Brent Anderson: Study of history now focuses more on politics

I wish I hadn’t. On George Washington’s birthday, Feb. 22, it links to a list of the 100 “must-reads” about the Middle Ages by Erika Harlitz-Kern at bookriot.com. I duck-ducked her, and she is a professor at Florida International University and a freelance writer.

It turns out the list, obsessed with sex, identity politics, and The Other, is meant to overturn stereotypes that the European Christian Middle Ages were, well, European and Christian. But that’s not what I saw on the Twitter entry.

As one who spent several years as an amateur reader of this time period, I found the best place to begin is with the gifted historian Norman Cantor, a judicious, polished writer with wide and deep knowledge of the time period. I consider the late Professor Cantor as one of the outstanding historians of the 20th Century. He’s terrific.

Where were Norman Cantor’s notable books, such as Inventing the Middle Ages or The Civilization of the Middle Ages, on Harlitz-Kern’s fraudulent list? No where.

The sad thing is Cantor is not reticent in dealing with the very topics that Harlitz-Kern is trying to highlight. For example, the precarious Jewish existence in the Christian Middle Ages. Cantor himself was Jewish. One of the books on the list I highly recommend is the one by Hyam Maccoby, Judaism on Trail.

The fact that a local library links to a misguided effort that so misses the mark is a small example that reveals much. We are living in a time of civilizational collapse. It’s not easy to see it — it’s too obvious.

Studying history at a college or university has now become less about history and more about politics. Not worth one’s time or money methinks.

Brent Anderson

Moultonborough