The Premise of Applied History: The work of historians can benefit society, especially the efforts of professionals, advocates, and officials who are pursuing good causes and who are seeking solutions to problems.
What is Applied History and Why is it Important?
Applied History is an umbrella term for the reconfiguring of academic skills in order to . . . .
- . . .enhance the audibility and force of historians’ voices in public discussion and decision-making, by encouraging the deployment of historical understandings in an accessible, energizing, and persuasive style.
- . . . cultivate an effective presentation of self, recognizing that the historian—as a fully present individual—is the primary instrument for transmitting a liberating understanding of how present conditions came to be.
- . . . increase the confidence—as well as well as a talent for anticipating and forestalling risk in historians who aspire to make a difference, and who may or may not have achieved the protection of a tenured faculty position.
- . . . embrace timeliness, bringing historical perspective to bear on conflicts and dilemmas before public attention fades, and opportunities are lost.
- . . . put the complexity of history to work in the otherwise impossible task of transforming antagonists into allies.