Fri Mar 02, 2007 2:15 am
Hi August,
Interesting points - can I get some clarification?
Well, as it's possible to get a PHD history degree from a good university studying such a topic, or similar, I'd say that person would be a historian. More basically, 'historian' isn't a regulated term, like 'Doctor', and unlike doctor there isn't even a specific honorary version.
There's no formal qualification to use the term, except to study and learn from the topic. Teaching's nice too. Or are you advancing some definition I've missed?
A 'qualified' historian is, indeed a distinct group, but very few of them do the big brush strategic stuff you go on to talk about below. Most of them are covering items like 'the development of colours in the harpsichord keys used by blind Jewish women in the eastern quarter of Vienna, 1807 - 1812.'
Indeed. For example 'Air Britain, Historians' are on rockey ground IMHO, as they merely collect volumes of data and check it - a laudable and useful task, but not history - that's data. I think we agree, but I'd say that 'history' is data plus interpritation - and perhaps drawing conclusions. Without any of the three, it's pseudo-
'gratuitous colour'! - what in? The thesis, I presume? Surely then the title and topic of the thesis would have a lot more bearing than your pronouncements on what is 'history' or 'trivia'.
Surely you are only talking about one level of history here?
And if your hypothetical historian wasn't able to provide the fact (in his notes, footnotes, supporting documentation etc.) that the 'D' model Mustang was the range breakthrough, I'd be entitled to be suspicious of how many other parts of his research we inadequate. If his data merely waffled about USAAF fighters, I don't think he'd be entitled to retain his qualification - surely. You are one step away from 'airplanes won the war' drivel if your data doesn't support your statements.
Trivia in one sense, but to ensure that historical data reflects knowledge at the time, rather than anachronism, is perfectly good historical method and need, I would suggest. (Something that elements of this thread are providing.) An historian needs oral and personal history as well as the bumpf that the term is founded upon to do a good job. Reliable oral history needs the sort of discussions above. In one sense it's 'trivial', but details do knock out big theories and theses all the time, as many aspiring university trainee historians learn every day.
Interesting, and almost relevant to the thread.
Interesting points - can I get some clarification?
k5083 wrote:airnutz wrote:A North American Aviation historian might disagree with you on that point August.
And I might disagree, notwithstanding whatever title he may have or give himself, that a person who confined his interest and investigations to a single corporation is actually a historian.
Well, as it's possible to get a PHD history degree from a good university studying such a topic, or similar, I'd say that person would be a historian. More basically, 'historian' isn't a regulated term, like 'Doctor', and unlike doctor there isn't even a specific honorary version.
There's no formal qualification to use the term, except to study and learn from the topic. Teaching's nice too. Or are you advancing some definition I've missed?
A 'qualified' historian is, indeed a distinct group, but very few of them do the big brush strategic stuff you go on to talk about below. Most of them are covering items like 'the development of colours in the harpsichord keys used by blind Jewish women in the eastern quarter of Vienna, 1807 - 1812.'
k5083 wrote:I agree with much of what you say. I won't get into facile definitions of what history, myth and legend are, but they do all take the same subject matter (the past) and level of interest (big-picture, important stuff). They differ mainly in their method and, to some extent, purpose. History competes with myth and legend at interpreting the past, in the same way that science competes with religion and pseudoscience at explaining natural phenomena. One distinguishing feature of the historical method is that it is grounded in primary evidence and, as you say, built up from details. But that does not mean that an obsession with details equates with doing history. The details have to matter to an important topic under investigation.
Indeed. For example 'Air Britain, Historians' are on rockey ground IMHO, as they merely collect volumes of data and check it - a laudable and useful task, but not history - that's data. I think we agree, but I'd say that 'history' is data plus interpritation - and perhaps drawing conclusions. Without any of the three, it's pseudo-
k5083 wrote:For example, a historian might write about the combined strategic bombing campaign. In the course of that history he would likely make the point that the Americans initially took unsustainable losses during daylight bombing and were limited in their choice of targets by the lack of an escort fighter that could get to Berlin and back and still be a useful fighting machine, but that at a certain point, such a fighter was developed which alleviated those problems. He might note in passing that this fighter was designated the P-51, although already this would verge on gratuitous "color".
