A Normal Person's Guide to Understanding a Historical Topic

As a historian, I love encouraging people to pursue self-study of historical topics they're into.  I'm sure, though, that approaching a subject you're not familiar with can be daunting.  I feel the same way when trying to delve into stuff I'm not familiar with.  Where do you even start?

For that purpose, I decided to put together a step by step guide to what I consider a good path to becoming well-versed on a particular historical topic.  A guide to getting your black belt in casual history studies, if you will.  Following these steps, you'll be able to have a genuinely strong grasp of your subject of choice.  You'll even be able to hold a conversation with experts.

A disclaimer, though: this is about becoming well-versed on a specific topic.  Stuff like Reconstruction, the Great Depression, the Napoleonic Wars, the Mexican Revolution, or the Ming Treasure Voyages.  If you want to learn about a more general topic- say "colonial Spain" or "feudal Japan" or "20th Century United States"- then you can follow these same steps, but you'll have to increase the number of resources you use at every step of the way.  The broader your interest, the more research you should do on it.

Anyway, let's dive in!  I'll use the topic of Reconstruction to give examples for each step.

Step One: Familiarity

The first step is to become acquainted with your topic on a basic level.  Even if it's something you have a vague notion of, you'll want to refresh yourself on the basics.  You may have bits and pieces of a topic you know about, but it's always good to start from the ground up.  To keep with the martial arts metaphor, you've got to learn the day-one basics (while also unlearning bullshit) before you can move onto anything else.

In a way, this is the most important step.  Like putting on a white belt your first day in a martial arts class, you're entering new territory.  Because of that, you want to start with things that are easy: short articles and videos.  For articles, History.com is always a solid starting place.  For videos, I'd highly recommend the Crash Course series on YouTube if they have a video about your topic of interest. 

Whatever sources you end up at, make sure the information can be traced back to a historian or history book!

So, if you were studying Reconstruction, you might look at this article from History.com, then watch this Crash Course video.  Then you might check out this Lloyd Sealy Library page of important events and figures in Reconstruction, and watch the Crash Course Black History video about Reconstruction, which overlaps with the other Crash Course video but approaches the topic from a slightly different angle.  You'll notice as you go through these different sources that each mentions specific information that others don't.  By checking out these various sources, you're getting a well-balanced diet of information!

Step Two: Getting Some Detail

Now that you have a basic familiarity with the topic, it's time to understand it in a little more detail.  You want to get a little more specific, including incorporating the very beginnings of thinking like a historian.  This is how you get your first belt beyond your white belt.

Starting off, you'll want to read longer articles and watch longer videos, including things like documentaries, interviews with historians, and/or explorations of specific history books.  You'll also want to look up easy to digest primary sources.  Speeches are a great resource for this, as well as photographs and writings from the time.  By looking at the longer articles and videos, you'll be absorbing more information.  By looking at primary sources, on the other hand, you'll actually get to hear the voices of the people you're studying.  This is an invaluable part of being a historian, because you're getting a picture of the time period directly from the source.

A good thing to start doing here is to also see who are some of the best historians of your topic.  A quick Google of "best historians of [your topic]" will often bring good results.

So, for example, you might read this Jacobin article about Reconstruction that goes a little more in depth than the quick write-ups we saw in the last section.   Then you might read or listen to this interview with Eric Foner, arguably the greatest living historian on Reconstruction.  Afterward, you could watch this American Experience documentary about Reconstruction.  Finally, you could check out speeches by Andrew Johnson, the president who tried to oppose Reconstruction; Ulysses Grant, the president after Johnson who supported Reconstruction; Thaddeus Stevens, the Congressional leader who rallied support for Reconstruction; and Frederick Douglass, the formerly enslaved person who became a national orator and strong advocate of Reconstruction.

Step Three: Getting Some Depth

At this point, you're really starting to get to know your topic.  You're getting to know it well enough that you're even starting to see where different sources agree and disagree on how to understand it (keep that in mind as you move forward, it'll become important later).  You're also starting to get a good grasp of some of the important voices from that time period, giving you an immediate, personal understanding of it that isn't just academic.  Even just by making it this far, you could genuinely say you understand your topic.

But now it's time to dig a bit deep.

Watch another documentary and/or listen to a podcast about your topic.  With the podcast, like with everything else, make sure like with everything else you can trace it back to a specific history book or historian to make sure you're not listening to bullshit. Then get your hands on a short biography about someone from the time period.  You could even use a biography from the "Who Was...?" series of biographies aimed at younger readers.  Or, if there's a relatively short biography written for adults, you could check that out.  After that, check out primary sources that are a little more challenging than speeches and journal entries.  Things like excerpts from laws, political platforms/declarations, newspaper articles, and transcripts of important events.

