Nuclear Families and Cold War Children in Postwar America
Spring 2015
Blog Assignment #1
Please post to the blog by Sunday, February 8th by 11:59 pm.
In Wednesday’s class we talked about historiography (the history of history) and
examined articles that discussed how the historiography related to the American
homefront in World War II has changed over the last 30-40 years.
As we noted in class, historians contribute to changes in a field of history by reading
existing works of history and, when writing, entering a conversation with other historians.
In these conversations, historians draw upon the existing literature in the field and may
do a number of things to position their arguments in relation to existing scholarship: they
may agree with the prevailing narrative in the field; they may agree with the prevailing
narrative in the field but provide new evidence or support; they may challenge the
prevailing narrative in the field, either by providing new evidence or reinterpreting old
evidence.
As readers and historians, it is important to figure out which conversations a historian and
their work is entering into, what kind of contribution they are making to that conversation,
and how they are changing the terms of debate. This is the first step to figuring out why a
certain work is important to a field of study.
In A Consumer’s Republic Lizabeth Cohen is making radically new contributions to a
number of debates about postwar America.
Your assignment is to locate at least one passage where she situates herself in a historical
debate about the nature of postwar America. Provide a direct quote from her work and
page number so that all blog readers will be able to understand the passage without
reaching for their book.
Then, write a short paragraph explaining why her interpretation is novel. How is her
interpretation of this topic different from prevailing narratives about postwar America?
How does she justify her argument? Cohen should give you this information in her work.
The worksheet I handed out in class can help you identify techniques by which authors
introduce themselves into a conversation. That might be helpful when reading Cohen.
Also note that introductions of chapters, sections, and conclusion of chapters and sections
are prime locations for authors to situate their work within a larger body of scholarship.