Perhaps one of the best ones in the Pacific would be; how/why did Captain Cook die on the shores of Kealakekua Bay, Hawai'i.

Scholars (especially Marshall Sahlins & Gananath Obeyesekere in the 90's) spent a great deal of page space trying to describe every single micro-historical detail in order to understand the how/what/why actors on both sides of the beach- Hawaiian and Cook's Crew were thinking, doing, what they thought they were doing, and what they believed was happening. Other notable entries into the discussion were Greg Denning and more recently Anne Salmond; who had both also sought to recreate the second by second events of the death of Captain Cook in order to understand the perspective of different witnesses.

I wouldn't say this debate is silly- they bring up great questions about the reliability of the archive, the personal agendas that enter into them, and the nature of cultural contact and misunderstanding. However, I think the focus on petty detail can seem bizarre to a layman reader who probably thinks its interesting he died- but isn't so much concerned with understanding what was happening- or perceived to be happening- on both sides of the beach at Kealakekua Bay.

I think the vitriol of the debate can seem a little silly to anyone who doesn't have a stake in the debate or feel personally connected to the event. Normal people just shrug their shoulders and wonder why historians care about this stuff- in fact I think the eyes of many historians themselves glaze over when this debate is invoked.

edited for spelling

This professor is making some real progress in her study of the Indian pangolin. Her lecture can be found here: http://www.nehrumemorial.nic.in/en/55-lectures-audios/55-public-lectures-audios/detail/750-106-dr-julie-hughes-20-03-2014.html?tmpl=component

I suppose that to most people it would seem unimportant/silly, but I find it fascinating. It's a shame that environmental history doesn't appear more on this subreddit.

The date of conversion to Christianity of the Goths may be a debated topic fitting to your question. It may not be quite a "hotly-debated" one, but it does raise a light antagonism between the involved scholars which comfortably expresses itself sometimes in their foot notes and in remarks during conferences.

Two popular proposals for the date of conversion are the year 376 and somewhere between 370-375. The 376 conversion is argued most vehemently by Peter Heather^1 while a systematic rebuttal of his arguments and a counter proposal for the date of conversion between 370-375 is offered by Noel Lenski.^2

During the 20th century, many scholars have tackled the question of the conversion of the Goths and proposed a wide variety of dates: Late 360s, between 372-376, late 370s/early 380s and many more.^3 The proposed dates made by Heather and Lenski are the most recent ones that are familiar to me.

Maybe the most important question that comes to mind looking over the above date proposals is how can one narrow down to a date a conversion of faith? Isn't it quite obvious that a religious conversion - a phenomenon heavily studied during the past 100 years - is a complex personal transformation which spreads over time?

None of the involved scholars in the debate over the Goths' date of conversion deny the complexity of the process, but they do debate about a date of a more of less formal event, in which a leader of a significant Gothic group, the Tervingi, converted to the religion of the Roman emperor, and thus began an accelerated process of conversion among the Goths.

It can probably be guessed by now that the description of this conversion event of the Tervinigi leader is not exactly clear in the very few written sources which discuss it. Moreover, almost every account of this conversion does not explicitly mention a date or, as is usually the case, a date-able event which happened closely before, during, or after the conversion. Finally, as it can be seen in the scholarship that has been written on this topic for the past 50 years, every written account which explicitly or implicitly mentions the Goths' conversion can be rendered unreliable by cross referencing its details with other accounts.

As Peter Heather shrewdly said a few years ago, according to him, it all comes down to if one prefers the account of the events described by Socrates in his Ecclesiastical History, or by Ammianus Marcellinus. Ammianus does not mention the conversion at all, but he renders some of the information about the conversion in Socrates unreliable (only in a certain reading, as Lenski argues in his article) and thus forces us, according to Heather, to look elsewhere for clues regarding the date of conversion.^4

Finally, we must ask the most important question: Is there any significance in a specific date for this official event of conversion of the leader of the Tervingi ?

On the surface of it, looking over the scholarship that has been written on this topic for the past years, it can look like the treatment of this issue of dating the Goth's conversion is nothing more than nitpicking by professionals. Even for someone who studies this period generally and this debate regarding the conversion's date specifically, it can be hard to ignore the repetitive and nitpick"ish" nature of it.

The scholars who handle this issue no doubt try to give a special significance to their proposals: Their date sheds light on imperial policy in Christianizing peoples outside the empire; on diplomatic relations between barbarians and Romans; and on the reason why a specific branch of Christianity gained popularity among most of the Germanic peoples from the 4th century onwards (so called, 'Arianism', a category which is under much criticism in recent scholarship). In a recent Uni paper I wrote, I argued that while these issues can certainly be made clearer by arguing for a specific date or another, more than anything this debate on the Goth's conversion sheds light on the scholar's attitude towards major theoretical paradigms in analyzing the relations between Romans and barbarians in late antiquity.

^1 Peter Heather, ‘The Crossing of the Danube and the Gothic Conversion’, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 27, 3 (1986).

