Week 2 reading post

In Glassberg’s chapter titled “sense of history”, there is an interesting connection between the academic goals of an institution and the goals set out by the author over public history. The author’s main point of the chapter seems to occur around a theme he labels as a “sense of history” which explores how people develop their own unique view of history that depends on different elements such as their background, their location, and where they grew up. The author then presents the question of who can attribute to history and looks at the different accounts used to tell history at that time period on a public level. The author separates the telling of history into three separate categories that include politics, popular culture and place and gives examples of how history is told in different views depending on what agenda the teller is pursuing. The author is convincing in his argument that history told to the public is different depending on who is the narrator such as in his example of a national park in Mesa Verde (17), Glassberg argues that in the end the park ranger under little supervision has full control over what story the audience hears about the national park and the people who resided there. Glassberg’s presentation on location is persuasive because he argues that location makes a difference on what story is told and that everyone is biased towards a certain view depending on their environment. One weakness in the chapter over place and placelessness is that for the intended audience, there is possibly too much emphasis on the psychological sphere, but the author does do a good job of presenting how there are different types of views depending on the person and the environment he/she grew up in depending on economical statuses.