"Standing Up in a Canoe": Historians' Unsteady Place in a Public World

Abstract

This essay reflects on Baick’s efforts to occupy what is often an unsteady position of a historian in the rough waters of the public sphere. From teaching teachers to talking to civic groups to media interviews, he has spent most of his academic career pursuing the role of a public intellectual. Providing nuance and complexity to the political and cultural issues of the day has become as important as traditional academic areas such as scholarship, teaching, and professional service.

Keywords

• historians as public intellectuals
• academics and tv appearances
• history and public pedagogy
• transnational american studies
• jtas