What Makes A Historian?

Some readers have encouraged me to identify as a historian, despite my not having a degree in history. For a long time, I have been reluctant to do so, thinking it would be both presumptuous and misleading, but I have recently changed my mind. Here is why.

I think the very first seed was planted when I was interviewed by historian Brion McClanahan, who holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of South Carolina. In an interview for the Abbeville Institute, of which he is president, he introduced me as a historian! As stated, around the same time, many of my lay readers also said I should refer to myself as a historian, but none of this stuck; after all, I lack an official degree.

But what really changed my mind was a recent interview I did on UnprecedentedTV with British historian Dr. Marcus Papadopoulos, who pointed out that Herodotus, one of the most impactful and famous historians ever to live, lacked a degree. Papadopoulos told me, both verbally and in writing, that the amount of original research in a book of mine he reviewed was “breathtaking,” and so I more than deserve the title historian. In a published review of that book titled “Abe’s Civil War Narrative Meets its Waterloo,” he praised my use of extensive primary sources and rigorous, scholarly research, stating that I “provided a masterclass on how to research, analyze, and tell history, shaming, in the process, mainstream academics.” Whom, he later told me in the interview, I was a “far superior” historian to.

Further, I have had many historians, professors, authors, and historical publications review my books, and almost every official reviewer has said similar things in their blurbs and reviews, calling my work scholarly, well-researched, and utilizing vast primary sources. For one example, in a review published by the Abbeville Institute, long-time professor and historian Clyde Wilson described me as someone who had “done his own thinking and his own research, research broader and deeper than that of a great many ‘professional historians’ who are becoming more and more experts in cherry-picking evidence from the past.” Wilson praised my work because I (he) “bases his case on many sources that are long neglected and draws new insights from them. This a real historian–the real thing who follows the evidence without moralistic or ideological assumptions.”

Having read and written reviews for dozens and dozens of historians, authors, and professors, Wilson summarized his review by stating, “In my time I have written probably 200 or more book reviews. I have never used the comment ‘you ought to get this book.’ I am using it now.” Undeserved high praise, but I will take it!

Another historian, David Gordon, who holds a Ph.D. in History from UCLA, has published a review for the prestigious libertarian Mises Institute, comparing me to Lord Acton (and also Murray Rothbard), whom he sees as the greatest historian for liberty of all time.

Again, other historians and professors have said similar things to Papadopoulos, Wilson, and Gordon, praising the amount of primary source research in my works.

I once heard a historian say that those who have a passion for a subject will, on average, do more than enough research and reading on that subject to earn a bachelor’s degree. Now, anyone who knows me knows I have an immense passion for anything I truly care about. I also have a willingness to do the work, a desire to dig to the bottom of things to discover what is true, and hyperfocus that allows me to do immense amounts of work in a short period of time. I can work for 12 massively productive hours a day on a subject, day after day; sometimes it is difficult to pull me away. I once heard an interviewer ask the now-deceased Charlie Kirk, known for his vast knowledge and intense reading on a wide variety of subjects, how many books he read. He said he tries to read 100-120 a year. To which I thought, “That’s child’s play.”^[1] So, as Papadopoulos has opined to me, I think it is safe to say that the amount of research I have done qualifies me for the title historian, if that is the bar we judge by.

But the final reason for changing my stance is a matter of definitions. Because by definition, a historian is one who studies or writes about the past. It does not take a degree to read, write about, or teach history. Many great historians never held degrees. Most of the Founders were self-taught men like George Washington. As a Christian, I believe the Bible to be written history, yet the authors were not degreed historians, and no recorded history has had more impact on the world! So I disagree with those who say you must have a degree to qualify for the title.

Benefits of Self-Learning

Receiving a degree looks great on paper, but there’s no doubt that you can do more when self-educating. As I am sure the aforementioned Charlie Kirk would agree, you can achieve much more in a shorter span and direct your research to a specific subject, whereas in college, you must take unnecessary classes. Ask any homeschooling parents, you can achieve 8 hours of public school education in three hours, and the student will retain more and perform better. Likewise, conducting your own education allows you to dig far deeper in a short period of time. The inefficiency of our popular education systems limits us.

