This was posted yesterday.
How can I go about being a self-taught historian like Rothbard? I am a Christian. I recently purchased Rushdoony's "Biblical Philosophy of History" but haven't read it yet. But I plan on it within a few weeks. I also have "Historians Fallacies" by David H. Fischer. I follow the footnotes with all books and usually add them to my "to read" list.I am a blogger. I am a copy editor by profession. I was a journalist on Capitol Hill at one point. I also had a stint as a state reporter in Annapolis. I've read history books by journalists in college but they weren't very good or understood free-markets very well. I am a student at the Mises Academy. One of my long-term book writing goals is to write at least one history book focusing on my state. Perhaps an economic history of Maryland. Another on my county.
I think those are two worthwhile goals, especially from a pro-liberty/Christian perspective. There will always be libertarians writing revisionist history on a national level. They'll beat me every time. But I don't think anyone is thinking about my county or my state, especially in those ways.
Whenever I type in my county's name into a search engine, only a few books pop up. They're either really slim and general (something you'd find in a tourist shop) or something really old. Stuff like this:
http://www.pghistory.org/onlinestore.php?st=Online-Store
And when I do the same at my county's library website, the books that pop up are really old. John Hopkins University Press has some good stuff, but it's limited.
That is also the link to my local historical society. I think I should join. We also have a state historical society. I think the only problem would be access to university libraries, but I don't know yet. I always wanted historiography as a skill, especially as a journalist. Perhaps a book list on historical research methods and a essential history books are needed here?
Dr. North, I recall your words given at a Mises Institute speech on Rothbard a few years ago. It was something to the effect of "no one can be Rothbard."
I think this is a very good project. I think the site member has made a good start. Rushdoony's book is a good beginning. Anything that David Hackett Fischer writes is going to be good. He is one of the premier historians of America. He asks very intelligent questions, and he researches them prodigiously. His book, Albion's Seed, is a masterpiece.
I also recommend the strategy of getting involved in a local history society. These organizations are very rarely attended by professional historians. The people are interested in antiquarian history. But antiquarian history is history, nonetheless. It is also the kind of history in which a diligent amateur can make a major contribution, because the competition in the local society is minimal, and it has always been minimal.
Of all professional American historians, the one who was the great master of local history, state history, and regional history was James C. Malin. A lot of his books and articles are online, and I would recommend reading all of them. Rushdoony read a lot of them, and he is one of the very few modern scholars who quoted Malin extensively. The other one was Otto Scott, who relied heavily on Malin's book on the secret six in order to write his own book on the secret six. My friend William Marina was a great fan of Malin. Marina wrote the most widely used college-level textbook on the history of Florida.
Read Paul Johnson's History of the American People. Read Clarence Carson's Basic History of the United States. You should read two or three major college-level historical textbooks, but buy them one edition back, without having to pay over a hundred dollars per book. This gives you the guild's view. I recommend Nation of Nations.
You must read Fink & Stark's The Churching of America.
Read anything by C. Gregg Singer. Begin with his history of the National Council of Churches, Unholy Alliance. Download it here.
Read the section on history in Rothbard's Strictly Confidential.
I am now going to give you a tip that almost nobody knows about. Half a century ago, there was a series called the College Outline Series. Barnes & Noble would hire a competent university scholar. It assigned this task: to read a dozen or more college textbooks in a particular field. Then he would write a summary of the general opinion. This way, you could read the equivalent of a Reader's Digest version of the major textbooks in a field. You got the overall view, and you got it fast and cheap. The company stopped producing this series about half a century ago, but it was a great series while it lasted.
Here are three books on American history, as of about 1960. Here, you get an overall view of the establishment historical guild's view of American history at the end of the Eisenhower years.
Colonial history
U.S. history to 1865.
U.S. history since 1865.
Buy a two-volume set of David Muzzey's high school textbook. I like the 1922 edition. Read it. You will get a good overview of the most important historian in American history, the historian whose textbook taught maybe 50 million people, including me.
Buy a copy of Frances FitzGerald's survey of the history of high school textbooks on American history, America Revised.
Local history begins with the files of local newspapers.
Get a scanner. Be sure you scan crucial articles. Make PDF's, or at least OCR copies. I recommend using the DocuPen.
Start a website. Post PDF's of newspaper stories, documents, diaries, etc. Post them on Scribd. Here's how to do this. Then create links to these posted documents. If you want more control, set up a documents site on a cheap website hosting service for $3/month. Call it [Your County/State] Historical Documents.
Keep your views separate from this site. Set up a separate site for this. You can use WordPress.com for all your sites.
Here is a goal: create a Muzzey-like version of the history of your state. Post it online for free as a PDF. Target the grade in which a state history course is required by law: maybe 7th. Buy two of the public school textbooks used to teach this course. Identify the highlights, the way the College Outline Series did. Then create a rival version. The key here is "free." Homeschools must conform to laws on state history. Become the main source in your state.
Create screencast videos. Do live videos from locations of famous historical events in the state. Do a talking-head, on-location welcome for a minute or two. Then do a scripted voice-over. Make it 10 minutes long. There will be official state brochures to cite. These do the grunt work. Post the videos on YouTube.
Teachers are always looking for free materials that will reduce their classroom teaching time. Create a website for this purpose. Gain the teachers' trust with the videos. At the end of each video, refer the viewer to a section (not a page) in your free PDF textbook. (You will change pages when you update it. Keep the sections the same.)
You will become an unofficial expert in state history: the historical sites tour guide who walks people through the state's history. In your free PDF textbook, talk about military battles, political conflicts, business development, or anything you want. Give your interpretation, but support it with links to primary source documents.
Start collecting the visuals/documents now. Visit one site per month. Produce one video per month. Your classroom goal is four original videos a week, times 36 weeks. Then do a summary video at the end of each week. This will take at least ten years. You will age on-screen. To avoid this, do the intros in one year, but not on location. Change your tie/jacket combination with each video.
When you get skilled, do a series of YouTube videos on your research tools and strategies.
Anyone on this website under age 60 could do this. It takes only time and effort. Local history is a great area for ideological activists to get some influence. It's grunt work, but guided by a worldview, it will gain influence. The field is wide-open. There is almost no competition.
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