In practice this usually turns into affirmative action for ideas, where marginal scholarship is promoted for no reason other than the color of the author. Is it too much to simply ask that ideas stand on their own and be judged on their own merits, divorced from the identity of the author? I do not think humanity will be better off going down this path. It seems like in a lot of cases just a cynical way to needlessly inject politics into some arena.
History isn't the study of secondary sources. Decolonizing history doesn't mean reading secondary sources written by poc historians. It means considering non cishet white men as primary sources.
Only among people unfamiliar with history. The Mediterranean is among the most famous works of all time and was written from memory while he was in a concentration camp. Historians love him, though his later work on economic history garners mixed opinions. He is the archetype of "famous white historian from the 1st half of the 20th century". His geographic history and macrohistory approach is no longer in vogue but that doesn't destroy the work.
One tweet suggests an alternative for undergrad work (not removing Braudel from the field). One is outright critical (though not incorrect - geographical determinism is a huge part of his work and it merits criticism). Your last tweet is lamenting that people don't know Braudel anymore... which is just whinging. Go look at a qualifying exam booklist for anybody working in a remotely adjacent field. It's there.
So across all of twitter we've got one historian with harsh words. Not exactly evidence that the field is throwing out great scholarship foolishly.
Comments
In practice this usually turns into affirmative action for ideas, where marginal scholarship is promoted for no reason other than the color of the author. Is it too much to simply ask that ideas stand on their own and be judged on their own merits, divorced from the identity of the author? I do not think humanity will be better off going down this path. It seems like in a lot of cases just a cynical way to needlessly inject politics into some arena.
History isn't the study of secondary sources. Decolonizing history doesn't mean reading secondary sources written by poc historians. It means considering non cishet white men as primary sources.
Nobody is kicking Braudel off bookshelves.
Your final sentence is an oddly specific claim, but nonetheless, I must admit I was surprised how uniformly people seem to like Braudel. And yet,
https://twitter.com/aamandascottt/status/1266765438136049667 https://twitter.com/aamandascottt/status/1266768148063236097 https://twitter.com/aamandascottt/status/1257807522712432641 https://twitter.com/HinchyJessica/status/1164796620879220736 https://twitter.com/arjun_jayadev/status/959596380137447424
Only among people unfamiliar with history. The Mediterranean is among the most famous works of all time and was written from memory while he was in a concentration camp. Historians love him, though his later work on economic history garners mixed opinions. He is the archetype of "famous white historian from the 1st half of the 20th century". His geographic history and macrohistory approach is no longer in vogue but that doesn't destroy the work.
One tweet suggests an alternative for undergrad work (not removing Braudel from the field). One is outright critical (though not incorrect - geographical determinism is a huge part of his work and it merits criticism). Your last tweet is lamenting that people don't know Braudel anymore... which is just whinging. Go look at a qualifying exam booklist for anybody working in a remotely adjacent field. It's there.
So across all of twitter we've got one historian with harsh words. Not exactly evidence that the field is throwing out great scholarship foolishly.