So, with Reconstruction, you could watch this Nashville Public Television documentary about Reconstruction.  Then you can watch this National Museum of African American History & Culture conversation about the book "Black Reconstruction" by WEB Du Bois, one of the great original works about the topic, featuring Eric Foner and Henry Louis Gates Jr (arguably the other best living Reconstruction historian next to Foner).  After that you'd move onto, perhaps, the "Who Was...?" biography about president Ulysses Grant.  Finally, you could look up the text of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments of the US Constitution (which are less difficult and boring than they sound).

(Note: you may be tempted, if you're studying Reconstruction, to look up "The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass" as part of your research here.  While that's a fantastic read and I'd highly recommend it generally, that memoir only goes up to a little after his escape from slavery.  It doesn't go up to the time period of Reconstruction, so it won't help you too much for this specific topic)

Step Four: Getting Some Genuine Understanding

If you've made it this far, you're truly passionate about your topic, which I applaud.  You're already at the point where you know more about the topic than the great majority of people.  You're already thinking like a historian in that you're absorbing information, comparing notes on each source of information, and studying substantial primary sources from the time period.

But if you want to keep going, keep on reading.

The next step is to review some of the bigger secondary sources you've gone through and ask: where do they agree and disagree?  What kind of information does each source include or not include?  Who gets the spotlight in each source?  How do they frame the topic and events within?

After that, you're going to take a pretty big step.  You're going to read an actual history book about your topic.  Once again, like with the historians you've looked up, you'll want to research what the best books are for your topic and choose from htere.  As you read the, ask yourselves the same questions I posted up above for your other sources.  You want to not only read the book to learn what it has to teach you, but also see where it does and doesn't overlap with what else ou've read.  This is the sort of things historians in training do in graduate school.

When it comes to Reconstruction, this is an easy one.  The two best books are the aforementioned "Black Reconstruction" by WEB Du Bois and "Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution" by Eric Foner.  Though if you want reads that are shorter, you can read "A Short History of Reconstruction" by Eric Foner and "Stony the Road" by Henry Louis Gates Jr.  Both of those are pretty concise while still being substantive.

Step Five: Expertise

Everything you've done up to this point has put you past 99% of people who have ever lived when it comes to understanding your topic.  Seriously.  As far as laypeople go, you are an expert.  I mean, it's one thing to put effort into history as a historian, but to go out of your way this much when it's not even something you're trained to do?  That is super cool.  You have a lot to be proud of.

But let's say you want to get your black belt as a hobby historian.  How would you go about doing that?

Choose two more history books to read, and ask the same questions of them you have asked about the first book and every other source you've read.  On top of that, read another book about a specific aspect of your topic.  It could be a biography, or it could be another history book that just covers a sub-topic of your greater topic.

So, finishing up our Reconstruction example, let's say you decided to read "A Short History of Reconstruction" by Eric Foner before.  You would now read "Black Reconstruction" by Du Bois and "Stony the Road" by Henry Louis Gates Jr.  After that, you could maybe check out "The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass", which is his autobiography written in his old age that encompasses all of his life, rather than just his escape from slavery and early activism that is covered in his earlier, more famous memoir, "The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass."  Or you could read "Capital Men: The Epic Story of Reconstruction Through the Lives of the First Black Congressmen" by Philip Dray, which has a pretty self-explanatory title.  Or you could read "The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the American Constitution" by Eric Foner, another self-explanatory title.

Closing Thoughts

I am only a blue belt in the martial art I train in, but one thing I've heard black belts say is that once you get your black belt, it's almost like a new beginning.  Your black belt doesn't mean you know everything.  Rather, depending on how you look at it, you could see it as meaning you no longer need to even think about rankings at all.  You've cleared the final hurdle.  Now you can just keep exploring because of your love of learning.

As a historian, I can relate to that.  Granted, depending on who you ask, a PhD may be considered your actual black belt.  But as someone with an MA in history who teaches it, constantly reads it, co-hosts a podcast about it, and is in the process of writing a book about it, I feel content with my relationship to history as it is. I continue to explore and learn and write about it not because I'm thinking about clearing another hurdle or getting any sort of official credential, but because I love it as a discipline.