^2 Noel Lenski, ‘The Gothic Civil War and the Date of the Gothic Conversion’, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 36, 1 (1995).

^3 Lenski, pp. 52-55; Heather, pp. 291-292.

^4 Andreas Schwarcz, ‘Cult and Religions among the Tervingi and the Visigoths and their Conversion to Christianity’, Discussion Transcripts, in: The Visigoths: From the Migration Period to the Seventh Century, Peter Heather ed. (Woodbridge, U.K.: The Boydel Press, 1999), p. 469; Peter Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and Barbarians (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 508, fn. 29.

That is difficult as how do you gauge important implications? Stanley Fish famously argued that the humanities as a whole have no value (but they do have a lot of worth). So on that basis nearly every hotly debated topic has very few serious implications. But I do think that engaging with these debates can enrich our lives (says I onanistically).

Having said that as something that is often bought up on askhistorians - the Spartan Mirage, or 'everything you think you know about Sparta is not true.' Since François Ollier proposed this in the 1930's everything written about Sparta since has been not been about what happened at Sparta but rather about how do we even talk about Sparta. But to everyone who has ever lived outside that short period of Spartan hegemony, the myth of Sparta transcends the reality, it speaks to people, it doesn't matter to them that it is a fairy tale. The sudden discovery of what lay beyond the mirage (which I suspect is very mundane) would have very few implications outside academia as people want to believe the myth.

Edit: Because some of Fish's arguments should be recounted:

It is not the business of the humanities to save us, no more than it is their business to bring revenue to a state or a university. What then do they do? They don’t do anything, if by “do” is meant bring about effects in the world. And if they don’t bring about effects in the world they cannot be justified except in relation to the pleasure they give to those who enjoy them.

To the question “of what use are the humanities?”, the only honest answer is none whatsoever. And it is an answer that brings honor to its subject. Justification, after all, confers value on an activity from a perspective outside its performance. An activity that cannot be justified is an activity that refuses to regard itself as instrumental to some larger good. The humanities are their own good. There is nothing more to say, and anything that is said – even when it takes the form of Kronman’s inspiring cadences – diminishes the object of its supposed praise.

I am a bit shaky with the historiography, but the argument of the "Renaissance" would probably fit your question well. Jakob Burchard defined the notion in his book "The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy". He described how the Renaissance bloomed out of a dismal and ugly "Dark Ages" and should be considered its own clearly defined section in history. Others (Johan Huizinga is the only one I can recall atm) rebuke that with the general sentiment being that identifying the Renaissance in such a way would overshadow the accomplishments of the era that Burchard describes as the Dark Ages. Advances such as Carolingian minuscule writing and women's rights being a couple examples.

A historical example of hot debate that might initially seem of little consequence to the layman is that of al-Ma'mun's mihna. Al-Ma'mun was the 7th Abbasid caliph (813-833 CE), and has been immortalized as the caliph responsible for the early separation of "church and state" in the Islamic world. He accidentally began this process when he implemented the mihna, a test of sorts, presented to the U'lama challenging them to deny his caliphal decree which determined that the Qu'ran was created. The scholarly class of the time had yet to obtain the influence that they would later have on jurisprudence and theology, though many had substantial followings, which al-Ma'mun hoped to destroy. Failing the mihna, by denying the caliph's religious authority or the createdness of the Qu'ran, would result in death.

Strangely, the mihna backfired. This Abbasid attempt to regain complete control of theological matters in the caliphate led to an empowered U'lama. These religiously active, scholarly communities sought to undermine the caliph's authority from here on out, eventually repurposing them as little more than nominal figureheads.

Essentially the decline of the position of caliph (arguably one of the more powerful leadership roles of history) was began by a seemingly niche debate related to the createdness of the Qu'ran.

(Sorry if this isn't completely relevant, and for my poor sentence structure/ story telling abilities. Also, this rendition is a very simplified retelling that excludes modern critical examination of the classical narrative.)

I think the nature of Greek hoplite warfare would fall under this.

There are a number of different arguments put forward across the spectrum by different people but the main camps are those that believe the two sides essentially clashed with their shields and then had a pushing war, using the momentum of the ranks behind them, until one side essentially pushed the other off the battlefield with very little killing involved and those that believe in a more traditional style of fighting where the spears would be used over the shield and there wasn't as much shield-to-shield contact.

There are also debates over the hoplite's role in society and whether they contributed to or were a product of the the rise of the greek polis but that's a little more useful in my eyes.

For an excellent summary read Men of Bronze: Hoplite Warfare in Ancient Greece by Donald Kagan and Gregory F. Viggiano which is a collection of papers by the top scholars on the subject from a 2008 conference in Yale where they each made the case for their particular view on the subject.

I'll provide a proper link for the book soon but my internet is constantly cutting out so i'll be lucky enough to post the comment itself right now.

Hi there, after some discussion we've decided to remove this question because despite it being historiographical, it's a little too wide ranging to promote the quality answers we'd prefer on the site.

However if I may offer a suggestion, we definitely do think there's space for this question in the Friday Free-for-all thread, which should be up shortly.