What is Usable History?

In the last several years, I have noticed more and more history educators discussing strategies for writing and teaching “usable histories”.

It certainly is a catchy phrase.  It resonates with most historians, as we spend a fair amount of energy defending the utility of our work as educators and researchers. Yet, from what I can tell, there’s no consensus of what usable history should look like …

For the historian Bob Bain, teaching usable histories requires a pedagogical practice which introduces students to three elements:  historical facts; critical thinking; and historical consciousness. You can find a very interesting blog post, on the Big History Project, with his ideas here.

Full disclosure:  As of the date this has been published, I’m on the Advisory Board of the affiliated OER Project.

I don’t disagree with Bob, but I do wonder if there is something to be gained by pushing this line of thinking even further.

As historians, we focus on the historical imagination.  We use evidence and rely on accepted methodologies to influence how we imagine the past to have unfolded.  Visually it might look something like this:

But what if we explicitly linked the work of history to how the future is imagined?

Think about it … This is not as absurd as it sounds. 

There are several fields of study that are future oriented.  Any field aimed at creating social change is oriented towards the future.  Yet, they all use history.

Let’s take economics, for example. 

Economists argue for or against issues like lowering interest rates and trade liberalization, because they believe it will lead to a particular societal outcome in the future.

Here’s the really interesting thing:   

Economists do not have a crystal ball.  They cannot actually predict the future. 

If they could, we would not have economic recessions and depressions.  It is that simple.

However, in order to persuade us that their economic predictions are accurate, they make references to, and draw parallels with, economic circumstances in the past.

In other words, they use history.  They construct historical narratives in support of their future oriented theories.  Granted a significant number of them use history very poorly, but they do use it. 

I’ve been particularly inspired by the work of Deidre McCloskey on this.  In her words, much of what economists do is ‘history in another key.’

So, what does any of this mean for us as historians?

Perhaps instead of playing defense, we should start playing offense.

If experts in other fields are using history to influence the future, then I think we have a responsibility to actively and explicitly concern ourselves with the future.

Instead of loudly proclaiming “history is important !“ to a world of non-historians, we need to go into the terrain of economics, politics, and international development and engage with how history is being used in these arenas.

In other words, there is a need to reframe how we present what we do.  This would mean writing and teaching history very differently.  It might even require us to imagine new ways of meaningfully restructuring traditional history programs.

We need to show that doing history well can change the future.  Visually, a reframing of historical work might look something like this:

I’m willing to gamble that if we presented history as a discipline that influences the future, convincing students to become history majors would be a lot easier. 

As an added bonus, we would also spend much less time defending what we do to the rest of the planet …

I would love to get your thoughts on this.  Feel free to leave a comment on to email me directly.