anon_vilu said in #1202 1y ago:
Lately I’ve been frustrated by how the recent historical scholarship in a few fields has just been rewarming and repeating the work of much better and more insightful scholars from the mid-20th century. Lots of new books and new articles, but none of the good ideas are new, and none of the new ideas are good. If you know the old stuff then these publications are just inferior copies, not worth the time to read.
But as I think more about this, maybe it’s actually fine. In “Our Knowledge of History Decays Over Time” (https://www.palladiummag.com/2023/03/07/our-knowledge-of-history-decays-over-time/), Mr. Landau-Taylor and Mr. Burja write:
>A glance at the bibliography of any history book will show that scholars overwhelmingly prefer to rely on sources published within their own adult lifetime—most analyses will never be read or cited after the deaths of those who read its initial publication. An especially influential work might be cited by one or two further generations of scholars before fading from the discourse.
>For example, consider Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published in 1776. It is probably the most influential work of history written in English so far, and throughout most of the nineteenth century it was part of the intellectual bedrock of historical analysis. Any educated historian was expected to be familiar with its arguments about how civilizations fall. Today, Gibbon’s masterpiece is of only niche interest.
If today’s historians were taking credit for Gibbon’s ideas and presenting them to the public as new… well, that would be a big improvement over what I see most historians actually doing. If you know the old stuff then these publications are just inferior copies, not worth the time to read. But in fact people don’t know the old stuff.
Repeating the old ideas for a new crowd and keeping it in the discourse seems like a better use of a top-of-the-bell-curve scholar’s career than most alternatives. You don’t have to go all the way back to Gibbon, either, the people I was initially complaining about are keeping alive ideas from like the 1970s.
Anyway, I bring it up here because this kinda reminds me of how bumping an old thread on a forum like this one can serve to bring foundational conversations to the attention of new members. Forums like HN which actively encourage reposts achieve a similar effect. We’re talking about a much much shorter span of time, obviously, but it seems like it rhymes.
But as I think more about this, maybe it’s actually fine. In “Our Knowledge of History Decays Over Time” (https://www.palladiummag.com/2023/03/07/our-knowledge-of-history-decays-over-time/), Mr. Landau-Taylor and Mr. Burja write:
>A glance at the bibliography of any history book will show that scholars overwhelmingly prefer to rely on sources published within their own adult lifetime—most analyses will never be read or cited after the deaths of those who read its initial publication. An especially influential work might be cited by one or two further generations of scholars before fading from the discourse.
>For example, consider Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published in 1776. It is probably the most influential work of history written in English so far, and throughout most of the nineteenth century it was part of the intellectual bedrock of historical analysis. Any educated historian was expected to be familiar with its arguments about how civilizations fall. Today, Gibbon’s masterpiece is of only niche interest.
If today’s historians were taking credit for Gibbon’s ideas and presenting them to the public as new… well, that would be a big improvement over what I see most historians actually doing. If you know the old stuff then these publications are just inferior copies, not worth the time to read. But in fact people don’t know the old stuff.
Repeating the old ideas for a new crowd and keeping it in the discourse seems like a better use of a top-of-the-bell-curve scholar’s career than most alternatives. You don’t have to go all the way back to Gibbon, either, the people I was initially complaining about are keeping alive ideas from like the 1970s.
Anyway, I bring it up here because this kinda reminds me of how bumping an old thread on a forum like this one can serve to bring foundational conversations to the attention of new members. Forums like HN which actively encourage reposts achieve a similar effect. We’re talking about a much much shorter span of time, obviously, but it seems like it rhymes.
Lately I’ve been fru