There are benefits to not having a degree. As I have covered in detail in multiple books, schooling, as much as we like to idolize the high-sounding goal of it, that is to educate, is far more a form of indoctrination, especially in America. That was its origin and purpose, to create loyal, compliant factory workers and tax-paying citizens obedient to the government, who would all be taught a similar culture, history, beliefs, etc. to avoid division, civil wars and so forth.

It is much easier to manage people in herds who think and act the same than it is to manage independent, self-educated, free-thinking individuals. In his 2002 collection Understanding Power, famed linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky wrote, “The whole education and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who think for themselves, and who don’t know how to be submissive, and so on – because they’re dysfunctional to the institutions.” Nineteenth-century philosopher John Stuart Mill wrote, in his seminal essay On Liberty, “A general state education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another; and the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government.” And finally, influential 20^th-century journalist H.L. Mencken observed, “All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him…One of its primary functions is to regiment men by force, to make them as much alike as possible and as dependent upon one another as possible, to search out and combat originality among them.”

While many assume, or hope, schooling is about expanding the mind, the expansion is directed towards very narrow avenues of approved opinion, beliefs and assumptions. As dissident scientists geologist John Morris and zoologist Frank Sherwin wrote, there is an “absolute stranglehold materialistic atheism has on every thought that is allowed to be considered in the scientific and educational realms. This makes the American classroom one of the most censored, thought-controlled locations on the planet.” This same rigidity applies to all areas of learning, most especially to history.

If we were to go to a country under Sharia law, the vast majority of historians there would agree that Islam is verifiably true and that the West’s history/archaeology, secularism, and version of world history are incorrect. It would be the same if we traveled to a Buddhist or Hindu country. The way the Civil War was understood in Alabama in 1870 differs widely from the way it is taught here in Vermont in 2026. Not because history has changed, but because of how it is taught, and more importantly, by who does the telling. Had the Nazis won WW2, the historical perspective taught in French primary schools would differ greatly from how it is today.

Being self-educated, free-thinking individuals able to question all assumptions and able to choose which perspectives to read is a massive advantage in discovering the truth. It enables us not to wear our own societal blinders. We are not forced to conform, but enabled to question. We can often see what other societies see about us that we ourselves are blinded to.

I fully agree with the great Christian writer and scholar C.S. Lewis, who said “We need intimate knowledge of the past… A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village; the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age.” As well as the oft-quoted G.K. Chesterton, who wrote, “Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.”

If we are not self-educated, our social myths, assumptions, presuppositions, many of them derived from outright distortions and lies, all our unseen cultural blinders, will control and mislead us. Public education, being part of that system that weeds out dissenters and independent thinkers, promoting only those who are most obedient, willing to parrot back the correct answer to receive a high grade, and displaying that they conform to the classroom dogma, does not advance truth, it hinders it.

Even if one who reads this will still disagree, believing that you need to be an approved^[2] degree holding historian to be a “real” one, I maintain that the historian can learn and write about the past truthfully without a degree, while others, unknowingly accepting the taboos of their times, can spread disinformation and sleep well at night.

I care not for a piece of paper; I will always hold truth above authority rather than authority above truth.  I would rather correct falsehoods without a degree than promote them with one.

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^[1] And I also felt bad about neglecting other things in my life, such as my children, more than I realized.

^[2] After all, this is the mindset our governmental system has raised us in, needing official government approval for medicines, foods, car registrations, licenses to work, etc., and if it is not approved, it is dangerous.

Jeb Smith

Jeb Smith (Pen name Isaac C. Bishop) is an author and speaker whose books include Defending Dixie's Land: What Every American Should Know About The South And The Civil War, published with Shotwell Publishing, Missing Monarchy: Correcting Misconceptions About The Middle Ages, Medieval Kingship, Democracy, And Liberty, and Defending the Middle Ages: Little Known Truths About the Crusades, Inquisitions, Medieval Women, and More, Smith has written over 120 articles found in several publications, among them The Libertarian Institute, History is Now Magazine, The Postil Magazine, The Libertarian Christian Institute, Practical Distributism, Rutland Herald, The Vermont Daily Chronicle, Medieval Archives, History Medieval, Medieval Magazine, and Fellowship & Fairydust Magazine, and has been featured on various podcasts.

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