Pop History vs Academic History

This past semester I started my first semester of Master’s work at James Madison University for the Pubic History program.  It has been quite a learning experience.  One of the first things that surprised me was that some of my professors and fellow students did not like what is called Pop history.  Pop history are those history books that you pick up at the local book store that are meant for mass production sale but may or may not be written by a trained historians.  Pop histories have had something of a bad reputation for quite a while for a number of reasons, some are poorly researched, filled with extravagant and unsubstantiated claims, and generally filled with oversimplifications or wrong information. Lauren Wheeler, A public historian, does a great job summarizing what is wrong with pop history in her blog.

 ”Pop history is analogous to pop music – it is light and easy to access and digest but without much substance.  It can also be seen as the tabloids of history in the tendency toward sensationalizing over accuracy and use of outdated or disproven information.  Most pop history is encountered in television programming – the recent series “Viking” is an excellent example – and distorts fact for entertainment value without providing the viewer with a disclaimer.  As a result when the general public watches pop history programs they leave with misconceptions of what happened and unwittingly perpetuate false information and assumptions about the past. “ (http://canenvirorock.com/2013/04/16/public-history-pop-history-academia-and-jobs/)

There are issues with pop history that must be said however, there are good popular histories out there and I for one love a good pop history.  They are usually well written, can be very interesting and be a great resource for someone who would never ordinarily pick up a history book and read.  It is for this reason I like pop histories! Anything that takes history and puts it from the “that was boring in high school” to “that is really interesting! I never knew that before!” category gets my vote.  That being said there are dangers to pop history.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhiCFdWeQfA

One of the dangers of pop histories or any kind of history is that some people tend to read one book and take it all as gospel truth, this can be said of academic histories as well.  If someone picks up an academic history they are also tempted to say “see here is an expert” and decide this is what really happened based solely on one book.  One of my pet peeves is sitting down with someone and having a conversations about history and they tell me exactly how it was based on “this one book” they read.  This is not entirely the average history student or history buff’s fault since historians and tour guides are trained to tell their narrative from a conclusive perspective. 

I believe in absolute truth. I am a Christian, my undergrad in history was done at Liberty University where I was very much trained in a modernist philosophy, that is that what happened in the past actually happened in the past.  However as a historian one has to realize that we don’t have every detail of every fact.  So there is room for what is called interpretation.  One historian will disagree with another historian, doesn’t mean that one historian is absolutely wrong and the other is absolutely right.  It just means that all historians are imperfect.  John Fea, of Messiah Collage, once wrote that “all history is revisionist history” it is true.  All historians have the responsibility to tell the truth of what happened in the past but just as when there are different perspectives in any story the same story can have different interpretations.  I would encourage everyone the next time they read the next best seller, most academic paper in the world, visit a museum or watch their favorite historical movie, to ask what perspective is being displayed and what is their evidence.

(http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/All-Historians-Are-Revisionists-John-Fea-05-18-2011) [1]

 

 [1] Fea, John. Why Study History?. Grand Rapids, MI :Baker Academic Group, 2013.