This chapter discusses how general readers admire the traditional fields of political, economic, military, and diplomatic history more than professional historians do. It identifies a systematic crisis in the profession and questions how the discipline as a whole has dealt with the powerful challenge to the traditional fields from postmodern theories and deconstructionist methodologies. It shows that within the field of U.S. foreign policy, the basis for a mediating role lies between the challengers and the traditionalists, and the chapter ends with a call for more analysis of a traditional...

This chapter discusses how general readers admire the traditional fields of political, economic, military, and diplomatic history more than professional historians do. It identifies a systematic crisis in the profession and questions how the discipline as a whole has dealt with the powerful challenge to the traditional fields from postmodern theories and deconstructionist methodologies. It shows that within the field of U.S. foreign policy, the basis for a mediating role lies between the challengers and the traditionalists, and the chapter ends with a call for more analysis of a traditional kind of American domestic and foreign policy.