Why Historical Thinking is Not about History

This article is an adaptation of Sam Wineburg's keynote address to the 2015 American Association for State and Local History annual meeting.

The point I want to make today might initially sound peculiar for those of you familiar with my work. My claim is that historical thinking is not about history.

Today, when practically everything has changed about how we get our information, what does informed citizenship mean?
The most critical question facing young people today is not how to find information. Google has done a great job with that. We’re bombarded by stuff. The real question is whether that information, once found, should be believed. And according to some recent studies young people are not doing so well in that department.

What once fell on the shoulders of editors, fact-checkers, and subject matter experts now falls on the shoulders of each and every one of us. But there’s a problem with this new reality. As the journalist John H. McManus reminds us, in a democracy the ill-informed hold just as much power in the ballot box as the well-informed. The future of the republic hangs in the balance.

Reliable information is to civic intelligence what clean air and clean water are to public health. Long before the Internet, long before blogs, before Instagram, before Twitter and Yik Yak, James Madison understood what was at stake when people cannot tell the difference between credible information and shameless bluff. “A popular government,” Madison wrote, “ without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy;
or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.