Feelin' Smart.
While it is kind of a bummer that I spent all of yesterday reading and writing the review of The Great Famine by William Chester Jordan instead of working on my big Medieval Historiography paper due Thursday, in a way, it gave me a confidence boost much-needed to tackle that big project this week! And here's why.
As I read historian's reviews of all the books I review for class, I think to myself, yeah, I can critique some things here and there, but I am never able to review the big arguments like these historians can. I never KNOW enough about the topic of the book I'm reading to be able to say what information the author should have looked at, or is withholding to keep his argument strong, or why his points are unconvincing. I am never able to present counter-evidence to say "hey, look at this bit of information that I have that says your theory is BS." But, as of now, I can! I realized that people are only asked to write reviews of books on topics they are well-versed in, and, when I am a PhD-ed tenured historian in a field of my choice, I WILL know enough on my topic to be able to really critique well anything anyone writes in my field of expertise! I knew this before, but didn't really believe it until yesterday.
The Great Famine of 1315 is, for a large part, a result of the failure of agriculture (especially on high marginal land) at the onset of large-scale climate change - the Little Ice Age - in the late 13th century. This author decided that, by only looking at historical textual evidence and NO climate data, he wanted to deny the existence of long-term climate change, saying it was just a few isolated bad years between 1314-1322. He also made it his mission to downplay the role of weather in the crisis in favor of human factors like war, and bad price controls. Yeah, those contributed, but you can emphasize that withOUT needing to diminish or deny the important role of climate, Jordan! And btw, if you conveniently leave out and refuse to explain really important contradictory information and evidence in order to make your own argument seem more plausible, I am going to notice! And then, I will write a scathing, intelligent review of your book.
It made me realize that when it comes to topics that I really do know a thing or two about, like medieval climate change, (or early english historiography, the transition from OE to ME, or medieval iberian arabic libraries,) I probably am perfectly capable of writing a perfectly good, thorough review based in the author's use (or abuse) of the evidence.
That makes me feel really good about my ability to succeed as an historian!
I hope Damien thinks this review is good... and doesn't care that it's a little longer than it should be (I had a lot of grievances with this book) or that it's printed in blue (I'm out of black ink).
As I read historian's reviews of all the books I review for class, I think to myself, yeah, I can critique some things here and there, but I am never able to review the big arguments like these historians can. I never KNOW enough about the topic of the book I'm reading to be able to say what information the author should have looked at, or is withholding to keep his argument strong, or why his points are unconvincing. I am never able to present counter-evidence to say "hey, look at this bit of information that I have that says your theory is BS." But, as of now, I can! I realized that people are only asked to write reviews of books on topics they are well-versed in, and, when I am a PhD-ed tenured historian in a field of my choice, I WILL know enough on my topic to be able to really critique well anything anyone writes in my field of expertise! I knew this before, but didn't really believe it until yesterday.
The Great Famine of 1315 is, for a large part, a result of the failure of agriculture (especially on high marginal land) at the onset of large-scale climate change - the Little Ice Age - in the late 13th century. This author decided that, by only looking at historical textual evidence and NO climate data, he wanted to deny the existence of long-term climate change, saying it was just a few isolated bad years between 1314-1322. He also made it his mission to downplay the role of weather in the crisis in favor of human factors like war, and bad price controls. Yeah, those contributed, but you can emphasize that withOUT needing to diminish or deny the important role of climate, Jordan! And btw, if you conveniently leave out and refuse to explain really important contradictory information and evidence in order to make your own argument seem more plausible, I am going to notice! And then, I will write a scathing, intelligent review of your book.
It made me realize that when it comes to topics that I really do know a thing or two about, like medieval climate change, (or early english historiography, the transition from OE to ME, or medieval iberian arabic libraries,) I probably am perfectly capable of writing a perfectly good, thorough review based in the author's use (or abuse) of the evidence.
That makes me feel really good about my ability to succeed as an historian!
I hope Damien thinks this review is good... and doesn't care that it's a little longer than it should be (I had a lot of grievances with this book) or that it's printed in blue (I'm out of black ink).