“Behold, your king comes to you…”

-Matthew 21:5, better known as the perspective of Parson Weems and George Bancroft on the Founders

Yes, it has been a long time since either of us has written, and you have our sincere apologies. We have been suffering from blogger’s block and more urgent historical matters have also captured our attention (like thesis prospectuses and outlines and other papers…..) But I had some thoughts on our studies in Historical Method that I wanted to share.

Historical Method is a class required of all history majors in which we study the history of the art and science of researching and writing history. We have readings from various historical works written throughout history, (fascinating) case studies in United States history that illuminate various points and problems in researching the past, and lectures from all the members of the department on historiography as it relates to their fields of specialization. About a month or so ago, in anticipation of Dr. Miller’s lectures on Early American historiography, we read excerpts from Parson Mason Weem’s Life of Washington and George Bancroft’s History of the United States. They were pretty amusing, to say the least. Parson Weems struck me as part historian, part hagiographer, and part Dr. Spock; his biography, as Dr. Miller explained, served to create the larger-than-life Founding Father that we know and love and was part of the general atmosphere of idolizing all of the founders. Weems was pretty clear in his writing that one should follow George’s father’s parenting techniques if one wants to raise children who are as virtuous as the great George Washington, and as an example of this great virtue, Weems provides the anecdote of George chopping down the cherry tree and then owning up to it when questioned by his father. This incident, along with many of Weem’s other mythic episodes, didn’t actually happen. This ideal continued throughout the 19th century, and even into our own day, and is present in art as well as writing. Dr. Miller showed us some pretty amusing images extolling George Washington, Brenna and I thoroughly enjoyed The Apotheosis of Washington (check it out here. You can also see it illustrating an article in the issue of Newsweek dated March 17, 2008). If you look closely at the left side of the picture, you can see the Virgin Mary looking on. It also looks like George is rising in glory out of a tomb while soldiers look on (sound familiar, especially this weekend?). Don’t get me wrong, I admire George Washington a lot, and there is definitely a lot we can learn from him, but the cult of George Washington and of the other Founders can be slightly over the top. And it’s still alive and well today.

George Bancroft was even more interesting than Parson Weems. He wrote about how every event during the entire 300 year history of colonial America was moving toward the revolution, and even the early 17th century settlers had freedom on their minds in some way. I was most amused when he started talking about freedom as “the breath of life,” how “a band of exiles, keeping watch by night, heard the glad tidings” brought by the revolution, and the prophets declaring these ideas. His idea of the revolution is a divinely ordained event that he likened to the coming of Messiah, and the language he used illustrated this belief even more than what he said about it. Bancroft did make some good points about how the colonial leaders believed that the British Parliament did not have the knowledge or the ability to govern the colonies by the 1760s and 1770s, which are points that I think most historians would consider valid and relevant; unfortunately, these kernels of substance are generally lost among his messages of deliverance through Washington and the other Founders. When discussing the Bible, the term “typology” refers to the study of events that prefigure the coming of and ministry of Jesus as the Messiah, especially His death and resurrection, like the deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt can be understood as a type of the salvation of mankind won by Jesus. Apparently, in the minds of Bancroft and his ilk, Jesus was a type of George Washington.

So that’s a sampling of Historical Method. We’ve also heard lectures about Hegel, Ranke, Marx (the best explanation of Marxism that Brenna and I have ever heard), how history came to be a profession, and twentieth-century debate between Consensus and New Left/Revisionist historians. We’ve also discussed the use of psychological analysis, interviews, and photographs in history, and we will soon have our exam and write our introductory thesis chapters. In other news, there was an article in the Baltimore Sun this past week about a recent survey that concluded that college students experience a lot of stress. It’s a pretty funny article and my classmates and I can attest to its accuracy, although we’re shocked that it seems to have taken this long for someone to declare that which is incredibly obvious. To read it, click here.

