Slate Magazine
•categories.
categories.
Historians Love to Think of Themselves as Detectives. I Think I Know Why.

71% Informative
Peter Bergen: Historians love to tout an association with detectives and mysteries.
He says popular history textbooks and classes use the association as a selling point.
Like detectives, historians need to ask good questions, seek help, solve problems creatively, and search out unexpected resources, he says.
The Strange Genius of Mr. O: The World of the United States’ First Forgotten Celebrity. James Ogilvie had a long, successful career in Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia. He abandoned that job in 1808 in favor of jumping on his horse and traveling from town to town giving public talks. He later confessed that he saw “in their faces a suspicion, that his mind was deranged.” But at the very end of my research, I found a letter that made me realize I should have asked more questions.
If Ogilvie had lived in the 21st century, he likely never would have publicized his struggles so openly due to the stigma experienced by many people on the bipolar spectrum.
Doctors advised patients suffering from melancholy that two solutions to their troubles were to travel and to engage in public speaking.
Doctors believed these activities allowed sufferers to feel that they could take charge of their own health.
VR Score
80
Informative language
83
Neutral language
45
Article tone
informal
Language
English
Language complexity
56
Offensive language
possibly offensive
Hate speech
not hateful
Attention-grabbing headline
not detected
Known propaganda techniques
not detected
Time-value
long-living
External references
27
Source diversity
25