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…
Category: Formation Essay
H-Diplo Essay 327- Lloyd E. Ambrosius on Learning the Scholar’s Craft
Growing up on a farm in west-central Illinois, near the town of Augusta where I attended high school, I never imagined that I would become a professor of history at a major university. My father taught history at a different high school, but I took only the required course in this subject as it was…
H-Diplo Essay 325- Sara McLaughlin Mitchell on Learning the Scholar’s Craft
My interests in global politics were sparked at a young age while growing up in north central Iowa. Farming communities are keenly aware of events in world politics that can affect the price of crops, land, and equipment. My parents were informed and engaged in politics and got me interested in participating in and studying…
H-Diplo Essay 322- Audrey Kurth Cronin on Learning the Scholar’s Craft
At the beginning of my career, I had strong ideas about what I wanted to do and research, none of which outlived the realities I met. Unexpected adventures, enormous opportunities, huge historical shifts, and serendipitous encounters helped me ‘learn the scholar’s craft.’ The drive of my own intellect may have been the least important factor. …
H-Diplo Essay 316- Margaret MacMillan on Learning the Scholar’s Craft
We should be wary when we look back at our own lives and try to discern a pattern. Historians know that one of the common fallacies in looking at the past is to assume that things were bound to turn out as they did, to see a chain of causality in what may be random…
H-Diplo Essay 313- Marc Trachtenberg on Learning the Scholar’s Craft
I was born on February 9, 1946, the same day that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin gave a speech which U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas famously called a “declaration of World War III.”[1] This was a bit of an exaggeration, but the Stalin speech was certainly one of the opening shots in the Cold…
H-Diplo Essay 312- Valerie M. Hudson on Learning the Scholar’s Craft
I never imagined I’d become a political scientist. As a child, my passion was for paleontology, and I pored over my books on fossils and dinosaurs until the pages were tattered all along the edges. Today, while I do have an impressive rock and mineral collection and I know where my loupe and rock pick…
H-Diplo Essay 309- Adom Getachew on Learning the Scholar’s Craft
It is difficult to pinpoint the moment at which I decided to pursue a Ph.D. in Political Science or to focus on political theory. I think of it more as a slow drift. I grew up until 13 in Ethiopia and Botswana. My dad, a biologist, taught at Addis Ababa University (AAU) and the University…
H-Diplo Essay 307- Mary Dudziak on Learning the Scholar’s Craft
Reader: this H-Diplo series is full of great examples. Outstanding scholars with inspiring and even heartwarming stories that might inform your own journey. This one is the counter-example. I must confess: I did everything wrong.
H-Diplo Essay 304- Alice L. Conklin on Learning the Scholar’s Craft
Becoming an intellectual historian of France’s modern overseas empire, and its legitimating discourses, was perhaps overdetermined in my case. I was born in a small Midwestern town near Peoria in the late 1950s, and my family of seven (the fifth sibling was still in utero) moved to the Netherlands for five years when I was…