If you've made it this far, I think it's safe to say you do, too.  As someone who wishes society taught us to be more historically minded, I want to thank you for your interest in the topic.  We're in turbulent times, and I think historical perspective is an incredibly important tool for as many as people as possible to have.  So whatever role you play in becoming historically informed, it is my belief you're doing a great service to yourself and others, including me in an indirect way.  Every decision we make has ripple effects, even if they're invisible to us.  You choosing to learn from those who came before us and grow from it helps everyone.

Thanks for reading! 

Modern Masterpiece: Moonlight

I love movies.  I think film as a medium is one of our greatest art forms; nothing else quite captures all the senses together the way it does.  Over a century after its birth, there are enough impact-making movies that people around the world spend lifetimes studying and dissecting them.  It's right up there with music as one of the most popular art forms that bring people together across the globe.

When it comes to movies made during the 21st Century, one stands above the rest to me: Moonlight.  Written and directed by Barry Jenkins, it tells the story of Chiron, a gay black kid in Miami.  That story is told in three segments, following Chiron as a child, teenager, and adult.  It received rave reviews, and even won the Oscar for best picture- only the second movie with a black director to ever do so.  To me, the hype is fully worth it.

One thing I love about this movie is how many layers it has.  You could watch it from tons of different vantage points, with different ideas about what it's supposed to be about, and come away each time with something a little different to chew on by movie's end.  To me, there are three main ways to see this movie: as a movie about a queer, black protagonist; as a movie about a protagonist with a drug addicted parent; and as a movie about a quiet, gentle boy in an often ugly world that forces him to close himself off to it.

Queer, Black Protagonist

The most immediate, and arguably most meaningful, layer of Moonlight is, of course, as a story of a queer black boy/man.  As someone who is neither queer nor black, I won't spend too much time here, as there isn't much I can say that a queer black writer couldn't say with more more perspective and insight.  In fact, here is a write up by just such a writer.  I will leave you with a great excerpt from the piece, though I'd urge everyone to check out the whole thing:

"Growing up in North Philadelphia, I was like Chiron. I did not exude traditional masculinity or fit into black male cliques. Although I existed on the margins, I was never alone. My childhood was filled with people like the movie’s Juan and Theresa, people who saw me as I was, offered protection, and guided me into adulthood. I have known my own versions of the character Kevin, who befriended me even though I was not the archetype of masculine bravado. “Moonlight” revealed to me how my coming out was not an individual act, but one that was supported and facilitated in part by my community.

“Moonlight” captures the beauty of blackness. The movie forces us to interrogate and expand our conceptions of black masculinity, but it also presents a new image of the black community for us to consume. It locates queerness, compassion, and love throughout the black community, shining an intersectional spotlight on queer lives.

Through the transitions of Chiron’s life, it explores the bonds that endure. In the moonlight, we see black, queer life at the center of the black community. In the moonlight, I can more clearly see myself and those who have stood next to me all my life."

Protagonist with a Drug Addicted Parent

I grew up with a father addicted to crack-cocaine.  To say it wasn't easy is an understatement, but what matters more in this case is how deeply it affects someone who grows up that way.  To have a parental figure, who is supposed to be the embodiment of care, responsibility, and safety, end up being the opposite of those things most of the time.  Of course, there are good moments and bad moments, especially when your addicted parent is a good person underneath who just doesn't have their life together- but ultimately, it's an experience that leaves a deep impact.

One thing that Chiron develops in this movie is a quiet independence that many children of addicted people develop because they've subconsciously learned that vocalizing their needs and wants won't necessarily work for them.  This isn't a rugged independence, but a withdrawn one.  Combined with Chiron's queerness, which already makes him a target of exclusion, the quiet independence one can develop in these circumstances can cause us to drift apart from people.  Because if we can't trust our own parents to be there for us, how can we trust other people?  How can we know we'll be safe and cared for by someone else if it's not that way at home?  This is a big part of what Chiron has to struggle with.

The third act of this movie begins with Chiron's mother in recovery.  When a parent starts to recover from addiction, it's a beautiful thing.  It's also a complicated thing.  In the hands of a lesser filmmaker, this recovery scene would end with a big apology and Chrion either accepting it with a dramatic embrace of his mom, marking that period of his life as "closed" because of the healing power of forgiveness, or he rejects it, launching into a self-righteous tirade where she's put in her place.  Instead he quietly listens.  It's implied he accepts, but we also see through his inability to articulate his feelings how deeply the damage is already done.  This isn't the end of anything.  It's just the beginning.

I cry every once in a while at movies.  But this is the only movie scene that can make me bawl.

