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The January 9th edition of Fresh Air features Drew Gilpin Faust talking about her new book, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War.
I got to hear part of this on the way home, and am planning to listen to the whole thing again soon. Very interesting social history subject from the president of Harvard University, where she also holds the Lincoln Professorship in History. She explains how Americans' view of death and the afterlife was radically changed by the experience of the Civil War.
The January 9th edition of Fresh Air features Drew Gilpin Faust talking about her new book, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War.
I got to hear part of this on the way home, and am planning to listen to the whole thing again soon. Very interesting social history subject from the president of Harvard University, where she also holds the Lincoln Professorship in History. She explains how Americans' view of death and the afterlife was radically changed by the experience of the Civil War.
Faust Interview - Another Academic Who Does Not Understand
I had the misfortune of tuning in quite by accident to this interview of terry gross and the president of harvard. if i were to tell you that my face was all in a scowl for almost 35 minutes before i had to shut off the silliness finally, i would not be exaggerating. faust should stick to her presidential duties- you know, raising money for the endowment and such, rather than "researching" and writing such junk as her new "ground breaking" book of hooey.
it was truly astounding to me to hear this respected historian and college president all confused about motivations of civil war soldiers, and how they were so obsessed with this academic analysts-invented false concept of the "good death". my own experience in academic history with silly historians like president faust prompted me to leave the academy entirely. the majority of academic historians simply to do not understand the war. they are totally confused by the mire that the study of American history has become in the university, all confused by social history, economic history, race studies, women's studies, etc.
was i surprised that ms. faust had made the subject almost dull in her interview? nope. was i surprised at the flat dispassionate tone? nope.
why do you suppose that so many students hate history and only re-discover it, if ever, when they are adults? because of the awful way that it is taught in high schools and universities by historians trained in an entirely confused academia. if ever an academic discipline was in trouble, history is the one, and this interview is perfect illustration of it.
i was astounded when ms. faust described a dying soldier surrounding himself with photographs of his family as he lay close to death on some unnamed battlefield. her explanation of the "meaning" of this behavior by the poor soldier almost made me stop the car, open the window, and heave. for ms. faust this was illustrative of the need by "victorian people" to be surrounded by their loved ones so that they could look into their eyes and validate themselves with a brave/good death so that they could be elevated to the next life. such utter hogwash!
folks miss their kin, dying folks miss their kin! if a dying soldier was lucky enough to have photos of his family and had the time left - he would look at them all as his life ebbed away thinking thoughts of them, and missing them and wishing that he could be with them and sure as h*** wishing he wasn't dying!
this over analysis, illustrated so clearly by Faust, by academic historians makes history seem not about people but about concepts (so many of them false and theoretical). this is what academic historians love- so that they can then write books about such concepts and teach these fantasies to their poor yet unreceptive students and most importantly, justify their teaching positions.
the simplicity, pathos, tragedy and loneliness of the soldier's battle death is, for folks like the president of harvard, some kind of fulfillment of religious or sociological need, rather than the human tragedy that is exactly what it is.
over-analysis, mistaken analysis, silliness such as this, and a bizarre over-emphasis on issues other than core matters have made history a battered and declining discipline in the university. of course, recent plagiarism cases and cases of propagandistic teaching by folks in this field have not helped.
this terry gross interview with faust should be de rigeur for all civil war students so that they can see how totally out of touch the supposed "experts" in the academy are from this most important of all events in american history. where the simplest most sublime explanations are the truth the academic historian will invent some confabulation and complexity of hundreds of pages to explain it all. hooey.
Oh gee, Former, and here I had a copy all ready to give you for Robert E. Lee's birthday! Guess I'll have to get my money back.
Do you believe that faulty scholarship extends to Faust's other books as well? Any sources from your own (evidently extensive) research to rebut her conclusions?
Waiting with an open mind and a sack ready to go back to Barnes and Noble,
Oh gee, Former, and here I had a copy all ready to give you for Robert E. Lee's birthday! Guess I'll have to get my money back.
Do you believe that faulty scholarship extends to Faust's other books as well? Any sources from your own (evidently extensive) research to rebut her conclusions?
