(no subject)

[fpb]

Sometimes you have to laugh. More than twenty years ago, I wrote a paper for the Social Anthropology course at SOAS, arguing that the Carolingian Empire was not a "state" in the sense we understand it, but rather a kind of military occupation of the territory with minimal administrative features. The paper was well received, but no more. Now I am reading "State and Society in the early Middle Ages" by Matthew Innes, published in 2000 - ten years later. It argues pretty much the same thing and it is presented as groundbreaking and novel. I wonder if anyone would have noticed if my paper had been presented not to Social Anthro, but to History.

Comments

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

I think, for similar reasons, we need more generalists: people who have a foot in multiple fields and are really capable of synthesis.

[fellmama.livejournal.com]

Certainly we need better cross-disciplinary training. In my own field, classicists are constantly making asses of themselves by trying to write history.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You should see what some archaeologists have managed!