Comments on: Well Written History

By: Matthew

Matthew — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:31:50 +0000

This part of the whole process does frighten me a bit, too I must say…

By: Muninn

Muninn — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 01:46:13 +0000

Dear Yumi, those are valuable words of advice. Thanks for sharing.

By: Yumi Kim

Yumi Kim — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 14:10:32 +0000

Want to know what M.E. Berry said when I asked her how I could become a better writer of history? “Go read dance magazines and film reviews.” Her point was that we should read promiscuously, as my current adviser would say, and find models in lots of different forms of writing. So I now turn to magazines about design, works of fiction, and even Williams-Sonoma catalogs in search of crisp sentences and memorable turns-of-phrase. (But if we must stick with historians, I think Drew Gilpin Faust is another worthy model, along with Sarah Thal and James H. Johnson).

By: Muninn

Muninn — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 01:39:49 +0000

Thanks for the tip Jonathan. If I can find the time, I’ll revisit her writing.

Thanks for the words of support Nathan – but I’m not yet to seven!

By: Nathan Blachford

Nathan Blachford — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 05:33:15 +0000

Wow that is a very gruesome outlook. But I agree with Jonathan; your formulation of sentences describing your intense terror at climbing this mountain of a task; your disgust at the unimaginative accounts of historical events that require a poet to describe only means that this is your chance to better the past works of your peers and your idols. You speak seven languages at my count and have been chased by small town U.S police. You have the academic and grassroots experience to complete this task. You will excel at your dissertation and due justice to painstaking field work you enjoyed so much. Ha green fields.

Cheers Buddy.

By: Jonathan Dresner

Jonathan Dresner — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 02:43:41 +0000

Three words: Mary Elizabeth Berry.

That said, you’re already producing sentences like “The only times I really paid much attention to form was when some theoretically ambitious works were so frustratingly obtuse that one wondered how these historians who claim sensitivity to the subtleties of discourse could have nurtured such talent for linguistic slaughter.” So maybe a little Arthur Clarke instead. (not a historian, but still)