'gratuitous colour'! - what in? The thesis, I presume? Surely then the title and topic of the thesis would have a lot more bearing than your pronouncements on what is 'history' or 'trivia'.
Surely you are only talking about one level of history here?
And if your hypothetical historian wasn't able to provide the fact (in his notes, footnotes, supporting documentation etc.) that the 'D' model Mustang was the range breakthrough, I'd be entitled to be suspicious of how many other parts of his research we inadequate. If his data merely waffled about USAAF fighters, I don't think he'd be entitled to retain his qualification - surely. You are one step away from 'airplanes won the war' drivel if your data doesn't support your statements.
k5083 wrote:Even if I accepted the corporate history of NAA as such a topic, their relevance as anything but trivia is not clear. As to discussions of nomenclature (Mustang, Apache, Invader; razorback, highback, turtleback) I'm fairly confident in treating that as trivia.
Trivia in one sense, but to ensure that historical data reflects knowledge at the time, rather than anachronism, is perfectly good historical method and need, I would suggest. (Something that elements of this thread are providing.) An historian needs oral and personal history as well as the bumpf that the term is founded upon to do a good job. Reliable oral history needs the sort of discussions above. In one sense it's 'trivial', but details do knock out big theories and theses all the time, as many aspiring university trainee historians learn every day.
Interesting, and almost relevant to the thread.
Tue Mar 06, 2007 11:58 am
JDK,
Absolutely correct. It is not a licensed occupation. The result is that any short-order cook with a shelf full of airplane books who has managed to get 4 articles published in Air Classics or similar can call himself a historian. That's fine, all in good fun. But if "historian" is then going to mean anything, it is up to us as consumers to define it critically. Just as if the government didn't regulate "ketchup" so that you could put anything in the world into a bottle and sell it as ketchup, those of us who like ketchup would want to take a hard look at what is in the bottle and who put it there.
I don't wish to impose my definition of historian on anyone, but I will share it in case it is of interest. Let me start by emphasizing that I do NOT consider myself a historian so this is not intended to puff me up.
I consider history a social science related to sociology, economics, psychology, etc. That means it is defined mainly by the active professional community that is engaged in that work and that has developed standards for its quality. The most crucial element of that, as in any science, is peer review: the presentation and publication of results through outlets (professional conferences, refereed journals, reputable publishers such as university presses) that use expert scholars to certify and work with the author as necessary to ensure the quality of the work. If you are a university professor one of your duties (important to the field and prestigious for you) is to serve on editorial boards and review submissions. Someone who has pushed a fair amount of work through that often grueling process (with which I have some experience on both the submitter and editor/reviewer sides) satisfies my definition of historian and work that meets its standards qualifies as history. (Of course, a historian may be a history buff in his spare time, and write material that does not meet professional standards for publication in other outlets, but his credentials alone do not transform his spare time buff writing into history.)
So that is the essential criterion for history and in practice there are some other things that go along with it. Training in historiography and historical method, as well as a lot of reading in history itself, is usually needed to know how to satisfy the standards of the profession so generally the historian will have graduate-level training in history or a related field. Serious historical research is almost unbelievably time-consuming and quite expensive (involving a lot of travel to archives, etc.), so it is usually the case that a historian makes his living doing history at a university or perhaps a museum or other foundation. These things are not strictly necessary to be a historian, but they usually come with the territory. When I'm not familiar with someone's publication history they serve as initial indicators that the guy is probably for real.
