Local Studies And Larger Issues

The Case Of Sara Bagby

Abstract

Historians, especially American historians, increasingly bemoan the discipline's overspecialization and lack of relevance to the wider discipline, which they contend has caused a decline in synthetic history and a rise of specialized history.¹ A 1993 survey of American historians revealed that 86 percent of the respondents agreed that "[h]istory should help us identify diverse cultural experience," but 83 percent concurred that "[h]istory should help us identify common patterns of experience." Clearly many historians believed that "specialized history" was important, but that it still must be placed within a framework. In this same survey historians complained about the loss of narrative history, that is the failure of historians to tell a good story.² Historians are rewarded with tenure and prestigious professorships on the basis of specialized research and writing. Some of these works connect local issues to larger issues and events, but broad syntheses analyzing major themes over extended time periods are often derided as trite or oversimplified. Only established historians, those who already hold distinguished professorships or are professors emeriti, can write synthetic works and have them widely read and criticized.³