This morning I woke up before the sun to get dressed, pick up a friend, and get to Chapel Hill for a history conference at UNC. My professor had told us about it last week in class, and I decided it would be a good thing to go to. It was in honor of the retirement of Don Higginbotham, and many of the speakers and attendees were his former students. The first speaker was Pulitzer Prize winning Gordon Wood, on George Washington. Next was Jack Greene on the need for historians to stop viewing the colonies merely as precursors to the United States. I was in the elevator with him and his wife before I knew who he was. After lunch Joseph Ellis spoke. He wrote Founding Brothers (which also received the Pulitzer Prize) and American Sphinx, and he's one of those historians who has made it over to the popular side, like McCullough, only Ellis actually has a Ph.D. Also at the conference was Fred Anderson, but I missed his talk yesterday.
Anyway, these guys are all big deals in the academic world of Colonial, Revolutionary, and Early Republic history. Other historians came from all over to attend and wish Higginbotham a merry retirement. There weren't very many young students there, which was too bad. I think it was a great opportunity and I'm glad I went!
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Sweet. I read Founding Brothers several years ago and REALLY enjoyed it. I learned a ton and I appreciated that Ellis wrote the book in an "accessible" way for those of us who find history enticing, but aren't dedicated enough to slog through original documents and stuff ;o)
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