I disagree with you there. One of the accepted standards for history or any other field of knowledge is that the thesis advanced must have some general importance. When I was in academe this was simply known as the "so what" question. Many times an author gets comments back from the journal editorial board with his rejection notice that say, in a long-winded way, "So what? Nobody except people interested in blind Viennese Jewish women would be interested in this." The author must connect his work to the greater body of historical knowledge. He should have an argument or thesis that unifies his data. That argument or thesis should have greater generality so that it impacts other aspects of the field. For example, a scholarly study of the origin, cancellation, and revival of the B-1 bomber (which I have at home) might gather the relevant data to prove a particular point about the influence of economic and political institutions on the military-technological process, a thesis grounded in the past work of others (who may have investigated the development of U-boats, machine guns, or stirrups) and meant to inspire or inform those who come later and research other things.
Yes, standards are not uniformly high and meaningless work is sometimes published. Academe has politics, influence, and incompetence like any other field. Still the people within the field know what they are supposed to be doing.
Gratituitous color to make the writing more interesting -- historians want to capture attention and be engaging like any other writing, so they will often include unnecessary detail for that sake. It may serve other functions as well, such as impressing the reader with the depth of research. Let me furnish an example from the book, Trading with the Enemy by Charles Higham, which I am reading because Tulio asked me to. At one point (pp.175-76) this book accuses General Motors of helping develop the jet engines for the Me 262. In this context, the author (quoting another source) says:
Here it was quite unnecessary to identify the "Mustang P150" as the specific American fighter; the last sentence could have been ended after "rival." It really doesn't matter what the American fighter was called, for this or any other historical purpose. The author just thought he would add a little interest by identifying the airplane. Which brings me to a useful maxim of historical research: If you're going to include gratuitous extra detail for the sake of interest, at least bloody well get it right! Even though the mistaken reference to "Mustang P150" (as well as to the then-nonexistent United States Air Force) have no impact on the point being made, as a reader I notice the error and naturally wonder what it says about other aspects of the author's research in areas where I am not informed enough to detect such errors. If he had not mentioned anything about the Mustang, though, I would not have held that against him, especially since I know the basic point to be true. (I'll be posting a more detailed review of this book in the next week or two, again at Tulio's request.)
Actually my understanding is that B/C were the range breakthrough and not the D had no greater range than the B/C, but anyway, yes, the micro level raw data is relevant to the thesis as backup. Just like in chemistry where the measured temperature of the liquid in the test tube (or whatever) is, ultimately, the data on which the thesis is founded. On the other hand, not all measurements are useful and no measurement is important in itself. The test tube manufacturer's brand name printed on the test tube is not important and will probably go unrecorded. The data is gathered for a purpose. It is not another "level" of history, it is just data -- or, if it cannot be used for any historical thesis, it is not even data, just an irrelevant fact (trivia). The relevant point for the hypothetical strategic bombing researcher is that US Army fighters having a certain range came into service on a certain date. He may be able to establish that from original documents (maybe German ones!) without ever knowing that they relate to a letter behind the airplane's service designation or what those letters mean. Then again, maybe he would resort to the technical side and rely on the entry into service of the new models. Would I strip him of his qualifications if he chose to use one type of data to prove his point and not another? Does he have to have the obsessive buff's knowledge of every topic relating to his thesis to satisfy me? No. So the P-51B/C/D information could be relevant to putting forward a historical thesis but it might not be, and it is of no historical importance in itself.
On the other hand, as I originally stated, the Mustang/Apache/Invader question relates to no historical question that I can think of. That could just be the poverty of my own imagination; we never know which facts a future historian will want to use. But we can't preserve every fact in the world. And I remain agnostic as to whether this particular fact will ever be of interest to a historian.
It is not historical data until/unless a historian does something with it. I conceded your point about the P-51 sub-designations, but you have not made the case that "Mustang, Apache, Invader; razorback, highback, turtleback" can ever be anything but mildly interesting trivia.
