{"id":332,"date":"2014-12-08T11:56:35","date_gmt":"2014-12-08T11:56:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dave0.nfshost.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/2014\/12\/08\/history-a-history-of-histories-in-10-histories\/"},"modified":"2014-12-08T11:56:35","modified_gmt":"2014-12-08T11:56:35","slug":"history-a-history-of-histories-in-10-histories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/2014\/12\/history-a-history-of-histories-in-10-histories\/","title":{"rendered":"HISTORY: A HISTORY OF HISTORIES IN 10 HISTORIES"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\">\n<p>Is there a HISTORY OF X IN TEN HISTORIES OF X book yet? Have we hit full recursion?<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; David Erik Nelson (@SquiDaveo) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SquiDaveo\/statuses\/504689998743224321\">August 27, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\">\n<p>HISTORY: A HISTORY OF HISTORIES IN 10 HISTORIES.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; David Erik Nelson (@SquiDaveo) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SquiDaveo\/statuses\/504690126585606145\">August 27, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\nIf you&#8217;ve set foot in a physical bookstore in the last several years, you&#8217;re no doubt familiar with the <i>A History of <b>X<\/b> in <b>N<\/b> <b>Y<\/b>s<\/i> nonfiction subgenre (e.g., <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0670022705\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=390957&#038;creativeASIN=0670022705&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;tag=daverinel-20&#038;linkId=4RMTMQKHAWCTEG2F\">A History of the World in 100 Objects<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0802715524\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=390957&#038;creativeASIN=0802715524&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;tag=daverinel-20&#038;linkId=KB2NZWXHH7UDAUOA\">A History of the World in 6 Glasses<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0143126024\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=390957&#038;creativeASIN=0143126024&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;tag=daverinel-20&#038;linkId=IHOSNYERPVBDVZE6\">A History of the World in 12 Maps<\/a>, etc.).  It&#8217;s not a terrible scaffolding to build a non-fiction work around, but the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/blogs\/browbeat\/2014\/04\/30\/a_history_of_publishing_s_new_favorite_gimmick_in_100_objects.html\">gimmick is certainly getting played out<\/a>, and descending into self-parody.<br \/>\nA while back I spotted one of these &#8220;History of X in Ten Whatevers&#8221; snowclones on a &#8220;New Releases!&#8221; shelf in our local B&#038;N while wandering around, waiting for my boy to pick out another Pokemon desk reference. I can&#8217;t even recall the history&#8217;s actual title or topic now, just that it had the format, and so goaded me into snarking the above-embedded tweets.<br \/>\nBut the more I&#8217;ve thought about it, the more it&#8217;s begun to seem like a sort of a reasonable project, as a framework for picking apart what we really mean when we say &#8220;History,&#8221; and what we&#8217;ve meant over time. Like, Shakespeare&#8217;s RICHARD III is a &#8220;history,&#8221; but is totally slanted.  Most US branches of Xtianity take the OLD TESTAMENT as a history&#8211;and it meaningfully is, but not in the same way that BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE is a history, or THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK and Studs Turkel&#8217;s WORKING are histories, or <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/9\/11_Commission_Report\">THE 9\/11 COMMISSION REPORT<\/a> is a history.  Heck, the TORAH (i.e., that same OLD TESTAMENT) *isn&#8217;t* considered a history by most of the Jews for whom it is the primary religious text&#8211;but the Talmudic and other commentaries on the TORAH *are* understood to be a very important history of the evolution of not just Jewish thought, but human ethical development.<br \/>\nFor that matter, there are distinctly different *kinds* of histories that have gone in and out of vogue over time; few true <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Chronicle\">chronicles<\/a> are produced any longer, but memoirs and biographies&#8211;especially those focused on folks previously ignored because of their race, gender, class, or general Otherness&#8211;have blossomed and multiplied.<br \/>\nAnd all of which speaks to our evolving notion of what &#8220;history&#8221; means&#8211;and the possibility that <i>HISTORY: A HISTORY OF HISTORIES IN 10 HISTORIES<\/i> is actually not that bad of an idea.  The question is: What 10 histories would go in?  I kinda like the idea of having <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Diary_of_a_Young_Girl\">DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL<\/a> in there, as well as Plains Indian <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Winter_count\">winter counts<\/a>, and Iceland&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/%C3%8Dslendingab%C3%B3k\">Islendingabok<\/a> and subsequent <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/health\/archive\/2014\/10\/how-icelands-genealogy-obsession-leads-to-scientific-breakthroughs\/381097\/\">Book of Icelanders database<\/a>).<br \/>\nWhat would you include?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is there a HISTORY OF X IN TEN HISTORIES OF X book yet? Have we hit full recursion? &mdash; David Erik Nelson (@SquiDaveo) August 27, 2014 HISTORY: A HISTORY OF HISTORIES IN 10 HISTORIES. &mdash; David Erik Nelson (@SquiDaveo) August 27, 2014 If you&#8217;ve set foot in a physical bookstore in the last several years, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/2014\/12\/history-a-history-of-histories-in-10-histories\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;HISTORY: A HISTORY OF HISTORIES IN 10 HISTORIES&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_share_on_mastodon":"1"},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}