Can anyone offer me an explanation of why Simon Schama's Citizens is so often disparaged? I've yet to see any substantive criticism of his interpretation of the French Revolution, outside of the vague statements that "historians don't agree with him" or "his conclusions don't fall in line with current historiography." His views do come across as pretty old-school in the sense that he sees violence as the central aspect of the French Revolution, similar to Charles Dickens and Thomas Carlyle. But I haven't come across any explanation for why that is inherently wrong. I don't think any historian of revolutions would say that violence doesn't play a central, if not the central role, in revolutions.

On Reddit, I've been directed to this post that attempts to show how Schama practices "badhistory," but, at least in my opinion, the instances noted by this poster are matters of trivia and don't address Schama's larger arguments. I see little problem with having a few factual errors in a book, especially one as big and sweeping in its narrative as Citizens. As I've spent more and more time reading history and becoming more well-versed in my own specialized field of study, I've realized that even the very best historians in their very best books often have several factual and minor interpretative errors. As one of my history professors--well-respected in his field--has said, it's almost inevitable that you'll have errors of fact in your books; it's just a matter of keeping them to a very small number so that readers don't question your legitimacy as a scholar. If you have too many factual errors, readers will often (rightly) nit-pick at those errors instead of addressing the much more important interpretation you are providing on the subject.

Now, I have very little familiarity with the historiography of the French Revolution so there might be some major interpretative problems in Schama's book that I'm completely ignorant of. But if so, what are they? Or are the problems with Schama's book more about the errors of fact or that many scholars don't agree with his largely negative opinions of the French Revolution?

Edit: I feel, as this is a thread about historiography in a broader sense, I should also bring up the main reason I'm so defensive of Schama at the moment. I'm now 4 years into a history PhD and the majority of my graduate student colleagues and many (but probably not a majority) of my professors seem to be instinctively opposed to any form of popular history. I agree that a lot of popular history is crap, but my impression thus far has been that the disdain academics feel for popular history is to a large extent based on an undue sense of arrogance and a not small amount of jealousy. And I think this is detrimental to the history profession in general. As I stated, such sentiments are (perhaps surprisingly) more noticeable among many of the graduate students I study with, although this probably boils down to the propensity for graduate students to view books as either the best or worst book ever on the topic under consideration; I haven't really seen much in the way of moderation in how graduate students (and undergrads, too) view a history book's conclusions, whether it's a popular or an academic history.

But this quickness to completely dismiss a popular history book also exists among many professional historians that I've worked with and under. The most notable example I can think of is last semester when our department had interviews for a new history professor. Our department was looking to fill a prestigious chair and was attempting to find a big-name historian. One such historian came and, in the candidate's job-talk that was open to the entire department, they spent a good deal of time talking about how they wanted to bring history to the public. The candidate mentioned how well their books had been received publicly and how they were currently working with PBS on making a documentary. Admittedly, this historian's ideas are very controversial, but it shocked me to hear one of the department's professors audibly scoff at this portion of the presentation, as if bringing history to the public is something that academic historians shouldn't concern themselves with.

I'll end my rant here, and leave with a question: Are we perhaps too hard on popular historians and academic historians who write popular histories?

Mixed bag here. Questions about medieval historiography, legal history, and pursuing a career in academia.

I've been reading Norman Cantor's "Inventing the Middle Ages." Cantor was a popular historian and from what I can tell had a somewhat mixed reputation, however- is his summary of the prominent medievalists of the 20th century similarly looked down upon by professional historians?

My experience with medieval history is largely in Crusader Kingdom law, with a touch of canon law thrown in there, but I specialized in graduate school in early modern English law, specifically colonial legal regimes in New England. Cantor's description of Maitland was fascinating, but I had never heard of Maitland. Is Maitland still regarded as an authority in the field? Are his works worth reading? Or is he a little like Perry Miller for Puritan New England (a fun read, but outdated)?

Unfortunately for graduate school I attended a smaller university that did not specialize in legal history, so I have never taken a legal history seminar. Similarly, while I went to a good law school, the legal history seminars were always small and full up with dual-degree students, so again, never taken a legal history course. Is it possible to engage in a program of self-study in legal history? If so, is there a syllabus/coursework assembled by respected academics in the field anyone can forward to me?

Like most academic fields, I imagine legal history is crowded with struggling young PhDs. Is this the case? Is there any hope of an academic career? I intend to practice for at least a decade before either attempting a book or a PhD program - is this thoroughly unrealistic? I really enjoy what little teaching I've done.