Stereophonic History (Well, That’s Two Ways To Look At It)

The Society for Historians of the Early American Republic has a decidedly different take on American history than the popular historians. “Whereas popular historians like David McCullough and Richard Brookhiser turn out bios of the old white guys who stare back at us from our money, SHEAR members present papers with titles such as “Self-Help and Self-Determination: Philadelphia’s African American Community and the Abolitionist Challenge”, and “Hawking Hallowed Ground: Utopianism and its Discontents in Philadelphia’s Rural Cemeteries”. Is this a happy form of stereo – on one side, the founders, founders and more founders mantra of the media; on the other, the from-the-bottom-up social history of professional scholars? Or is it sheer dysfunctionality in the field of early American history?”