This week’s readings took a bit of a departure from what we discussed the previous week. The three selections each had their own feel and disparate focal points. The main reading for the week was Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of history in American Life, which was co-authored by David Thelen and Roy Rosenzweig. Thelen and Rosenzweig presented us with a work which was to give us insight to the ways in which everyday people use and/or create history within their daily lives. Thelen and Rosenzweig used data compiled from a survey they created with the assistance of other historians.
After a while, I felt this book to be repetitive in the manner they chose to present their information. I mean there are a number of charts which provide us with the quantitative data that reinforces the qualitative analysis they discuss during the body of the book. I became frustrated in what I saw as the overuse of respondent quotes. I believe they overused the quotes to hammer home the point but I think it just trivialized their potential impact.
I truly think this book has great value and it forces us to think about some very important questions and ideas as public historians. Historians would be arrogant to believe they have sole ownership in the creating of what history is. Thelen and Rosenzweig present a picture in which history is an important part of peoples’ everyday lives. The ways in which people interpret, create and process history fluctuates and history can have a variety of different meanings.
I think this book left me with more questions than answers but that’s where I see its strength. We need to see history as something more than just within the academy, and if we are to see history in such a way, we must meet the public where they are. Thelen and Rosenzweig provide tools to begin this type of understanding.
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