Reading History

I've recently begun what will hopefully be a complete transformation from academic historian to popular writer. The choice was partially forced on me by the deplorable state of American higher education, or at least the deplorable state of any subject taught in that system that can't be subsidized by major corporations. If you teach history or art or language, you're in trouble. Welcome to the new order. Adjunct professors (like myself) are rewarded for a dozen years of training with a job that pays less than what our teaching assistants make. I'm not sure most people are aware of this...the young adults that I teach come from families who send them away to school in BMWs, which I could work ten years for and still not afford. The state of the field is in crisis, but transition is normal, and something interesting may eventually emerge from what seems like growing wreckage. 

I truly wish that people would read more history. Not only would it make my job easier, but it would help create more informed citizens. My students' knowledge of Roman history comes mostly (if at all) from the movie Gladiator. It was a fun movie, but terrible history, as with most Hollywood attempts to understand the ancient world. 

Ancient historians face an uphill battle in terms of convincing people that what we do is useful to them. If you study the Civil War, it's easy (or easier) to get people to see why they should know about it. But Roman history is a harder sell. With the cultural differences involved and the nature of the source material its probably a lot harder to get a good grasp of it. But still, we have to convince others that what we do is more than entertainment. The way I usually attack the problem is to show my students all the ways in which Rome has been re-imagined through the years...Charlemagne, the state of Russia, Napoleon, Mussolini, Hitler, and the US with our "pax Americana"...and our Roman coins, senate, and classical government buildings. All built up by wealthy white men who were products of the Enlightenment, who loved the Roman Republic...or at least their idea of what the Roman Republic was. History is real and useful, and we historians should make more of an effort to write to a wider audience in order to do the good work that our subject has the potential to accomplish.