This week, ending in August 7th, 2014:
Today's thread is for open discussion of:
History in the academy
Historiographical disputes, debates and rivalries
Implications of historical theory both abstractly and in application
Philosophy of history
And so on
Regular participants in the Thursday threads should just keep doing what they've been doing; newcomers should take notice that this thread is meant for open discussion only of matters like those above, not just anything you like -- we'll have a thread on Friday for that, as usual.
Yesterday I received readers' reports on one of my most recent articles. They arrived a little over sixty days after the date of submission, and they were complimentary, intelligent, useful, and mutually non-contradictory.
TL;DR: I seem to have fallen into some sort of alternate universe
I'm writing an introduction to my M.A. thesis right now and have been thinking: What distinguishes an excellent introduction from a just 'good' one? I have always done very well without thinking about it too much, but now some advice or resources would be appreciated.
Since this has apparently been Chattin' About Empire week for me, and I have been looking at it in other contexts as well, it has really been striking how few people are really willing to confront the question of Is Empire Good head on. Historians and archaeologists seem content to wave off that question in the direction of philosopher and social scientists, which is fine in theory, but in practice this means that they don't take an explicit stand on an issue that runs in great big implicit streams through their text. It is common to see a historians start their historiographic survey by rejecting simplistic good/bad binaries, then go on to portray the Khmer in a very favorable light. And you really can't read Christopher Wickham and Bryan Ward-Perkins and not realize that they are basically taking two different sides on the question of whether Empire is a good thing.
I'm not really certain what I am proposing here (that's for the philosophers etc etc) but it does seem that the scientific mindset in much of modern history and archaeology does a very good job of allowing people to ignore these questions.
Has anyone here read the work Theory and History by Ludwig von Mises? And if so, thoughts? It is a work on the philosophy of history and economic history by the famed Austrian economist. I know the Austrians are out of the mainstream in social science, but I would hope this place is above childish, dismissive, one-line remarks that don't add to conversation.
It's my understanding that Mises is fond of Weber's concept of verstehen.
The Mises Institute has a free version of the book online.
And for kicks, here is an introductory lecture on the subject by one of Mises' disciples, Hans Hoppe.