Hopefully one of us will write again soon about a conference we went to a few weeks ago and the lecture we will attend this coming Tuesday, but until then, have a very happy Easter!

The Power of the Press

With my apologias out of the way, allow me to actually blog. That is, if you are not completely shunning us by this point, and act for which I would definitely not blame you.

Over the weekend, I had two interesting run in's with good journalism. The first was via a clipping from the Chicago Tribune which my mother sent me last week. The article was deploring the sad state of historical education in both the United States and England. Apparently, 23% of British teenagers do not believe in Winston Churchill. I'm not even sure how that is possible. How do you not believe in Winston Churchill? That would be like an American teenager not believing in FDR. That goes beyond the kind of ignorance that leads many U.S. teens to be unable to identify the three branches of American government. At least they are not claiming that our government does not exist. They simply feel that knowing the names of the Three Stooges is more important. Having that sort of arcane knowledge myself, how can I possibly blame them? But Winston Churchill is not Santa Claus. I have an image in my head of some proper British mother sitting down her 10 year old daughter and saying, "I'm sorry Sally, but Winston Churchill is not real." My hope is that the poor child would cry. She should cry. Because it is a lie.

Now, 47% percent of these same British teens believe that Richard the Lionheart is a fictional character. This one, I can understand. Richard lived an extremely long time ago. He spent very little time in England and could not even speak English. As my roommate said, "Someone in the Robin Hood stories has to be fictitious, and it isn't going to be Robin Hood." And it is through the Robin Hood stories that most of these teens probably know who Richard is. So I don't blame them so much for this one, though the part of my heart that belongs to medieval England is crying a little.

For anyone who is interested, you can find the article here.

My other run in with wonderful journalism was because of assigned reading for school. Let me first say that this has been a banner semester for academic reading. Not only am I reading The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings, I have also been reading fantastic novels for both my Modern German history class and for Latin American Literature as History. However, I am beginning to appreciate breaks from the novel reading,and one came when we began to read a new book for Modern Germany, called What I Saw: Reports from Berlin 1920-1933. It is a collection of newspaper columns about Berlin by an Austrian journalist named Joseph Roth, and it has been translated from the original German.

Aside from the historical interest I have in the articles, I cannot get over the fact that they represent damn good writing. In his descriptions of everything from really large department stores (as opposed to simply large department stores) to the local homeless shelter, he uses turns of phrase that ring of poetry. He also brings a new prospective to everything, such as how God must have invented sand just for the enjoyment and education of children and how it must have been a whim of fate that made such a disorganized city as Berlin capital of the whole German Reich.

Whether or not any of you care about German history, if you simply enjoy reading (as I know many of you do), you will be doing yourself a major favor if you read this book. I cannot do justice to it in my description.

Well, that is my blog for the day. We are presenting papers at the Phi Alpha Theta conference this Saturday, and I imagine that one of us will want to blog about that. So keep checking back and, with luck, we will be back with you soon.

Brenna

I Guess I Lied

Hello all. It looks as though I was overly optimistic when I announced that our blogging hiatus was over. It apparently was not. That might have something to do with the fact that we have been having one busy semester. We're taking a class called Historical Method in which we are begining to write our senior theses and I know that I have been doing a lot of reading and writing for my classes, as has Gillian.

I hope that we will finally start blogging again. We'll see how it goes this time...

Hiatus Over

Hello to all of our lovely blog reading community. Now that Winter Break is over, we are back. We have not, however, completely settled on a blogging schedule for this semester so, when we do (which should be by the end of this week) we will let you know what it is. Until then, we appreciate that you are all still reading and we promise to bring some exciting history factoids your way this semester.

Just to add something historically fun, on this day in 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell was awarded her M.D., thus becoming the first female doctor in the United States.

Brenna and Gillian

How Capitalism Stole Christmas…

And we’re not talking about stores decorating before Thanksgiving (though just ask Gillian about it). No, we’re talking about How the Grinch Stole Christmas as analyzed from a socio-political perspective by sleep-deprived college students the weekend before finals.

