Ryan's Journal

My journal entries are always about me. How boring.

I've been reading a lot of history lately. American history, predominantly presidential history, with a little bit on the civil rights movement mixed in, mostly because Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is just as important to America as any president. I've been trying to get into church history as well, but original source translations to English are out of date and difficult to read (now I'm cheating by listening to lectures about church history).

I love history. I love learning why things ended up the way they did. I love finding out how people grew into the leaders they became. But as I read through these biographies, I encountered a lot of subjective bias. I have never read a book more openly adoring of its subject than David McCullough's biography of John Adams. How are we supposed to learn about the past if we can't honestly deal with any of its facts without running into the biases of the authors?

I had the most interesting conversation with a history major graduate today. I guess it takes a lot to look at a historical work and think critically about what kinds of external influences shaped the work at hand. Following footnotes seems to be a good idea, too.

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