Waiting with an open mind and a sack ready to go back to Barnes and Noble,
Zou
Hi Zou,
Thanks for asking. With all due respect to Prof/President Faust of Hahvahd, I am not certain that "faulty scholarship" is the best term here. As I have not yet read her book, and only wrote my review of her interview, I don't yet feel qualified to comment on her published work. However, my feeling from listening to her speak so convolutedly on this very straight forward issue made me infuriated, concerned, and utterly bored. Amazing how the top educators in this field can make the most profound and exciting things very dull. I suppose that is trained into the professional historian-be as dull as possible, have a flat affectation so that your audience will be both dulled into zombieness and awestruck at your brilliance. I think this is a case of "mistaken scholarship" rather than faulty. But she is not the only one, so many academic historians are just on the wrong track and overly complicate simple yet profound matters mainly so that they then have something to write about. I think this a reprehensible approach to history and I also think that is why history is an academic "discipline" in decline. When the study of history became a "social science" rather than just plain old history, this may have been the moment when things went so wrong in that field. As the Civil War is so important to me, I want it taught well, I want students to be inspired by the sacrifices and character of the soldiers of both sides. I get annoyed when academics make a muddle of something so important. I will be getting this book and reading it, then I'll post a review on my blog. I appreciate your question and thank you for responding.
Dan, formeryank
Last edited by formerYank : 01-12-2008 at 06:23 PM.
Reason: syntax/grammar edits only
my assertion that Ms. Faust is clueless is proving to be easy to prove. much easier than i thought it would.
her approach in her NPR interview reiterated my feeling that academic historians do not get it, when it comes to the Civil War and so many other subjects.
In a recent article on Ms. Faust gaining the presidency of Harvard, one can find this astounding quote. Make of it what you will:
Quote:
In San Diego that day, Faust, who takes over the presidency of Harvard on July 1, offered her own explanation, and it managed to rub nearly everyone the wrong way. The South lost, she argued, largely because of the part played by rich, white women, the very figures that had been held up as Dixie's staunchest supporters. Their disappointment with the cause, and their subsequent entreaties to their husbands, sons, brothers, and fathers to give up the fight, did as much as anything else to bring on collapse and defeat.
"It may well have been because of its women that the South lost the Civil War," her paper concluded.
This is an utter misunderstanding and oversimplification of the War from an academic a bit confused by gender studies.
Now, there is such a thing as reasonable revisionism, but this is not such a moment. Faust is just "out there".
In fairness to the new president she later semi-recanted, but the damage is done.
Quote:
As McCurry recalls, Faust told her it had been something of a goad (Faust herself admitted as much in the 1997 Humanities interview). As Faust saw it, since the only way to make something really matter in Civil War history is to argue that it explains the Confederate defeat, "she just went ahead with it," McCurry recounts
This is simply more silliness. One does not goad a room full of historians simply to "make something really matter". It already matters, regardless of her approach to it.
Her interview on NPR recently shows that her "recanting" was not quite honest, and that she actually is motivated by these utterly confused, politically motivated concepts of historiography. I'm sure she's a great president of Harvard, but I'm not so sure that she is the great historian that the mainstream and scholarly press is making her out to be. This is not legit scholarship, even for a Harvard president.
The Boston Globe had a positive review of "Republic of Suffering" in today's (Sunday) edition. There was also reviews of Neely's "Limits of Destruction" and an account of the Todd family. Mary, for all her excesses, was apparently on the stable end of the spectrum.
Also, it should be the utterly cool, "Dr. Faust" rather than "Ms Faust."
The January 21th issue of the New Yorker has an extended review of Dr. Faust's book. Besides the reviewer's inappropriate use of WWII imagery(is anything ever made clearer by dragging in Nazis?), it is a generally positive review. He contrasts it with Neely's "Limits of Destruction" Neely argues that the CW wasn't a point of departure for casualities, but in line with the other "musket wars" of the 19th century.
I don't know if the reviewer realized this, but he made Neely sound very implausible. Neely is quoted citing absolute numbers of deaths, without either recognizing time frames or original population sizes. I'm pretty sure that Neely's argumentative is a lot stronger than that.
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Drew Gilpin Faust on NPR's Fresh Air 
Faust Interview - Another Academic Who Does Not Understand 
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