The Triumph of “Fake” History

Here’s a fun fact: Not surprisingly, after being trashed and trampled by the Left for several generations, there has been a downward spiral in the study of history on American campuses from 18 percent in 1971 to 9 percent today, according to historian Daniel Pipes. And, according to the American Historical Association, the reason appears to coincide with the percentage of historians who specialize in women and gender, which has risen from 1% to nearly 10% during the past 40 years.

Not surprisingly, the study of gender is the most important subfield in the academy, followed by cultural history and environmental history, the study of how human shape their environment and are shaped by it. The losers in this cluster, according to Pipes, are international history, legal and constitutional history and intellectual history.

The results? Among the survivors is a Harvard course called “Emotions in History,” which deals with two approaches: How to write the history of emotions and how emotions affect the writing of history. You get the drift. Not surprisingly, the class currently consists of one student. Meanwhile, a couple of choice “history” offerings at Yale include “Witchcraft and Society in Colonial America” and “History of the Supernatural.”

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