History at Harvard

To the Editors of The Crimson:

A few days ago The Crimson published an article about American history at Harvard. The story included a lot of material from earlier Crimson articles. The new elements were statements and opinions your reporter gathered from historians at other institutions. These statements were, of course, all negative. That is no surprise. Condemning Harvard is a well-known sport around the country, and a fairly old one, although it is not usually conducted by invitation. Visibility has its price. I find it interesting that some of the most critical statements you reported were anonymous. Equally interesting, no one bothered to notice that the Harvard History Department has, over the last 10 or 15 years, managed to attract a constant and even increasing student population, when a number of History Departments all over the country have faced a decline which sometimes borders on crisis. Outsiders may not wish to notice these facts; but the Harvard community should be aware of them. And outsiders also might do well to wonder how it is that we have been able to serve the discipline so successfully.

As to the substance of your story, there are some issues on which I should like to comment. First, it is true that there are a number of appointments to be made in the American field, and the Department is fully aware of its responsibility to maintain a high level of scholarship and teaching in this area where we have excelled. Two appointments have been made at the junior faculty level, and I expect senior appointments to be made as well. Secondly, the Harvard colleague whom you quoted was correct when he told you that "The History Department...has tended to want to appoint the best minds they can find...They are less concerned about fields." That is so, broadly speaking, and it applies to the whole Department, not just to American history. I find it easy to justify the principle. Specific subfields may pass the test of time, or they may not. The best historians, however, can be expected to exert a lasting influence upon the discipline, and to train students who in turn become leaders in their fields, new and old. This Department has trained some of the most important historians in the country, including two of the first practitioners of women's history. Finally, I wish to comment on the false dilemma posed by your headline, "A Matter of Breadth versus Depth", and to do so in general terms. Where historians are concerned, breadth and depth are not antithetical concepts. Among the social sciences, history is that discipline whose practitioners most need to combine broad and specific knowledge. The great historians (Marc Bloch, Fernand Braudel, to speak only of the dead) created novel and lasting interpretations by combining profound knowledge of particular topics with a wide factual basis and broad conceptualization. This view of history is, I submit, well worth espousing; and is not an ignoble aspiration for a History Department. Angeliki Laiou   Chairman, History Department