The Grinch – He represents all that is wrong with capitalism. He is not satisfied until he has everything (he stole the last crumb from the mouse). He exploits and abuses the common, working man (see: Max). His small heart shows his lack of moral values, while his tight shoes represent the restrictive nature of operating within a system predicated on materialism and selfishness.

Whoville – Whoville is a communist workers' utopia. All of the Whos share everything, from toys to food. They dine at a communal table and eat of the same food, with everyone getting his fair share and no one profiting at another’s expense. As the roast beast is sliced, each person passes it down, looking out for everyone else before taking care of himself. Their ability to enjoy Christmas without objects proves that their lives are based on society and moral strength, not materialism.

Max – Max is the common man. He is trampled on and taken advantage of by the Grinch. He sticks with it, though, because he doesn’t know any better. When he is “pulling” the Grinch’s sled, he is representing the Red Queen theory of economics*: he must keep running faster and faster to stay ahead of the sled. This scene also shows that the Grinch only profits by taking advantage of Max’s labor.

Cindy Loo Who – She represents the questioning youth who wants to try new ideas. Her confrontation with the Grinch over the Christmas tree and what he tells her shows the lies capitalists tell to brainwash the masses. When the Grinch says he’s taking the tree to fix the light, but he’ll bring it back, he is representing monopolies snapping up smaller companies to decrease competition.

In the end, the Grinch does not turn away from capitalism; he brings back all of the Christmas trappings, showing that he still sees them as essential. However, he has become a moral capitalist, shown by his equal slicing of the meat, which demonstrates fair labor practices. Max gets the first slice of roast beast, showing that in this new society, the needs of the common man are looked out for. By breaking bread with the Whos, the Grinch is saying that he now realizes that he and the Whos can work together as part of the same global community, despite their different political/economic beliefs.

Well, there you have it: proof that our brains are fried. Somewhere, our parents are wondering if this is the only result of our expensive education…

Also, we apologize for the lack of posts lately. We just finished the last week of classes and we are now preparing for finals week. As history majors, we do have scholastic concerns to deal with.

We will be back soon, with a whole slew of holiday themed posts (keep an eye out for the history of that festive drink, eggnog, as well as our favorite holiday songs).

Happy Holidays!

Brenna & Gillian

*This theory is based on a scene from Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. See Chapter 2, “Live Flowers.”

Profiles in History: Geoffrey Plantagenet

Most people have heard of Richard the Lionhearted, if only through Robin Hood stories. They’ve also heard of his brother, John (the phony king of England). A few less people have heard of their older brother, Henry, who predeceased them and their father, Henry II, and their mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine. But who has heard of their middle brother (between Richard and John), Geoffrey, duke of Brittany? Well, anyone who has seen The Lion in Winter has. But what do we know about this forgotten brother?

Why do I like Geoffrey so much? I think it all harkens back to the first bit of The Lion in Winterthat I ever saw. I was channel surfing and I found it on some movie station. It was the scene where Henry II is talking to Philip Augustus and all three sons start popping out from behind tapestries. I figured out who Henry was, but I assumed that Philip was either John or Richard (since I had no idea what was going on and, as far as I knew, Henry only had two sons). When three more sons presented themselves, I was beyond confused. Who the heck were these people? My parents ended up buying it and I was pleased to see that the scene made much more sense in context. I then got to school, and promptly learned about the Plantagenet kings in my second semester of Western Civ. It was an exciting moment for me.

Geoffrey II Plantagenet was the fourth son of King Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine (the eldest son died in infancy). He was married to Constance, duchess of Brittany and had three children: two daughters and his son, Arthur. Geoffrey seemed to have a passion for joining his various siblings in rebellions against their father. He even took young Henry’s side in a battle against Richard. Geoffrey was also a close friend of Philip Augustus, king of France. One version of Geoffrey’s death (at age 28) has Philip so distraught the he attempted to jump into the coffin as well.

