John Fea is onto something. For those that don’t know, Fea is an historian, and an excellent one at that, who has recently written the book Was America Founded As A Christian Nation? He wonders, in light of all the David Barton static last week, if he’s not “spinning his wheels” by trying to bring together historically-minded religious lay people with actual academic (and occasionally evangelical) historians. The best thing about Professor Fea’s current turmoil is his recognition that the academic world only has a claim to a small corner of history while most people are only receptive to very personal, highly “usable,” and largely unhistorical versions of the past.
I have long noticed this disconnect: that academic historians (like I’m trying hard to be) often have an imperiousness about our discipline that allows us to dismiss other uses, and even conceptions, of history. I picked up on this while in museums and historic sites. Folks just want the institution to acknowledge or validate them and their past. Most visitors don’t want or need a nuanced story, an abundance of context, or alternative points of view. Being in a graduate history program has only reinforced for me the general uselessness (as opposed to usable) of our style of history to the needs of ordinary people. Yet, as academics largely remain the spokes-people for history, I believe that our inability to read the public’s needs is among the causes of the growing irrelevance of museums, historic sites, and public education.
It takes an extremely talented and perceptive historian to genuinely bridge the gap—while still maintaining the rules of our discipline. John Fea is one of them. He is publishing with non-university presses and his book tour is targeted at local Christian radio stations and Sunday School classes. I do not think he is spinning his wheels. I think he is essential to the future of our profession and I truly hope he publishes his road diary and gives us new lessons and insights about doing history for the modern American public. Seriously.