Wow, that sounds incredibly taxing, having to balance all those competing interests, especially given your ultimate goal is to help real people. Must be especially hard to balance the parent-child relationship against your own expertise and goals. Such commendable work.

For my part, I've been in all sorts of environments, so I too appreciate shifting perspectives.

I'm a black male and went first to been to private schools with mostly wealthy whites, then to public school with working class whites, then to high school at the height of racial tensions due to primarily to bussing.

I remember a sign, hand-written, on the door of my corner store, during the Iran hostage crisis: "If you are Iranian, stay out! Free all hostages now!"

Very chilling, needless to say. Prior to that, I'd seen "colored only" in books, but to see such animosity in real life (I must have been about 7) was something of a loss of innocence moment.

I've lived abroad, am married to a European, have relatives in the projects.

So certainly a major attraction to Obama for me is that I identify with him.

And I identify viscerally with Michelle's comments about not having been steeped in having pride in America.

I wish people could appreciate why for black people, even black people who have managed an extraordinary degree of success, such feelings of caution always remain, feelings that one will be vulnerable no matter what one's apparent successes.

Jewish friends of mine get it.

Ah, so much work to do to get us understanding one another.

So much work.

Yes, I choose hope.

And on that note, goodnight to you, and thank you so much for the heartening conversation. Keep fighting the good fight (for Obama, but more importantly for your kids!) and I'll see you around.

(Oh, and I googled "unschooling," btw. It looks interesting. Is it related to homeschooling? I have a kid in kindergarten, so this is of deep interest to me. Perhaps some time you can educate me about this)

And goodnight to you too, Fester, lurking around.

:)

Thanks for making me feel welcome around here.

I just wanted to say that I appreciate your argument. I'm not quite convinced by it, but I recognize the points you're trying to make.

But more than that, I appreciate your response to unschooler. There's been so much acrimony around here that I think it's important to recognize when acrimony is avoided. Thank you for keeping the tone civil, even in (especially in) disagreement.

I'm an historian myself, and I did catch the New Yorker piece.

So much to be said on this topic, of course, but I'll just say this. Lloyd writes: "We don't get any answers from Lepore, but her essay raises intriguing questions. Although Lepore isn't advocating the dismantling of evidence-based history, she does suggest that modern historians would do well to learn something from fiction writers:"

I'd just call your attention to a little begging the question here. Part of the point of what's come to be called the linguistic turn or cultural history is that the evidence must fit the question.

In other words, it's not about evidence-based history v. non-evidence based history, but rather about placing the focus on the question evidence of what?

The problem the linguistic turn has responded to is the question of what sources tell us and perhaps more importantly, what they conceal.

The crudest of "evidence-based" history might be likened to the Washington press corps: historians were little more than glorified stenographers, relying on archival skills (languages, paleography, codicology, etc.) to write history. This meant, essentially, presenting the raw data found in manuscripts in digest form, with attention to chronology and the most basic "facts" of "what happened."

Nothing wrong with this.

But the basic narrative having been established, cultural historians answer different questions, questions to do with the significance of what happened as well as questioning whether the sources from which the basic narrative has been written were as reliable as 18th and 19th century historians thought they were. Were these historians stenographers (like the White House press corps) or did they actually question the stories their documents told them?

Ok, that's enough.

Forgive me if I'm not being lucid here. It's still challenging for me to articulate all of this to non-historians and non-academics.

Thank you, Ms. Lloyd, for introducing this fascinating and of course, as I see it, critically important topic.

"Adding a divorced Jewish billionaire who is the mayor of Sodom and Gomorr -- uh, I mean New York City -- seems like a potential hindrance, rather than a real help."

I love it!

Recalls Annie Hall "You know the rest of this country thinks of us a a bunch of Jewish left-wing communist homosexual pornographers. I think of us that way sometimes and I live here!"

"To which one could respond -- back in 1980, Ronald Reagan announced a series of broad, vague principles, and then proceeded to drastically change the direction of American politics and economics. If we take both Clinton and Obama at their word, we have Clinton promising a boatload of quick fixes, and Obama promising a profound change of course. What unites them, in opposition to McCain, is that both understand that the U.S. is facing a real problem."

Thank you, Mr. Leonard, for a truly penetrating and fair-minded analysis.

I think you hit upon the fundamental differences between Obama and Clinton.

The "gift basket" metaphor is apt.

Thanks for a lucid and concise analysis.

It's refreshing.

Thank you!

I often wonder why, since Clinton is running on the 1990s, there isn't more of an examination of precisely what that legacy is.

As one who never supported Bill Clinton for the reasons you invoke, I'd love to see this election actually be a referendum on her husband's legacy, both to the Democratic party as well as to the country in general.

Yeee hawww!!