No Wonder He's a Distinguished Professor

James Oakes, distinguished professor of history at the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York, was writing about history, and Civil War history, in this passage. But the words work for genealogists too, or at least the kind of genealogist I'd like to be:

. . . there's always something new to learn. The more documents I read the more nuances I'm likely to notice in the next one I read. It's like learning a language I didn't even know existed. It's hard to figure it out, but it's also fun; serious, but joyful. It's why I love what I do. Because every day the past seems just a little bit different to me than it seemed the day before.

His new book is due out in December: Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States.



James Oakes, "On Changing My Mind," Perspectives on History, vol. 50, no. 6 (September 2012), http://www.historians.org/Perspectives/issues/2012/1209/On-Changing-My-Mind.cfm : accessed 7 September 2012.


Harold Henderson, "No Wonder He's a Distinguished Professor," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 9 September 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]