This I just don't understand. "Oral history" and "personal history" do not use the term "history" in the sense we are talking about, but in the vernacular sense of "record" or "recollection", the way we might say "family history" or "my medical history". A historian might (or might not) use oral/personal recollections as data, but they are not the end product. "Reliable oral history," to me, means the personal first-hand recollections of someone who has more or less accurate recall who chooses to report them to you through his mouth rather than writing them down. Our discussions do not have any relevance to this that I can see. Indeed, I would prefer to have the oral recollections of first-hand participants preserved in as pure a form as possible and not adulterated by our after-the-fact discussions.
Wow, sweeping statements there. A detail does not generally knock out a big theory unless it suggests another big theory to replace it. Big theories are pretty resistant to being knocked out; they usually have the capacity to adapt, improve, and incorporate apparently contradictory data. I do not really see the resolution of the Mustang/Invader/Apache or razorback/highback controversies has having the potential someday to destroy any elaborate historical edifice. But hey, what do I know. I'm no historian.
August
JDK wrote:Well, as it's possible to get a PHD history degree from a good university studying such a topic, or similar, I'd say that person would be a historian. More basically, 'historian' isn't a regulated term, like 'Doctor', and unlike doctor there isn't even a specific honorary version.
There's no formal qualification to use the term, except to study and learn from the topic. Teaching's nice too. Or are you advancing some definition I've missed?
Absolutely correct. It is not a licensed occupation. The result is that any short-order cook with a shelf full of airplane books who has managed to get 4 articles published in Air Classics or similar can call himself a historian. That's fine, all in good fun. But if "historian" is then going to mean anything, it is up to us as consumers to define it critically. Just as if the government didn't regulate "ketchup" so that you could put anything in the world into a bottle and sell it as ketchup, those of us who like ketchup would want to take a hard look at what is in the bottle and who put it there.
I don't wish to impose my definition of historian on anyone, but I will share it in case it is of interest. Let me start by emphasizing that I do NOT consider myself a historian so this is not intended to puff me up.
I consider history a social science related to sociology, economics, psychology, etc. That means it is defined mainly by the active professional community that is engaged in that work and that has developed standards for its quality. The most crucial element of that, as in any science, is peer review: the presentation and publication of results through outlets (professional conferences, refereed journals, reputable publishers such as university presses) that use expert scholars to certify and work with the author as necessary to ensure the quality of the work. If you are a university professor one of your duties (important to the field and prestigious for you) is to serve on editorial boards and review submissions. Someone who has pushed a fair amount of work through that often grueling process (with which I have some experience on both the submitter and editor/reviewer sides) satisfies my definition of historian and work that meets its standards qualifies as history. (Of course, a historian may be a history buff in his spare time, and write material that does not meet professional standards for publication in other outlets, but his credentials alone do not transform his spare time buff writing into history.)
So that is the essential criterion for history and in practice there are some other things that go along with it. Training in historiography and historical method, as well as a lot of reading in history itself, is usually needed to know how to satisfy the standards of the profession so generally the historian will have graduate-level training in history or a related field. Serious historical research is almost unbelievably time-consuming and quite expensive (involving a lot of travel to archives, etc.), so it is usually the case that a historian makes his living doing history at a university or perhaps a museum or other foundation. These things are not strictly necessary to be a historian, but they usually come with the territory. When I'm not familiar with someone's publication history they serve as initial indicators that the guy is probably for real.
JDK wrote:A 'qualified' historian is, indeed a distinct group, but very few of them do the big brush strategic stuff you go on to talk about below. Most of them are covering items like 'the development of colours in the harpsichord keys used by blind Jewish women in the eastern quarter of Vienna, 1807 - 1812.'
I disagree with you there. One of the accepted standards for history or any other field of knowledge is that the thesis advanced must have some general importance. When I was in academe this was simply known as the "so what" question. Many times an author gets comments back from the journal editorial board with his rejection notice that say, in a long-winded way, "So what? Nobody except people interested in blind Viennese Jewish women would be interested in this." The author must connect his work to the greater body of historical knowledge. He should have an argument or thesis that unifies his data. That argument or thesis should have greater generality so that it impacts other aspects of the field. For example, a scholarly study of the origin, cancellation, and revival of the B-1 bomber (which I have at home) might gather the relevant data to prove a particular point about the influence of economic and political institutions on the military-technological process, a thesis grounded in the past work of others (who may have investigated the development of U-boats, machine guns, or stirrups) and meant to inspire or inform those who come later and research other things.
