In the June, 2006 edition of the Journal of American History, Roy Rosenzweig makes a very good case for why historians should begin an assault on inaccurate history as perpetrated on the internet.  At the same time, he also makes two particular errors that need to be addressed.  In his article “Can History Be Open Source?  Wikipedia and the Future of the Past,” he urges historians to get on the internet.  First, Wikipeida, for all its faults and successes is NOT peer reviewed, despite the claims of Dr. Rosenzeig.  Secondly, History cannot be compared to open source software in the sense that he describes.

First is the issue of peer review.  Let’s define peer review.  Wikipiedia defines peer review as “the process of subjecting an author’s scholarly work, research, or ideas to the scrutiny of others who are experts in the same field.”  However, this not what Wikipedia does.  Wikipedia defines its process as:

“Wikipedia’s peer review process exposes articles to closer scrutiny from a broader group of editors, and is intended for high-quality articles that have already undergone extensive work, often as a way of preparing a featured article candidate. It is not academic peer review by a group of experts in a particular subject, and articles that undergo this process should not be assumed to have greater authority than any other.”

This is NOT peer review.  This is review by a mixed bag of individuals who may or may not have the qualifications to determine whether the material in question is good or bad.  This is history by consensus and illustrates all that historians loath about Wikipedia.  It is, indeed, the heart of the debate of history on the internet and is a dangerous precedent.  History by consensus within this format opens the way for some very inaccurate interpretations.  For example, the FDR article that Rosenzweig mentions is very well written; it has well noted citations and is supposedly neutral.  That is until we look at the issue of Pearl Harbor.  What Wikipedia has allowed is this consensus board to allow the allusion to prior knowledge of the attack on Pearl Harbor.  The allusion, while subtle, is inaccurate and a misconception of the facts in question.  The article in questions states that “On December 6, 1941, President Roosevelt read an intercepted Japanese message and told his assistant Harry Hopkins, “This means war.”  However, the question remains WHAT WERE THE CONTENTS OF THE TELEGRAM???  The article leaves to the reader some sinister allusion that is both a misconception and false.  As many notable historians have noted and include “Frank Friedel, Aurthur Schlesinger, Jr., James MacGregor Burns, and William Leuchtenberg.” (my apologies for any misspelling)  In fact, Burns notes that intelligence had a whole slew of telegrams that were confusing at the time and reported movements in the South Pacific.  The notion was that the Japanese were going after the oil reserves in Singapore and the Philippines.  Roosevelt was prepared to go to war over these movements, as he had been looking for an excuse to get into the war.  However, the candid historian would note this misconception, it appears that the Wikipedia reviewers did not.  While I agree that Wikipedia is a good place to start for students, it is also full of problems that do not get fixed right away.  As Rosensweig notes the case of an individual who was added to the conspiracy section of the JFK sight and it was not changed for several months.  While he is correct in pointing out that other online encyclopedias have mistakes in them, they do not rise to the same level as the open source environment of Wikipedia.

The other aspect that Rosenzweig approaches is that history should be available on the internet like open source software.  That is a dilemma.  First, it could be open source.  Putting history on the internet is not a problem.  The problem is how?  Do historians use a format like Wikipedia where anyone can author an article?  The thought does raise some strong red flags.  If history is subject to academic peer review where a historian must provide credentials as in the case of the new Citizendium, then many objections could be mitigated.  However, the problem with the Wikipedia method is that history is agreed to by consensus.  A group of editors who may or may not have the qualifications to determine the reliability of sources or lack the training to adequately scrutinize or vet legitimate articles, determines by consensus what material will be allowed into the article.  The problem remains that history turns out like Wikipedia where the information may be correct but still has certain elements within their articles that remain factually untrue.

This leads to the comparison of history to open source software.  I have serious problems with that allusion.  I use open source software, and have had no serious problems.  However, the idea of open source software is to allow individuals and developers to improve on the performance of said software.  However, they cannot change the basic premise that there are certain codes that must be adhered. Using the Wikipedia example, all content, even the basic and proven facts remain up for grabs.  While there is some review, it is not a review of academics trained in the field who have studied the subject for years.  It plays to the anti-intellectualism described by Richard Hofstadter.  At the same time, open source software is meant to improve on the basic codes.  Whereas, history within a Wikipedia environment has the possibility of becoming conjecture.  If the basic premises are flawed and contributors add to and agree on a consensus of opinion, it contributes to the rest of the noise out there.

