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A Plea for Political History
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
Extract
“I am not a politician, and my other habits are good.” This statement appeared almost twenty years ago in a serious book about The American Political Scene, and it reflects a widespread opinion in the United States today. The term “politician” widely connotes evil, corruption, and crass self-aggrandisement at public expense. Politics is frequently looked upon as a disreputable profession; and political history is often considered dull, meaningless, and insignificant, especially when compared with economic history, intellectual history, or that unpredictable mosaic called social history. This state of things appears curious in view of these facts: that government plays a larger role in our lives than ever before and that politics is the process by means of which governmental policies are formulated. Indeed, it might well be argued that it is a regrettable and even an indefensible state of things if, as seems likely, “big government” is here to stay.
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- Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1955
References
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2 Depreciation of political history is more evident in the lower schools than at the college level, although in the latter it appears to be growing, with economic, intellectual, and social history gaining the ascendancy.
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