Geoffrey’s early death is the reason that he did not become king after the death of Richard. However, due to the law of primogeniture, Geoffrey’s son, Arthur, ought to have been next in line in place of his father. However, after Geoffrey’s death, Arthur was place under the wardship of John. He was sent on a boat across the channel to England with some of John’s men, and he never arrived… Before his death, Arthur carried on the family tradition of rebellion and joined his father’s friend Philip in war against his uncle, Richard. Anyone who has seen The Lion in Winter and believes the family schisms to be exaggerated, that family had serious issues.

If Geoffrey had lived longer, would he have earned his own fun place in history alongside his brothers? I would certainly hope so, because he was definitely wily enough to deal with Philip if he had ever come to the throne. As it is, I get to adore this forgotten son of British history.

Now, you should all go do something fun and holiday related. I will sink back into my life of academia and count the days until the end of the semester, with half of me wanting them to go faster so I can go home and the other half wanting them to go slower so I have more time to study and work on my two papers.

Brenna

Enlightened Despotism

Happy Thanksgiving! I sincerely hope that this weekend is relaxing and that you have a chance to spend time with your family and friends before the holiday season really gets in gear.

Last fall, I took Russia and the Soviet Union I with Dr. Black, and it was a wonderful class. Russian history seems to always take a back seat in European/world history courses in favor of Western Europe, China, and the United States, which is a shame, because Russia was formed from a variety of ethnic groups and throughout its history, there have been lots of colorful characters who overthrow rulers with startling regularity. The downside of having this many characters is that Russian history is pretty complicated. Especially in the Middle Ages, when there were a whole bunch of Russian princes running around. Our first textbook was a collection of primary source documents from the medieval period, and they were really challenging reading.

At about this time last year, we finished studying Catherine the Great, tsarina of Russia from 1762 to 1796. She is a really fascinating persona for more reasons than just her romantic life. During her life, she had an absurd number of lovers, which contributed even more to court politics, as you might imagine. However, anything you may have heard about a horse being involved in her death is absolutely not true and is urban legend, just as Marie Antoinette (a contemporary of Catherine, acutally) never said that the peasants should eat cake.

Catherine came to power after some of the court nobles wrote a manifesto dethroning Peter III and confirming her as tsarina. She was a hands-on ruler, and foreign relations were an important part of her reign. In order to keep neighboring Poland weak, she negotiated with the rulers of Prussia and Austria to partition Poland, effectively eliminating it as a territory by 1795. Catherine was also involved in the affairs of the Holy Roman Empire and a war with Turkey in 1778.

What interests me the most about Catherine the Great is her intellecutal prowess. She was extremely well-read (she admired the works of Voltaire and Montesquieu and even corresponded with Voltaire) and believed in many Enlightenment ideas. She was an autocratic ruler but still accepted the rule of law, thinking that rulers should not be arbitrary. She provided for the protection of the rights of serfs and of nobles, disapproved of censorship, and created many intellectual institutions. Catherine promoted secular learning and believed in reason. In my last paper for class, I talked about how the ways in which Catherine adopted Enlightenment values. She wrote educational books and supported the standardization of the Russian language, believed in Adam Smith's free enterprise theories of economics, worked to open trade within Russia, formed a Legislative Commission to serve as her advisory body, and protected many of the rights that are found in our Bill of Rights and in our tradition, such as habeus corpus, protection from false imprisonment, and protection from torture.

Unfortunately, Catherine backed away from this Enlightened position in the last years of her reign, as the French Revolution caused her to fear a similar occurence in Russia. She is considered an Enlightened despot as a result of her firm rule and her openness to Western ideas. One can only wonder where she would have brought Russia if things had been different in France and in America and whether she would still be considered an enlightened ruler if she lived in a different world.