Having a parent recovering from addiction means you become their cheerleader, the way they should've been for you when you were younger.  It's a weird role reversal.  You're relieved the chaos of their addiction no longer has power over your family; you're proud of your parent for the progress they've made; you're sad about the lost time; you're angry about all the pain you've been through; you're uncertain, perhaps even uncomfortable, about needing to be a responsible pillar of support for your own parent.  But, whichever reaction you feel strongest, the effects of what you went through in childhood are still there.  Nothing your parent does can undo that.  It will always be a part of both of you; you just have to learn to make peace with it.

Quiet Boi Protagonist

In 1963, beloved heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson, nicknamed "The Gentleman of Boxing", was set to defend his title against the "thug" Sonny Liston.  It was the ultimate showdown between a "good" black man vs a "bad" black man.  The writer James Baldwin went to interview each of them before the fight.  This is part of what Baldwin said of Liston, the "bad" black man:

"While there is a great deal of violence in him, I sensed no cruelty at all. On the contrary, he reminded me of big, black men I have known who acquired the reputation of being tough in order to conceal the fact that they weren't hard. Anyone who cared to could turn them into taffy."

To throw out maybe the understatement of the century, the world can be a cruel place.  It can be especially hard for boys who are sensitive and gentle.  Particularly when, after these boys don't react to hardships and injustices with posturing or violence, the world reacts with discomfort and bewilderment.  Boys are supposed to respond with, as the writer I quoted earlier put it, "masculine bravado" to their problems.  A sad, melancholy first grade boy with damp eyes often makes people far more uncomfortable than an angry, aggressive first grade boy trying to take his rage out on the world.  This creates an incentive for boys to- as Baldwin masterfully puts it- act tough in order to conceal the fact they aren't hard. 

Chiron isn't hard.  He simply wants some tenderness in his life, and retreats within himself when the world doesn't allow him the vulnerability enough to signal for it.  In the first act, he has two mentors who allow him to be comfortable with himself, but one of them dies.  In the second act, we see his gentleness often taken advantage of until he is driven to his breaking point.  By the start of the third act, what Baldwin says of Liston also applies to Chiron.  He has became a drug dealer who takes shit from no one.  There's such a deep tragedy to it because we know exactly how he got there.  We might also ask how many young black drug dealers just like Chiron end up in prison after the world has closed off so many other doors to them, but that's a subject for a different post.

As we get to know this life Chiron has created, we see just how deep his toughness goes- but also his loneliness, his isolation from others.  But hope is not lost.  Kevin, a bisexual friend from high school who played a painful role pushing Chiron to his breaking point as a teen, contacts Chiron.  Chiron goes to visit Kevin at his job.  Kevin cooks for him: a symbol of healing and nourishment after everything Chiron has been through.  Chiron still doesn't break the tough, stoic exterior he's been forced to cultivate his entire adult life, but there are at least cracks.  When they go back to Kevin's place, the inarticulate Chiron finally confides to Kevin that he hasn't even been held since their days together as teenagers.  The movie ends not with a Hallmark confession of love and romantic kissing, but with Kevin holding Chiron.

It's a perfect ending that seems understated, but for Chiron is an explosion.  It's a knocking down of walls.  It's the proof that behind that tough man is still that gentle boy.  It's him taking a moment to be vulnerable and human no matter how much he has been made to suffer for it.  As someone who himself was quite gentle and sensitive as a boy, who grew up in a working class Latino neighborhood that sometimes pushed me to be tough to avoid going through some of what we see Chiron go through in this movie, that ending always hits me like a ton of bricks.  It's a real triumph, precisely because it's so understated and poetic.

Closing Thoughts

Of course, all of these layers I just discussed are intertwined.  Each affects the other, because as human beings we are everything- our social identities, our individual personalities, our greater human longings and aspirations.  Barry Jenkins reminds me of James Baldwin in that way- while some artists can hone in on exploring the individual depth of a person, and others can explore how their social identities affect them, Baldwin and Jenkins showcase an ability to explore both.  Which is why Jenkins was such an inspired choice to direct the movie adaption of his novel If Beale Street Could Talk after this movie.

I work two jobs.  One is at an after-school program at an elementary school.  One thing I try to do is be a supportive, nurturing person for all my students.  This includes boys like young Chiron, like young me, who don't respond to problems and hardships with masculine bravado.  Some of these boys I work with, even the younger ones, have already started to internalize the idea that there is something wrong with their lack of aggression.  That there is something wrong with them.  I do what I can to teach them that it's okay, that they don't have to worry about being vulnerable or sad.

I think of this movie a lot when I deal with those boys.  It's a real testament to what good art can do.  That's why, to me, it's a modern masterpiece.