Yes, standards are not uniformly high and meaningless work is sometimes published. Academe has politics, influence, and incompetence like any other field. Still the people within the field know what they are supposed to be doing.
JDK wrote:k5083 wrote:For example, a historian ... might note in passing that this fighter was designated the P-51, although already this would verge on gratuitous "color".
'gratuitous colour'! - what in? The thesis, I presume? Surely then the title and topic of the thesis would have a lot more bearing than your pronouncements on what is 'history' or 'trivia'.
Surely you are only talking about one level of history here?
Gratituitous color to make the writing more interesting -- historians want to capture attention and be engaging like any other writing, so they will often include unnecessary detail for that sake. It may serve other functions as well, such as impressing the reader with the depth of research. Let me furnish an example from the book, Trading with the Enemy by Charles Higham, which I am reading because Tulio asked me to. At one point (pp.175-76) this book accuses General Motors of helping develop the jet engines for the Me 262. In this context, the author (quoting another source) says:
Charles Higham, quoting Charles Levinson wrote:In 1943, while [General Motors'] American manufacturers were equipping the United States Air Force, the German group were developing, manufacturing and assembling motors for the Messerschmitt 262, the first jet fighter in the world. This innovation gave the Nazis a basic technological advantage. With speeds up to 540 miles per hour, the aircraft could fly 100 miles per hour faster than its American rival, the piston-powered Mustang P150.
Here it was quite unnecessary to identify the "Mustang P150" as the specific American fighter; the last sentence could have been ended after "rival." It really doesn't matter what the American fighter was called, for this or any other historical purpose. The author just thought he would add a little interest by identifying the airplane. Which brings me to a useful maxim of historical research: If you're going to include gratuitous extra detail for the sake of interest, at least bloody well get it right! Even though the mistaken reference to "Mustang P150" (as well as to the then-nonexistent United States Air Force) have no impact on the point being made, as a reader I notice the error and naturally wonder what it says about other aspects of the author's research in areas where I am not informed enough to detect such errors. If he had not mentioned anything about the Mustang, though, I would not have held that against him, especially since I know the basic point to be true. (I'll be posting a more detailed review of this book in the next week or two, again at Tulio's request.)
JDK wrote:And if your hypothetical historian wasn't able to provide the fact (in his notes, footnotes, supporting documentation etc.) that the 'D' model Mustang was the range breakthrough, I'd be entitled to be suspicious of how many other parts of his research we inadequate. If his data merely waffled about USAAF fighters, I don't think he'd be entitled to retain his qualification - surely. You are one step away from 'airplanes won the war' drivel if your data doesn't support your statements.
Actually my understanding is that B/C were the range breakthrough and not the D had no greater range than the B/C, but anyway, yes, the micro level raw data is relevant to the thesis as backup. Just like in chemistry where the measured temperature of the liquid in the test tube (or whatever) is, ultimately, the data on which the thesis is founded. On the other hand, not all measurements are useful and no measurement is important in itself. The test tube manufacturer's brand name printed on the test tube is not important and will probably go unrecorded. The data is gathered for a purpose. It is not another "level" of history, it is just data -- or, if it cannot be used for any historical thesis, it is not even data, just an irrelevant fact (trivia). The relevant point for the hypothetical strategic bombing researcher is that US Army fighters having a certain range came into service on a certain date. He may be able to establish that from original documents (maybe German ones!) without ever knowing that they relate to a letter behind the airplane's service designation or what those letters mean. Then again, maybe he would resort to the technical side and rely on the entry into service of the new models. Would I strip him of his qualifications if he chose to use one type of data to prove his point and not another? Does he have to have the obsessive buff's knowledge of every topic relating to his thesis to satisfy me? No. So the P-51B/C/D information could be relevant to putting forward a historical thesis but it might not be, and it is of no historical importance in itself.
