Reading many of the comments on why history isn't more popular, I feel
like I've wandered
into a timewarp.  "Great Man History" was weak unto death when I was an
undergrad in
the 1970s, and in two graduate programs since then the triumvirate of
Race, Class, and Gender
was, if not dominant, certainly a major component in most classes.  (And
even the practitioners
of GMH tended to chose their greats from a short list--i.e. Lenin, Mao,
Ho . . .)
 
I also have to say, based on my own experiences as student and teacher
of history, History Day
judge, local history society officer, librarian, and parent, that the
notion that history will become 
popular with and interesting to the masses when it's about regular
people is no more than a pious 
theory.


Ed Frank
University of Memphis but speaking purely for myself, of course.
 

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