Thoughts on Nicholas Kristof and Professors

@NickKristof

On my long list of life goals is to "bridge the gap between the armchair and academic historians." I haven't pursued this goal as ardently as perhaps I might, but I hope that my two blogs and public speaking engagements go a small way across the bridge. So, it was with great interest that I read Nicholas Kristof's recent op-ed "Professors, We Need You!" published in the New York Times on 15 February 2014.

In this piece, Kristof calls for greater public engagement on the part of academics, particularly those in political science. He decries the lack of activity of academics in social media and laments the "turgid prose" of their journal articles. The reason for this inactivity, he argues, is the publish or perish system. Being popular and understandable is death to promotion.

One of the fields which is an exception, according to Kristof, is history. Since this is my field, I agree. There are excellent writers among the followers of Clio (of course, there are others that just aren't). In my experience, however, those that are most successful address issues that the public is already interested in, namely topics like Civil Rights, Presidents, the American Revolution and World War II. Additionally, their research topics have or lend themselves to a strong narrative say a famous individual or significant battle. Historians that write elegant and engaging accounts of lesser known topics, Tang Dynasty China for example, may find that their books languish on the shelves unread.

Visit Nick Kristoff's Twitter and Facebook pages to find rejoinders, ripostes, and replies to his column. To find historians on Twitter search for #twitterstorians or visit Historians Who Tweet from History News Network or Historians on Twitter from Active History. Also visit the National History Center whose aim is to make history an essential component of public discussions of current events.

In the meantime, remember that "historians are great." Nick Kristof said so and he's a smart man.

On the Move in Sweden

twitter.com/HistoricalPics

I remember my grandmother, Karin Nordstrom Hood, telling me a story about Sweden. They used to drive on the left like the British but felt they should join the majority of the world that drove on the right, so they decided to change. My grandma said that the change took three days: on the first day nobody drove, on the second only government vehicles and then on the third day everybody drove. While, I never thought my grandma made this story up (she had been to Sweden after all), it always seemed like such a fantastic story to me, totally unbelievable.

Then today, I saw the tweet pictured above. My grandmother's story, confirmed, totally out of the blue. Although, perhaps the switch did not happen as seamlessly as her story led me to believe.

My mother remembered that this change was reported in the papers, so it must have been a big deal. Since my grandmother had close connections with Sweden, she would have remembered this more than other "big deal" stories of 1967. I just love Twitter, don't you?

Sweden Tweets

Twitter is a great repository of news, gossip and fun. Recently, it has become a source of information about Sweden. VisitSweden and the Swedish Institute have teamed up to create Curators of Sweden. Each week a different Swedish citizen takes over the @Sweden Twitter account. You can read more about the project here and visit an archive of previous curators here. 

I think it's a really neat promotion. Of course, I already wanted to visit Sweden, so my opinion might not count for much with VisitSweden. So far each of the Swedish curators has enjoyed the experience at there end as well. You don't need to be on Twitter to follow the account, you can visit the @Sweden page or the Curators of Sweden page for the most recent tweets.