Two-time defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld famously remarked that there are known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns.[2] Scholars and researchers aim at the known unknowns but should remain receptive to the unknown unknowns that may reveal themselves and upend the analysis. Be open to those who disagree; sometimes they are right. Reassessment is a virtue…
Category: Formation Essay
H-Diplo Essay 366- Mire Koikari on Learning the Scholar’s Craft
“So how do you compare women’s status in the U.S. and Japan?” Despite advance preparation, I had not anticipated this question. I froze. No, I was not defending my master’s thesis. The question was posed by an immigration officer at Milwaukee International Airport. I was returning to the University of Wisconsin, Madison, after a winter…
H-Diplo Essay 365- Carole Fink on Learning the Scholar’s Craft
It is an honor to join my distinguished colleagues in relating my career as an historian; but it is also a daunting task to create a useful and coherent narrative of the paths I have followed.
H-Diplo Essay 359- Steven Aftergood on Learning the Scholar’s Craft
When I arrived at UCLA as a 16-year-old undergraduate in 1973, the first Moon landing was still a vivid memory. It seemed to herald wonderful possibilities, and even in retrospect it remains an amazing achievement—something altogether new in human history. Although the astronauts who set foot on the lunar surface were nominally the heroes of…
H-Diplo Essay 352- Priya Satia on Learning the Scholar’s Craft
Agency is what we seek to understand as historians: the demiurge of that disciplinary holy grail, causality. Who or what stirs the cauldron of change? When and how? When we reflect on our own lives, the elusive nature of that power becomes even more palpable. How did I become this thing, a historian of modern…
H-Diplo Essay 350- Lawrence Freedman on Learning the Scholar’s Craft
I was born in 1948 and grew up in the north-east of England at a time when its two major industries – mining and shipbuilding – were in decline. My father had joined the Royal Navy in 1938 as a regular officer. This was quite an achievement for a working-class Jew. He served through the…
H-Diplo Essay 348- Tanisha M. Fazal on Learning the Scholar’s Craft
From about the time I was twelve, my father and I would stay up late during summer nights discussing politics. As an immigrant to the U.S., he focused our conversations around international relations, although I didn’t quite realize it at the time. Our talks ranged from the political to the personal. I remember clearly a…
H-Diplo Essay 346- Laurien Crump on Learning the Scholar’s Craft
“Do they do the Cold War in Utrecht?” was the first question I was asked after braving a cloud of volcanic ash to arrive at the prestigious International Graduate Student Conference on the Cold War in Washington DC in April 2010. Such was my enthusiasm to join, that I took my suitcase to Amsterdam Airport…
H-Diplo Essay 342- Leila J. Rupp on Learning the Scholar’s Craft
I didn’t set out to become a transnational historian, but then again, I’m not sure anyone did in the 1970s. My story begins with women’s history. In 1969, after my first year at Bryn Mawr College and a summer in Cambridge, Massachusetts, studying French, where I first saw a poster for what was then called…
H-Diplo Essay 337: Carolyn J. Dean on Learning the Scholar’s Craft
Many of the essays in the series “Learning the Scholar’s Craft” suggest that for a number of scholars, “learning” depends as much on mentorship, intuition, and luck as it does on the research subjects one pursues. In this respect, my trajectory was no exception. When I went to college, I understood very quickly that intellectual…
