J. South and all--

I'd say a history amateur is anyone who studies, teaches, or writes 
about history in an amateurish way (and I use the term "amateur" in its 
current pejorative sense): that is, without doing their best to 
exercise the standards of intellectual rigor, completeness, accuracy, 
and, yes, objectivity (including anticipating and responding to 
counter-arguments) that constitute the principles of historical 
professionalism.  Conversely, anyone who adheres to these standards is 
a professional historian, whether or not they have formal institutional 
affiliations or credentials.

For instance, at the risk of embarrassing Henry, based on his 
publications I can point to him as a fine example of a professional 
historian, even though he's not in academia and I don't know whether or 
not he has a Ph.D. (the quality of his research and writing makes that 
irrelevant).

On the other hand, the last several years have seen the exposure of a 
number of supposedly "professional" historians who jeopardized and in 
some cases destroyed their claims to professionalism by plagiarism or 
fraud, in print or in the classroom.  In such instances, they were 
acting as history amateurs, something easy to overlook in a member of 
the general public but egregious in someone who has won public trust 
and personal income as an ostensible professional of the discipline.

As the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan used to say, "everyone is 
entitled to his own opinions, but not to his own facts"--and a stubborn 
fidelity to that distinction, however challenging or personally 
unwelcome, is perhaps the fundamental sign of the difference between 
amateur and professional history.

Here endeth the historiographical sermon--which is itself, of course, 
merely a matter of my own opinion.

--Jurretta



On Apr 13, 2007, at 11:27 AM, Henry Wiencek wrote:

> Read the "Discussion" pages for some of these Wiki entries, and you 
> will
> find out.
>
> HW
>
>> What exactly is a history "amateur"?
>>
>> J South
>>
>