself on its accuracy and dedication to the truth, that is a much more serious charge than simply being controversial.

-- Anonymous, January 10, 2002

So, more is coming about Bellesiles and the gun question.

I wanted to bring it up again because while the arguments seem mostly to be about his data and its sources, they draw attention away from his thesis, which is that the "gun culture" that we know today is mainly a product of the post-Civil War era. Which, given the link between gun ownership, libertarianism, and good-ol'-boy Southern status, would go back (in a roundabout way) to my original question about pre-Civil War Southern identity.

Thoughts? . . .

-- Anonymous, January 30, 2002

The validity of his thesis is completely depended on his research. Having not read the book I don't feel too comfortable discussing it intricately, but......

His thesis seems to be that the "gun culture" didn't develop until after the Civil War. I'm not sure what he means by 'gun culture'. From what I've read about the book, I think he means a culture/group of people who view gun ownership not simply as a means to an end (home security, hunting, etc.) but as a representation of the Constitutional rights. In other words, the gun culture developed when gun owners shifted their view of ownership from "I need this gun to protect my family from Indians and put food on the table" to "I own this gun because it is my right as an American to own one, even though I have no practical use for it."

He supports his thesis by offering records that show that the majority of guns in pre-Civil War America were either antiquated, broken or otherwise out of commission, thus blowing out of the water the the long held notion, staunchly supported by gun enthusiasts (I.e. The NRA) that guns have played a crucual role in the development of America, either as useful tool or as a symbol of American freedom.

But what if the research is wrong? Then there is nothing to support the thesis. A thesis is nothing but un-provable idea if there is no proof to back it up. If his research is sloppy at best, fraudulent at worst, the gun enthusiasts are able to maintain the claim that guns played a crucial role in American History by faulty logic. They will say that since the historian tried to prove that there was no gun culture in America before the Civil War and failed to prove it, the opposite must be true; that there was a gun culture.

Which I think is wrong. I think that his thesis is good and can be proven, but that he went about it in the wrong way. I wouldn't have tried to prove it by counting the guns and the conditons of those guns. If the gun culture is a product of how people view gun ownership in reference to the Constitution, I would have tried to find out how much knowledge people had of the Federal Constitution and how they think it effected their daily lives. Basic legal, social and political history indicate that before the Civil War most people had little knowledge of or cared much about the Federal Government of Federal law. This itself is a strong argument against the idea of a gun culture.

I think the South as a focal point of Constitutional debate leading up to the Civil War clouds the issue. After all, most people would have had little knowledge of the issues surrounding states rights v. federal rights. When you go back and look at soldiers' diaries, very few listed fighting for the constitutional issues of state's rights as a reason for fighting. They fought becuase they were threathened with the destruction of the familiar by the "other".

After the Civil War, however, the Federal Government became a daily prescence in the lives of Southerners, i.e. having Reconstruction forced on them. This fact coupled with the rise of political parties and the industrialization of the North, which made the North rich while the South remained rural and poor, lead to the Southern sense of alienation and beligerance to the North that continues today in some areas of the South.

-- Anonymous, January 30, 2002