On the other hand, as I originally stated, the Mustang/Apache/Invader question relates to no historical question that I can think of. That could just be the poverty of my own imagination; we never know which facts a future historian will want to use. But we can't preserve every fact in the world. And I remain agnostic as to whether this particular fact will ever be of interest to a historian.
JDK wrote:k5083 wrote:Even if I accepted the corporate history of NAA as such a topic, their relevance as anything but trivia is not clear. As to discussions of nomenclature (Mustang, Apache, Invader; razorback, highback, turtleback) I'm fairly confident in treating that as trivia.
Trivia in one sense, but to ensure that historical data reflects knowledge at the time, rather than anachronism, is perfectly good historical method and need, I would suggest. (Something that elements of this thread are providing.)
It is not historical data until/unless a historian does something with it. I conceded your point about the P-51 sub-designations, but you have not made the case that "Mustang, Apache, Invader; razorback, highback, turtleback" can ever be anything but mildly interesting trivia.
JDK wrote:An historian needs oral and personal history as well as the bumpf that the term is founded upon to do a good job. Reliable oral history needs the sort of discussions above.
This I just don't understand. "Oral history" and "personal history" do not use the term "history" in the sense we are talking about, but in the vernacular sense of "record" or "recollection", the way we might say "family history" or "my medical history". A historian might (or might not) use oral/personal recollections as data, but they are not the end product. "Reliable oral history," to me, means the personal first-hand recollections of someone who has more or less accurate recall who chooses to report them to you through his mouth rather than writing them down. Our discussions do not have any relevance to this that I can see. Indeed, I would prefer to have the oral recollections of first-hand participants preserved in as pure a form as possible and not adulterated by our after-the-fact discussions.
JDK wrote:In one sense it's 'trivial', but details do knock out big theories and theses all the time, as many aspiring university trainee historians learn every day.
Wow, sweeping statements there. A detail does not generally knock out a big theory unless it suggests another big theory to replace it. Big theories are pretty resistant to being knocked out; they usually have the capacity to adapt, improve, and incorporate apparently contradictory data. I do not really see the resolution of the Mustang/Invader/Apache or razorback/highback controversies has having the potential someday to destroy any elaborate historical edifice. But hey, what do I know. I'm no historian.
August
Tue Mar 06, 2007 1:10 pm
Tue Mar 06, 2007 2:59 pm
... too much? 
???
Tue Mar 06, 2007 4:17 pm
you lost me at absolutely correct 
Wed Mar 07, 2007 2:11 am
k5083 wrote:... too much?
Dude...you're gonna rupture something if you keep talk'n like that!
I believe we were discussing....
VisaliaAviation said,
As one with a long interest in things aviation, Mustangs in particular, I will admit to going thru a long process of ever changing values. At this point I find it very important that a distinction be made between a P-51 "Apache" and an A-36 "Invader" , and even a P-51D. All of them have been known (mostly in WWII) as Mustangs , yet each is a distinctly different aircraft. Is making such differential a trivial matter? I think so, especially on a forum ostensibly dedicated to a certain yet quite specific aircraft category.
K5083, the proper designations of the variants of the NAA design born from
the requirements of the Brits for a need for a particular aircraft design
may mean nothing to some Cambridge egghead who's solely concerned
with the macro-concerns of "real" history. For people who are researching
air unit histories, deciphering the details of diaries or action reports, or the
folks who are concerned with returning or presenting these machines in an
accurate light from whenst they came...this is the THE history.
I'm no scholar, but I must remind you..history travels upward from the people
who created the history or who have taken the charge to pass it on. If the
eggheads want to truly understand "IT"...they need to get out in the field.
Somebody mentioned ketchup..I'm hungry..good night...