Book Review: Being a Historian - James Banner

When students start down a career path, towards say being a lawyer or a doctor, there are distinct expectations, explicit learning of skills, and practicum that are given elements in their education. That might not be the case for nascent historians. James Banner’s Being a Historian: An Introduction to the Professional World of History tells an advisory tale of a discipline that often ignores its own history and neglects to fully develop its greenhorns, who are often left to learn their craft on their own. While Banner expresses many things that have gone wrong, or been neglected, as the discipline of history has developed, he also speaks of a discipline that has a lot of promise and opportunities for up and coming historians.

Historians share the same discipline, but not necessarily the same professions. Banner’s account of the discipline begins with historical work practiced by civic groups such as historical societies and with the development of academic history. He then winds through the evolution and maturation of public history. Central to Banner’s thesis regarding the trajectory of the discipline is the idea that when faced with opportunities to be more of a force in the public sphere, the discipline has slipped back into the walls of academia. This was especially true after historians had done a significant amount of government and other public history work during the 1940s, only to retreat once their public efforts were complete. Public history grew throughout the 20th Century with the increasing availability in government jobs, private industry, and cultural institutions. Banner credits public history with innovative developments in the discipline including oral history and public history. Public history “works to deepen the public’s living consciousness of its past in ways that members of the public request, not because of the current trajectories of historiography.”

            

The relationship between academic history and secondary education is flawed. Banner recognizes that, “Classroom instruction may be the only time in their lives that students have the chance to become alert to the fundamentally problematic and contingent nature of all historical knowledge.” Ultimately though, secondary teachers are “lacking in deep knowledge of their subjects.” Academic historians must endure the burden “to resuscitate a love of historical knowledge that has been often seriously injured if not killed in school.” The universities do not shirk blame here as they often fail to develop historians’ teaching and writing skills. However, Banner notes that history students do a fine job plodding through the process and learning the necessary skills, regardless of how well the academy prepares them for professional life.

            

Long past due, Banner’s work here on the remarkable issues the discipline should address is the retrospect that should be in the forethought of history students. Furthermore, the responsibility of academic historians to bolster secondary educational experiences for teachers and students should take top priority. Great significance must be placed on positive learning experiences. It all but guarantees better quality post secondary students and consumers of historical knowledge. This book is important, because it highlights the promise of the discipline, whether one finds oneself in academia or working in public history.