[lbo-talk] Texas school board drops Jefferson, adds Calvin

[C. G. Estabrook]

Largely a result I think of a generation of medievalists being brought up to 
avoid any taint of Marxist historiography.  The baleful effects of postmodernism 
included the avoidance of the slightest attention to modes of production.
That was not the road to success in US history graduate schools of the last 
quarter of the 20th century.  --CGE

Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 1:11 PM, Matthias Wasser
> <matthias.wasser at gmail.com>wrote:
> 
>> "Feudalisms" were diverse.
>>
> 
> For what it's worth, "feudalism" is mostly a dirty word among medievalists,
> these days. This is not my specialty, but there are multiple problems,
> probably the most serious being that the term implies, as you suggest, a
> non-existent uniformity (and rigidity/stability) of practice across Europe
> "during the 'feudal' period" (whenever that was). I certainly can't speak
> for Medievalists, but in general I think you will find that medievalists
> will say the word doesn't mean very much, and they tend to avoid it. If you
> want to troll a medievalist list, ask them about feudalism.
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