knp

Breathe. Make yourself a pot of tea, and drink it while you do something that calms you; ideally, something that doesn't involve a screen. If it's starting to be spring where you are, take walks or go running outside when you can. If you feel comfortable doing so, find a friend or family member you trust, and tell them you've been feeling stressed. Ask them to give you a hug. If that part doesn't appeal to you, that's okay; I only recommend that because, if we were having this conversation in person, I would want to give you that hug. I am going to be making a number of assumptions about you, based on not very much information. I hope none of them are too off the mark! But I'm not smart enough to get rid of all my assumptions if I wanted to, so I can only hope this post helps you a little despite them. So, I'm about to recommend you do that thing, the thing that is the easiest advice to give, and the hardest to apply: Relax. It sounds like you've been sprinting for some time, in adverse conditions. I also had major health issues for a long time. I'm lucky enough to be fine now, but it ſucks with you, I know. You graduated! You graduated, and you achieved a lot. You're an adult now, with an adult job. That's huge. Do you know how hard it is for most people to get that first job? But you have one, and it's a good one, and it's a hard one, and it's one that does a lot of good. Unfortunately, it wouldn't surprise me much if your early graduation has worked against you this time around. Graduating so early shows that you are hardworking, and dedicated, and passionate. Absolutely, yes. But an increasing number of people* these days advocate for taking time off after graduating from a bachelors' and before entering graduate school.** That's for people who graduated on time, so I'm guessing that this also applies to those who graduate early. See, you've absolutely shown that you're hardworking, dedicated, and passionate under pressure, and that you perform well in sprints. When I composed my first applications at the end of undergrad, they had this breathless quality about them because I'd also been sprinting, so because I project I'm wondering if yours do, too. But graduate school is a marathon, and I think admissions committees also want to see patience and thoughtfulness, qualities that I personally was not ready to show for some time after I graduated. From this one post, I have no doubt that you have these qualities within you, but it sounds like the past few years didn't give you many chances to stop and reflect about much of anything. Now that you've graduated and are working, you have time to think about where you're going! Trying to think, and especially to get clarity about the bigger picture, is so hard if you always have another deadline looming. So I'd advise you to really use that time, and revel in the slowness of it. Nobody needs you decide anything by any specific date. If you get in, you don't need to decide on your exact dissertation focus for some years. If you decide to apply again another cycle, you have a few years to think about it, if you need them, or less if you don't. Either way, your timetable is longer than the next few months. *I hear it mostly from the mentors of undergraduates applying to graduate school, but I assume the graduate schools themselves are supportive. **This does make class assumptions to which I object, but that's a conversation for another time. What I would advise is that, if you don't get in anywhere this year, you tell yourself that you are not going to apply to graduate school again next year. See how that feels. Try it on for size. That doesn't need to be a binding resolution; if in July or August you decide that you are ready to apply next cycle, go ahead and change your mind. But I would advise that you spend the next few months thinking that you won't go. Just the mental experiment may help you tremendously; when I graduated, a similar break certainly helped me. But let's return to your original question, although I can only answer it in part. I don't know much about you, but I know you're a librarian who works with children. That requires patience, cheerfulness, and good nature. If you can do that job, you are probably a much kinder person than I am. You've overcome a lot to get where you are. You're persistent, passionate, and determined. You're not confident in yourself today—but You, yourself, are Enough. I don't know whether your application, now or in the future, will get you into a medieval history PhD. We're strangers on the internet; I will probably never know that. But I do know that it doesn't matter. Whatever you decide to do with your life, whenever you make that decision, you are enough.

What do you mean by 'international' positions? I assume you're talking about positions outside of the UK. So, positions in the United States? In other countries throughout the Anglophone world? Or do you mean positions in international history?

+1 Nature's Metropolis. [edit: Let me amend that to +10. It's amazing!] So then, do any of you have big, 'generalist' histories you recommend to people, apart from GGS? Not necessarily as scholarly works, but if I wanted to recommend a book to a younger cousin, say, or just to see what people are talking about in big histories these days. Personally, I remember loving 1493 (by Charles Mann) when it came out, and from that went on to read 1491. I am not sure I would recommend them now; it's been a couple years, and several big steps forward in my historical thinking. (These steps were in part caused by liking that one and some other pop histories I read at the time, following ashiepoo's comment about the 'right direction.') 1491 might still hold up, although I'm more skeptical about 1493. If I recall correctly, Mann's thesis in the former was "the Americas in 1491? They weren't unpopulated. Let me tell you what scholars are thinking about them." I think a thesis that general probably helped his cause, letting him preserve some nuance rather than flattening it to serve a more deterministic thesis. On the other hand, I remember rolling my eyes right out of my head at Mann's chapter that speculated that the entire US political system was based on Iroquois government, based on the fact that neither the new American republic nor the Iroquois had monarchs... I mean, he might not be wrong, but I don't remember that chapter containing any evidence. (Or was that in 1493?) I remember 1493 less well, but I think it might have dipped into that vein of speculation more often. I don't know what else I would nominate. I never read it myself, but are people still mad about 'The Better Angels of Our Nature'?

