Things That Are Preventing Me From Writing My Dissertation Today

I have spent the past half hour debating whether enough of my prospectus readers will know the difference between the terms "eschatological" and "scatological" to make using the former worth the risk.

Moving Prose

Since beginning this writing workshop, I've been on the alert for examples of excellent writing. Today, I came across one such example: an essay called "Fatal Distraction" by Gene Weingarten for the Washington Post.


Weingarten tells the moving stories of parents who have inadvertently killed their children by forgetting them in cars that later overheated. He balances analysis and interview, public policy and private agony, questions of law, mercy, and compassion. Above all, Weingarten makes an important point: this could happen to anyone.

In less skillful hands, this story might have inspired smug self-congratulation in judgmental readers. Instead, he evokes heartfelt compassion without writing an apology.

It's a wonderful example of great writing. Read it if you have a chance.

p.s. Weingarten is also the author of "Pearls Before Breakfast" — a piece I think of every time I hear a musician on the T.

Spirit of Generosity

"The purpose of a book review is to show that you are smarter than the person who wrote the book."

- an unnamed professor of my acquaintance

This week, I have been unable to avoid the subject of book reviews: my writing workshop is spending the week on Criticism and another of my professors spent part of our fortnightly meeting informing us of his philosophy regarding reviews (noted above).

I enjoy a good mauling as much as the next person, but I was somewhat horrified to hear my professor tell us that he not only saw it as his duty to rip apart books sent to him for review, but that he saves up one-liners to deploy against hapless victims whose books are not even written yet. What good does that do? I suppose his reviews are fun to read (certainly moreso than his other prose), but why not deliver criticism in a spirit of generosity? No book is perfect and most are far from it, but I quake at the prospect of sending a well-researched, painstakingly-written manuscript out into the world knowing that there are reviewers who will delight in its faults.

On the other hand, I don't like timidity in reviewers. My peers in my writing workshop are a bit too wishy-washy so far (except A, bless her opinionated little heart). When I spend ten hours writing and revising a thousand-word essay, I want them to spend at least 20 minutes marking it up and commenting. Last week, I handed back manuscripts covered in comments, suggestions, and edits, but received mostly blank copies of my own work. If they don't put a little more effort in this week, I won't bother taking so many pains in writing for them.

Perhaps I'm just hard to please. I want tough criticism of my work, but not for toughness' own sake. I try to give what hope to receive — thorough, fair comments based on the quality of the ideas and the writing, expressed respectfully, and offered in the spirit of colleagial cooperation. Too naive?

Miserable Prose

Last semester, I started a series of readings courses with a prominent scholar of 17th-century England in preparation for my general exams. At the time, it seemed like a great idea — after all, shouldn't historians of early America know a little something about English history too?

I'm still glad I decided to take this course of action, but I do have one complaint: I have never before encountered such unreadable prose.

The British historians* of this era seem to have forgotten that writing is about more than stringing together phrases that contain facts. Most of the books I am reading for this field are tomes filled with 100-word sentences that recount parliamentary procedure in the dryest possible tone. Oh sure, they get feisty when they're ripping each other to shreds in journal articles, and I won't deny that there are some witty turns of phrase, but there is no storytelling. It makes my little Americanist heart so sad.

Here is the introduction to a journal article I'm reading this evening on Richard Cromwell's relationship with Parliament:

Seeking to bolster the legitimacy of his government, seeking funds to rescue it from the imminent bankruptcy bequeathed by his father the previous September, and hopeful of the national 'healing an settlement' which had forever eluded Oliver, the the young Lord Protector, Richard Cromwell, summoned a Parliament to meet him in January 1659. He was to encounter only frustration, for the political animosities which had driven Oliver to dissolve in haste his second Parliament a year earlier quickly welled up again. The attempt in the second written constitution of the 1650s, the Humble Petition and Advice of 1657, to meld the new and the old, a non-monarchical order and forms of government which otherwise appeared traditional, proved incapable of containing the passions of zealots.

Could you follow that? Even if you could, did it make you want to read another 21 pages?

Here's another sample, this time from the introduction to a chapter in a monograph of 500+ pages:

The extremists of the puritan movement who — unless Field spoke only for himself — had found themselves disarmed and enervated by Grindal’s tolerance had been stung into a renewed militancy by their first taste of Whitgift. None of them was safe from the High Commission, a punitive engine trained with some accuracy on those preachers now known to be subversive. But puritans of Field’s quality responded positively to this challenge. 1584 saw an intensification of conference and propaganda, culminating at the end of the year in a counter-attack launched through the House of Commons, a political campaign without precedence in parliamentary history.

 Is that any way to start a chapter? Who are those characters? What are their politics? How could you possibly read this if you weren't already a specialist in the field?

Writing is about communicating ideas to an audience, not about showing how smart you are. And frankly, if I can't make heads or tails of an author's prose, I do not automatically assume that he is just way smarter than I could ever hope to be. Most of the time, I conclude that he is a piss-poor writer.

There's plenty of bad writing in American historiography, but the historians I know do make efforts at making their writing accessible. Some even shoot for "enjoyable to read."

What's the point, otherwise?

*I recognize that a few of the offenders are, in fact, American. This leads me to believe that the problem stems from the conventions of this historiography, not from national/cultural differences in taste/style. 

Also, I don't mean to imply that my prof is part of the problem. We definitely disagree on many, many issues, but I must give credit where it is due — measured against this crowd, his writing is positively delightful.

