I recently finished Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August, a book about the opening of World War I, and several years ago I also read her A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century. They're both extremely well-written and researched, but it wasn't until I read the introduction to The Guns of August did I realize she wasn't a professional historian; she was originally a journalist but at the time of these books she was a housewife.

Now, I could tell these books were meant for popular consumption because of the writing style — historians like to cut the bullshit and just get to the point, which ultimately results in very dry works — but I was under the impression that she was a professor producing for the masses, like Bart Ehrman's books on Christianity or David McCullough's biographies. She wasn't. She was a smart lady who liked a topic and decided to produce a book about it.

And I didn't realize it, but the introduction told me she experienced a backlash from the academic community. Today she's viewed as a significant authority — she came to my attention thanks to my own professor — so it's difficult for me to imagine how she could be rejected. I'll admit there are times I've read popular history and think it's not meant for me, but that's because I can sense whilst reading it the person isn't an expert and is just rehashing what the actual experts say. Tuchman used primary sources. She wasn't reiterating other great WWI scholars said.

I think there's something to be said for college degrees because it guarantees a standard when you're hiring someone. But simultaneously I think people forget that just because you don't have a college degree doesn't mean you're incapable of what someone with a college degree does. You can argue that history is the easier subject because that just involves reading books, but I'd counter that with math it's just solving equations or Einstein came up with his greatest theories just sitting around and having "thought experiments."

I think instead of people becoming defensive, like a biologist writing something about chemistry and chemists becoming all snooty about it, people should just appreciate what you see. Tuchman's work is definitely meant for the educated layman, no doubt about that. But that doesn't mean it's a piece of crap. I can think of a lot of popular books that are fucking amazing. If I were a professor, I'd definitely recommend Diarmaid MacCulloch's A History of Christianity or Jeffrey Rosen's The Supreme Court. And Tuchman knew her position. In fact, she reveled in it. She felt that academics lost touch with what writing is and only produced boring works that were meant for their closed group of people. If scholars were criticizing her for not being like them, then she must be doing something right.

Of course, I have to look at today's world and see if I'm biased. For example, I'm faced with someone like David Barton, who says he's a constitutional historian. His background is not in history but rather religious education (aka he's a minister). And he's the forefront of many conservative arguments against the idea of separation of church and state. Right now he's receiving venom from scholars who say he's basically a revisionist and even his publisher withdrew his book about Jefferson because of lack of concrete evidence.

I'm trying to figure out if this is the latest Tuchman. My background in American history is poor at best, so I can't look at his books and judge the veracity. Maybe he is practicing revisionist history. But then again, who isn't? Historiography proves every generation sees their history differently. Again, maybe this guy is really just talking bullshit. To be honest I've never read anything of his so I can't even critique his style. But just because he hasn't gone through the schools I'm not gonna disavow him. Because I saw from Tuchman something beautiful, and I hope someone else can do the same.