Word: schama
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...Schama, university professor of history and art history at Columbia University, is a veritable superstar of popular academic writing. His sweeping history of the French Revolution, “Citizens,” published in 1989, first established his reputation as a canonical modern historian. His three-volume “History of Britain” cemented his prestige...
...quirks, while notable, are not without precedent; Schama belongs to a school of British-educated historians (specifically those who studied under the legendary John Harold Plumb at Cambridge) who place a refreshing emphasis on literary style—whether it be Linda Colley’s riveting yet sprawling “Captives,” or David Cannadine’s controversial study of the British Empire, “Ornamentalism...
...Schama’s first book since the third volume of “Britain” came out in 2002, and it’s a return to form of the highest order. Instead of resting on his laurels and keeping to well-worn historiographical ruts, Schama seems to be using his fame to push a far more idiosyncratic project...
...greatest fault of the book stems not from its focus, which adds a fascinating dimension to this period of American history, but the tone with which Schama presents his discoveries. The glee with which he points out the hypocrisy of slave-owning “Sons of Liberty” seems a tad excessive; none of this is particularly new to the American historical narrative...
When describing even the admittedly racist South, Schama uses phrases like “theirs was a revolution, first and foremost, mobilized to protect slavery,” taking revisionism beyond corrective steering, into an opposite view of the standard heroic American myth. Of course the reality is more complex—a fact that Schama fairly acknowledges throughout the book—but several of his contentions aim for catchphrase status at the expense of historical fairness...