Boston, 1770

I'm taking a writing class this semester in order to improve my style and my work habits. I write very slowly and methodically, agnoizing over each sentence and taking an hour (at least) to write a good paragraph. That makes for little revising, but it is not exactly the most purposeful way to go about things.

This week's assignment was to write 1,000 words on any event/s covered in the Boston Gazette during 1770. Here's my crack at it:
[I should add that I removed a long bit on the Boston Chronicle due to word limits.]

In January of 1770, two country farmers, James Hearsy and William Bradley, spent their winter leisure traveling to Boston to purchase “a few articles for their Families Use.” Oblivious to the sidelong glances of passersby, they approached a curiously empty shop in Cornhill, purchased several items from the gruff shopkeeper, and retired to their lodgings with their arms full of packages and their bellies ready for a hearty tavern supper.

As soon as they stepped into the common room, they knew that something was amiss. Instead of welcoming the newcomers with jocular banter, “the whole Company refused to have any Intercourse with them.” What had they done? At length, a man who had promised to accompany them home the next day approached the bewildered pair and informed them that he “refused to keep company with them on the road” unless they returned their purchases to the shop of William Jackson, the infamous importer. Since January of 1769, most Boston merchants had refused to import goods from Britain in protest of new taxes under the Townshend Acts, but Jackson had ignored the non-importation agreement. His loyalty was suspect and his customers tainted by association. Eager to prove their patriotism, Hearsy and Bradley attempted to return the offending items the next morning, but were rebuffed. With public sentiment against him and the Gazette monitoring his customers, Jackson argued that returned goods “might possibly lie long on his Hands.”

As far as Messrs. Edes and Gill, co-editors of the Boston Gazette, were concerned, there were two types of merchants in Boston in 1770: patriots who refused to import British goods such as tea, glass, paper, and cloth, and traitors who “prefered their own little private Advantage to the Welfare of America.”  To show their support for the boycotts, Edes and Gill used their newspaper to publicize the identities of suspected importers and their customers. A recurring front-page item listed the addresses of a dozen shopkeepers who refused to abide by the non-importation agreement, proclaiming that the accused had “detached themselves from the public interest” and should be considered “Enemies to their Country.”  Customers became collaborators and were liable to see their own names in print. In addition to Hearsy and Bradley, the Gazette kept watch over Ezekiel Fosgat, who “purchased a large Quantity of Goods” from Nathaniel Rogers on January 11, and Israel Williams, who found his father derided as “an –famous tool of the late detested governor” after he visited William Jackson’s shop in February.  Through that restless winter, the Gazette helped a watchful city divine the loyalties of ordinary shoppers.

The men and women singled out by the Gazette feared more than damaged reputations. Though the Boston Massacre looms large in popular memory, that event was just one of many outbreaks of violence during the winter of 1769-1770. Those named by the Gazette were repeatedly targeted by crowds of angry Bostonians who broke their windows, seized their property, and assaulted their persons. John Mein, editor of the anti-boycott Boston Chronicle, fled to London in November of 1769 after a mob destroyed his offices and attacked him with shovels and pistols. Patrick McMasters was abducted from his home, dragged to the city limits, and forced to run the gauntlet.  Ame and Elizabeth Cummings, orphaned sisters who sold imported lace and satin to support themselves, were the victims of intense intimidation:

we was alarmed with a violent Skreeming Kill him Kill him, I fleu to the Windue . . . a larg Mob of [about?] a thousand Man & boys aranged themselves befor our Dorr & on a Kart a Man was Exibited as we thought in a Gore of Blood; . . . [the attackers] posted him on a kart tar[re]d him all over the town then fathered him all under our windo thin carid him threu the town.

The threats reached a crescendo on February 22, when suspected importers arose to find their windows smeared with tar and feathers. Theophilus Lillie’s shop was decorated with a wooden effigy of its owner’s head impaled on a spike. When Lillie’s neighbor, Ebenezer Richardson, attempted to remove the effigy, a crowd of boys pelted him with ice, rocks, and feces. Richardson retreated into his house, but the barrage continued, shattering Richardson’s windows, breaking down his door, and injuring his wife. Richardson responded with a blast of birdshot that left 11-year-old Christopher Snider dead and several teenagers injured. 

Snider’s death electrified the city. The Gazette devoted the greater part of a page to coverage of this “barbarous murder,” proclaiming that Snider was “the first whose LIFE has been a Victim to the Cruelty and Rage of Oppressors!”  On February 26, two thousand Bostonians paraded Snider’s coffin through the streets as thousands more looked on. Coverage of the funeral dominated the March 5 edition of the Gazette, including the rumor that Richardson would escape prosecution. That night, a crowd of enraged civilians confronted British Regulars near the State House. When the chaos of clubs and gunfire subsided, five civilians lay dead or dying in the street and the fragile peace lay in shambles.

When James Hearsy and William Bradley crossed the threshold of William Jackson’s shop on that January day, they stepped onto a minefield where everyday actions served as proxies for imperial politics. The tea, glass, and printed cotton that would bring a touch of refinement to their rural farmsteads had become symbols of a distant King’s high-handed tyranny, their choice of merchants a statement of misplaced loyalty. They had not changed, but the ground had shifted. Over the next decade, as the American colonies lurched toward an unexpected independence, ordinary men and women scrambled to find a new equilibrium. As the voice of the nascent revolution, the Boston Gazette defined new standards for patriotism and encouraged its readers to enforce them for the good of the emerging nation.