History has always been a contentious field, reflecting the biases of both the historian and society. It is a window into the present as much as into the past. Still, the writer of history must do his best to check and overcome his innate biases. In the words of the 19th-century historian J. A. Froude, “the first duty of an historian is to be on his guard against his own sympathies; but he cannot wholly escape their influence.” The influence of one’s “own sympathies” cannot be eliminated, but the focus must be on factual evidence. Unfortunately, the modern history profession has all but abandoned this pursuit of objectivity in exchange for progressive ideology. This is most obvious in its embrace of critical race theory and the fatally flawed 1619 Project. A recent controversy in the field exemplifies this focus on ideology over history.
It involves an extensively covered article by Jenny Bulstrode in the journal History and Technology. In her paper, “Black Metallurgists and the Making of the Industrial Revolution,” she argues that a crucial 18th-century innovation in the manufacture of wrought iron credited to Henry Cort was stolen from its real developers: 76 enslaved Africans at a Jamaican foundry. It immediately made a big splash in the media, with laudatory coverage from the Guardian, NPR, the New Scientist, and other publications. Bulstrode’s claims that a foundation of British prosperity was purloined from oppressed black slaves fit perfectly into the progressive vision of Western history as built on white supremacy and slavery. Not only that, the paper was written by a prize-winning university lecturer and passed peer review, and the author marshaled a great deal of evidence to support her contentions.
The problem is that she misinterprets sources, reaches insupportable conclusions, and fails to back up her key assertions.