These criticisms aside, one must agree that historians must figure out how to get out there, contribute, in a credible environment.  The Citizendium appears to be a move in the right direction.  Like the Bill of Rights in relation to government power,  there are certain areas of intellectual discourse that should remain beyond the question of majorities.  Facts are facts and cannot be changed or altered.  While I am all for a democratic discourse, there must be some way that historians can enter the internet without losing their authority or surrendering it to the masses.

Daniel Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig have issued a call to arms for historians.  With all the concerns about the internet, historians should not resign themselves to the amateurs and hacks on the internet.  Instead the challenge is to “prod historians to sit down in front of their computers and to get to work.  Historians need to confront these issues of quality, durability, readability, passivity, and inaccessibility rather than leave them to the technologists, legislators, and media companies, or even just to our colleagues in libraries and archives.” (Page 13, of Digital History)  In addition, “open sources” should be the rallying cry for historians rather than cede this to for profit corporations who will control access.

I do agree with Cohen and Rosenzweig fully; I did have initial reservations about the argument first presented by Dan Cohen about why professors should start blogging.  It is not that one should discourage amateurs, the problem remains how to ensure that historians’ websites have the credibility they deserve.  The amateurs of popular history are the ones that formerly had limited representation on the bookstore shelf; they also have passionate commentaries and commitments to a historical topic.  However, as the authors point out, the problem with amateurs remains their selectivity, analysis, and quality of their work; quality refers to the content of the work not the design the page. It is the interpretation of many websites by amateurs that rehashes old prejudices and old conspiratorial theories that have long been proved incorrect.  One of the best examples is the old myth that “FDR knew that Pearl Harbor was going to be bombed and let it happen.”  An astounding charge.  These historians look at dispatches and communications from the point of view of hindsight.  They already know what happened.  Instead, on must look at how the materials were interpreted before the event happened.  The answer was plain.  The US did know about Japanese activities in the Pacific in the winter of 1941.  FDR and his advisors suspected that a major event may occur, but what they were expecting was an attack on Singapore because the US had stopped selling high octane gasoline and oil products to the Japanese and Singapore, a British possession, was a major oil producer in Southeast Asia.  These same amateurs look at possible radio communications reported by civilians who claimed they heard the Japanese Fleet.  Upon further reflection, on finds that many of these civilians “did not say that the communications were Japanese”.  They were merely strange or on an unfamiliar channel.  In addition, the Japanese fleet observed radio silence for most of their trip so chances are that what was being heard was a very good communication from Asia on a good night.  Yet, the argument still circulates and has new light due to the conspiracy theorists on the internet.  Historians now have to compete with these very professional websites and dispel their ridiculous arguments

Hence, Cohen and Rosenzweig have offered an answer to the question posed to professors, Why blog?  If one reads their article before reading their Book, the answer is not obvious. The article provided no incentive for one to really embrace the different aspects of blogging and its purpose, or lack thereof.  For many, it offered no real answer other than a new jazzy way of presenting history along with the traditional method.  Now, in Digital History, they have caught my attention and hopefully my colleagues.  Action is always the best method.  Yet, historians are not always prone to action, we are observers and interpreters.  But, in this new era of digital history, one can firmly state that historians MUST embrace the internet, because if they do not we are leaving historical interpretation to those who will continue to present history as conspiracy and political intrigue.  Acknowledging that there is a component of history that has those elements, their remains the rest of history, 99%, that does not have those elements.  Therefore, Historians cannot ignore this medium because doing so relinquishes history to the hacks and amateurs, no matter how well intended they are.

Some Links for historians to start

Center for History and New Medial

American Social History Project

History News Network Blogs

American Memory Archives at the Library of Congress

Marxists Internet Archive

Colonial Latin America