20 Years On

So I just started War Against War about the American peace movement during the Great War. So far so good.

The author is a pretty well known progressive historian and was my thesis adviser at American University. It was 25 years ago this spring that I graduated HS,something we've been meaning to write about, and 20 years ago this spring that I dropped out of American University.

For academic and personal reasons my college career exploded. It had nothing to do with unsavory pursuits. Mostly I was sick of college, sick of school, and sick of what was for me then, a lifetime of being sick of school. Maybe we'll go into more detail about that in another post.

Fatigue and bad planning were the culprits, I guess. Also a young man's laziness.

 American University is not something I've talked abut much in the last 20 years.

Anyway, Professor Kazin's thesis class ran two semesters. Obviously, we discussed history on our way to writing a 50 page thesis. Mine was titled, 'President Polk and the Decision to go to War with Mexico'. I earned a B +.

Alert readers will notice that Professor Kazin is an old style progressive lefty of the Steve and Elise Keaton bent. How was he in class confronting a student who was much more brazenly and openly conservative than the author you read? He was absolutely fair. Looking and recalling I don't even think he liked me at all. It didn't matter he was professional.

Professor Kazin presented history interpretation  (historiography) issues and asked us to work our way through them. He never gave his opinion and seemed interested in fairness above all else. See for example the Smithsonian Enola Gay controversy.

Good for him. We'll report on Professor Kazin's book later in the week.