In an article called, "The Ecological Basis for Aztec Sacrifice" American Ethnologist vol. 4, no. 1 (1977), Michael Harner decided to expand upon the 'population pressure' theories being developed in the 60s and 70s. These held that increases in population would lead to scarcity, which would then cause innovations in agricultural technology and changes in society; in particular, this theory focused on the population pressure as a possible cause for the formation of humanity's first states. We then turn to the Valley of Mexico. How will Harner apply population pressure theory there? "What we can see in the Aztec case...is an extreme development, under conditions of environmental circumscription, very high population pressure, and an emphasis on maize agriculture, of a cultural pattern that grew out of a Circum-Caribbean and Mesoamerican ecological area characterized by substantial wild-game degradation and the lack of a domesticated herbivore. Intensification of horticultural practices was possible and occurred widely; but for the necessary satisfaction of essential protein requirements, [large-scale]* cannibalism was the only possible solution" (132, my emphasis.) *His 'conservative' estimate is that 250,000 people were eaten in central Mexico every year. "Another dietary problem for the Aztecs was the scarcity of fats (sources). While the exact amount of fatty acids required by the human body remains a subject of uncertainty among nutritionists (sources), there is an agreement that fats provide a longer-lasting energy source than carbohydrates, due to the slower rate of metabolism. ... In this connection, it is interesting that the Aztecs kept prisoners in wooden cages prior to their sacrifice and at least sometimes fattened them there (source). It should be noted that the prisoners could be fed purely on carbohydrates to build up the fat, since the essential amino acids are not necessary for such production. The confinement to cages would also have contributed to the rapid accumulation of fat, given enough caloric intake" (127-8). "Soon thereafter the Spaniards conquered the entire city, and the war in the Valley of Mexico was over. Spanish rule essentially marked the end of native warfare and cannibalism, and it seems likely that the new sources of meat, in the form of introduced Old World domesticates, helped reinforce obedience to the new laws" (123). If you look up articles about the Aztecs published in the late 70s, you'll find some of the responses to this. It's tremendous. I have never seen a bunch of academics bring down the hammer so fast. Some of the take-downs are works of art, although I don't have time to find them right now.

Thanks for the recommendation!

I'll bite -- what happened in 1389? I assume I could google it, but I'm curious not just what happened, but why that's the most relevant date.

The Early Modern World - A fun period, so a survey I could really get behind. (Hi Black Bear). There and Back Again: Human History through Travel, from Beginnings to Star Trek - I've always loved travel literature, so I want to teach a class on the history of travel. This would be a very big survey! I would start with the archaeological evidence of early human migrations, long before the agricultural revolution. Topics that interest me include: the 'age of exploration' (see previous); narratives of 'discovery' (and discovery); the development of cartography and geographical vision of the globe; 'armchair travel' (John E. Wills Jr.'s article on this, written by a historian of China, is one of my favorite pieces of historical writing); the reception of travel; pilgrimage; travel in the Islamic world; and an abbreviated history of anthropology and writing about the 'other'. I don't know enough about travel by people from Africa and East Asia, but more of that, too. I would end with a discussion of Star Trek, Interstellar, or some similar science fiction, and what the desire to leave the planet/solar system tells us about the times and places when those stories were being told. I would not plan to have any Tolkien in it, I just like the phrase. The History of Anthropology - Since I could see myself expanding that piece into a whole course. Hm, perhaps my "I'm a historian who still does read popular histories" tendencies are showing, since those are the first three courses that came to mind. I think I take it for granted that I will get a chance to teach at least a few excellent courses that are closer to my specialty; I hope for those in a way I am actually taking steps to accomplish, while I dream about getting to explore widely for things I'm not going to specialize in. I would also love to teach a course on historical writing, since I have had teachers approach it so badly, but it's such a helpful subject when it's done right. And I would teach (or take!) a course along kblooms' lines. "The United States as a Developing Country" sounds really cool, too!

I'm not sure I know. But it's a great question, so thanks for asking it. I have very good answers, practiced over several years, for why I want to study my field of history, why I want to teach history, and why I want to teach my field of history within that. I know that I find very little as compelling as writing historical arguments and reading or examining historical sources. But why is that so? Why do I want to be a historian? Lots to think about for the next day, or several days, or even longer. What a nice prospect.

I can add another point to the "it all depends" chart. My undergrad adviser, who was in a different field than me (let's say literature), was one of the biggest names in his field, with the national grants and awards to prove it. His field, however, was very small! And it wasn't "sexy", either. His work focused on a very dry category of objects, like accounting records. He did fascinating things with them, but it wasn't a big "draw" for students. I got to work with him because he loved students and didn't get very many of them. So even though I was an undergrad studying the history of X, and he teaches the literature of X's accounting records from a time period a century before mine, he was happy to spend lots of time helping me out. There were other issues in our working relationship - our feedback styles really didn't match - but his star didn't make him inaccessible. I doubt this applies to the Bill Cronons of the world, but there are some "names" that might not be as swamped as you might think.