August 31, 2007
Where are the military historians?
David French offers this observation about the ignorance in academia about all things martial:
It is fascinating to me that the shrinking pool of true military historians has corresponded almost exactly with the rise of an almost-total academic consensus on military matters. As academic ignorance has increased, so has the academy’s sense of certainty on military matters.
Sadly, students don’t realize that the English or sociology or even history professor who is sneering about “Bush’s war” knows virtually nothing about the facts on the ground, knows nothing about counterinsurgency, and knows nothing about the history of the region other than what they can read in the Nation or in the latest Chomsky tome.
With history departments overrun with critical race and gender theorists, the opinion of groups like “Historians Against the War” becomes no more relevant or informative than the opinions of a (hypothetical) competing group called “Mary Kay Beauty Consultants Against al Qaeda”. After all, what can experts in “Medieval sexuality” or the “oppressed pregnant body” teach us about Fallujah or Anbar?
I posted previously about Victor Davis Hanson's essay on the lack of military historians in academia here.
Posted by Mike Lief at August 31, 2007 08:25 PM
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