Outside Agitators: Conservative Historians

To regain the public respect and influence it once had, the historical profession need do only one thing: Enthusiastically admit into its ranks the diversity of opinion that is now missing. It must welcome historians who think outside the framework of the left-wing's world view, and cease to use its professional organizations as mouthpieces for any political agenda. That is not too much to ask.

—Ronald Radosh

Everyone has biases. There is no escaping this. Nowhere is this truer than in academia, especially the field of history. Objectively, in its purest sense, can’t be obtained and therefore is no longer the goal among historians. Whether or not a historian is purposely injecting his…(yes I said just his because I’m tired of writing he/she and his/her and also this is my blog and I could care less about political correctness)…his political views he’s doing so in the types of sources he uses, theories he adopts, and subject matter he writes about. If you come across an article dealing with the gendered roles of African American lesbian postal workers in south central Los Angeles during the McCarthy era, then you can pretty much assume that the historian is a committed leftist.

So, historians are always mingling scholarship and politics. For years I railed against this, but now I embrace the idea. However, I want to make the case that conservative historians should be granted the same luxury that leftist historians enjoy. I’m not saying that conservative historians don’t mix politics and scholarship because they do. Some of the best works produced by conservative historians, like John Lukacs, Forrest McDonald, Ronald Radosh, Allen Weinstein, and Victor Davis Hanson, have been deeply rooted in their own political philosophies. What I am sick and tired of is when these works are ridiculed and labeled as not serious scholarship because they come from the right. I remember last semester a professor making the statement that if you are a conservative historian, then you don’t matter in the profession. This is infuriating!!! What has left-wing history given us over the past two decades? Well, various histories of sex, objects (pencils, zippers, buttons, etc.), postmodernist mumbo jumbo, the social/cultural construction of everything, and American history as a long list of right-wing crimes.

Why should conservative historians not be allowed to mix politics and scholarship? A simple answer is that their political views are not politically correct. However, there is more to it. The subject matter that conservative historians choose to write about is viewed as old fashioned and not trendy or chic. They don’t write about the holy trinity of race, class, and gender or any other leftist topic. (I was sickened and enraged when I heard another professor state on Wednesday: “Race, class, and gender make up the Bermuda Triangle and if you forget about them you will be lost in the Bermuda Triangle.” Cute saying, but it’s completely asinine.) The subject matter that conservative historians examine is taboo. Many research dead white men and some commit and even graver sin by writing about figures such as Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. OH MY GOD!!!! OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!!!! BURN THEIR FAMILIES AT THE STAKE!!!!! Many other conservative historians seek to expose left-wing gods as frauds and criminals like Ronald Radosh’s work on the Rosenbergs or Allen Weinstein’s book on Alger Hiss. If these people are exposed as what they were, spies, then the early years of the Cold War must be re-evaluated. Joe McCarthy might not have been so crazy and reckless after all.

Conservative historians, I would argue, tackle subjects that have much more significance than do most leftist historians. What is the importance of studies on the use of sex toys during the progressive period or works on the invention of the concept of the summer camp? They are not important at all, but are merely labeled as significant by leftist historians. I would value works that re-examine issues such as Federalist economic policies or even Jacksonian foreign policy over research on the subjects listed above.

The point I am trying to make is that conservative historians who mix their personal political philosophies with their scholarship should be accepted as scholars by the historical community as a whole. They should be judged on the merits of their research and writing. (My God I sound like an after school special) As an aspiring conservative historian I hope that my work would be judged not by my political beliefs, but on its quality. I also hope that the historical community will practice some of the liberal values that they preach and accept the fact that conservative historians have much to add to the field. Let’s make the profession more democratic. (If that’s the right word)