[Marxism] critical histories

[Chris Brady <cdbrady@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Respuesta a: Néstor

Néstor's note invokes history teachers' sanctimonious claims to
objective truth.  I have actually had the rare privilege of having
leftist professors who came forth and introduced their perpsectives as
leftist, radical, Marxist, etc., at the beginning of a course of study.
They said they did this in all candor and frankly to set up the notion
that there are perspectives in history.  Those who do not do so,
typically the non-left, establishment types, i.e., the majority, lecture
from the false position of "truth".

As if there were any doubt as to the potency of public history (and
historiography), recall not only our own arguments on this list (no need
to remind us of the topics, eh?) but the capitulation of the Smithsonian
to reactionaries over the Enola Gay exhibit, or the political struggle
over the National History Standards as documented in "History on Trial:
Culture Wars and the Teaching of the Past" by Gary B. Nash, Ross E.
Dunn, and Charlotte A. Crabtree (2000).

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