September 21, 2001

Historians Should Take Stands to Stay Relevant

By ALICE KESSLER-HARRIS

"Relevance" used to be a despised word among historians -- so problematic that most of us no longer use it. Our job, it was long thought, was to write as if we were omniscient outsiders, to interpret a process or event with all the sources available to us, and to draw conclusions as if we had neither preconceived notions nor political personae. But I've noticed lately that perfectly respectable historians, though they no longer talk about relevance, are using their historical research and

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