Two Updates on Popular Historians

There were two things I saw recently that I thought were worth noting about two popular historians - one that made me laugh a little, and one that sounded interesting.

First was this review of Ron Chernow's new Washington biography in The New Republic. The author writes:

"Modern biographers have sought to rescue George Washington from his monumental stature by revealing a lively and conflicted man within. In the latest and best of these recent attempts to humanize the great man, Ron Chernow offers a “real, credible, and charismatic,” a “vivid and immediate,” and, best of all, a “hot-blooded” Washington. Chernow insists that the father of our country began as a “deeply emotional young man who feared the fatal vehemence of his own feelings” and struggled to “conceal the welter of stormy emotions inside him.” Earthy, passionate, and ambitious, Washington even told an occasional lie."

Now granted, I don't know exactly what he means when he says "modern". Sometimes that means "recent". Sometimes that mean "everything since the 1500s". But what's interesting is how long we've been "humanizing" the founding fathers and "debunking" their monumental stature. All of this - every humanizing detail they mention in Chernow - is center stage in, for example, Douglas Southall Freeman. I used to be a big Washington fan (I've been more into Jefferson lately), and got around to reading a few biographies including several volumes of Freeman's authoritative work. I haven't read anything earlier than that - I haven't read Washington Irving's for example. But I really can't help but feeling like everything written about Washington is essentially a footnote to Freeman. What would be new and different and an interesting to read is one that actually tries to recapture a "Great Man Theory" sort of conceit for him.

The second interesting thing I saw was this report that David McCollough is coming out with an intellectual history of American intellectuals and artists in Paris from 1830-1900. I've come to like intellectual histories. I'm still reading The Metaphysical Club - a great intellectual history of pragmatism. I'm into John Dewey - finally moving along at a reasonable clip. Recently I finished the first volume of Joseph Dorfman's The Economic Mind in American Civilization. Waiting for me is Amy Sue Bix's Inventing Ourselves Out of Jobs? America's Debate over Technological Unemployment 1929-1981. Intellectual histories are nice because they give you a broad selection view of the import of primary source material that would take a lot longer to absorb independently. It's also a very illuminating way to learn history. You understand what happened much better if you interrogate what people thought was happening as your subject. You also learn to sympathize with the views of others when you really get into the question of why they thought what they thought.