Crocodile Tears for Military History, and Religious History

All the whining lately about the state of military history gets an excellent response from Mark Grimsley. It reminds me a bit of occasional whining I still hear -- more from the public than the profession -- about how religious history has somehow not been given its due in the academy, or how scholars of faith are hounded or driven out. Time for the p.c. conservatives to get over themselves. If you apply for 3 or 4 academic jobs in a year and don't get one, for god's sake, join the crowd. By this standard, everyone in every field in American history would feel victimized.

Meanwhile, Catherine Brekus's introductory essay ("Searching for Women in Narratives of American Religious History") to the new anthology The Religious History of American Women: Reimagining the Past is a must read for scholars in American religious history. She names names and takes the historiography to task--women's history for not understanding religion, and religious history for continuing to marginalize women. The essays in the volume are strong.