Let's say you're a history blogger who has written 10 essays on modern US history post-civil war, and 10 on post-Mao China...
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But you've lived 20 years in the US and have known 1000 Americans descended from the period you've blogged, vs 1 wk in China and 3 people
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To my knowledge that's an inaccurate, straw man-esque version of how academic history gets done. , care to comment?
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I'm talking more about non-academic 'big' history of the sort that shapes politics.
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academic history seems mostly narrow and circumscribed to stay away from political action
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Professional historians root themselves in documents/archives. It's rare to be in immediate contact with one's protagonists
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Sure. But if a professional historian was looking at late 20th century China, they'd do more than 1wk in country 3 people
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but somebody trying to rile up the twitter mobs on breitbart otoh... the less ground data the better
True, but let's please not call those folks "historians" just because they claim to write about the past
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nature abhors a pop-big-history vacuum I'm afraid. Where angels fear to tread, fools create the future... 😈😈
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