This is my “field notebook.” Historians produce incredible work that almost nobody outside the academy reads, and historians like me absolutely love, write down, and cite, but often forget where we put it when we want to use it casually in a conversation. I got tired of constantly searching my undergraduate sheet notes, my Dropbox files, Google Drive, etc for old monographs I’ve read.
This notebook takes the best passages from the scholarship I’ve read and gives readers the context they need to understand why it matters. Each post centers a primary or secondary source passage, provides historiographical context, and offers expert commentary.
For readers, consider this a personal exhibit of scholarship I read. For me, it’s a much more streamlined way to finally find that one perfect quote I lost a decade and a half ago in my Renaissance History notebook that would be perfect for this conversation.