I think the attempt to seem fair and balanced in academic history has resulted in a lot of really boring writing. I am all about going back to histories that are openly taking a side.
Some people cringe a bit at that idea, but a lot of major historical theorists that we rely on (I.e. Carr and Becker) believed objectivity was impossible. Your goal is to be as factual as possible, but the historian is telling the story from their moment and their perspective.
So acting objective, using a historicist interpretation, is significantly more deceptive than just being upfront and openly ideological. So I think writing from your perspective is more honest.

But more importantly imo: writing from a perspective is more fun.
I’m reading CLR James’ The Black Jacobins. He is unapologetically Marxist and decolonial. He wrote fiction as well as histories. So his writing style is just more gripping, and, because he’s not hiding his ideology, incredibly sarcastic and combative.
Especially going into Haiti studies, where most prior histories were sympathetic to the colonizers, he needs to be revisionist and snarky. For instance, after a paragraph describing prior historians emphasis on "nice slaver owners" he adds this line:
“Undoubtedly there were kind masters who did not indulge in ... cruelty and whose slaves merely suffered overwork, undernourishment, and the whip."

Sarcastic as hell. More academic history needs to do that. Unapologetically call everyone in your field a racist dumbass.
And making fun of historical figures too. He talks about Vaublanc, a contemporary writing about Haiti, who criticized the slaves for having it easy compared to the French factory workers. At the end of the paragraph, James throws in this comment:
“The slaves, he concluded, had light work to do and were happy to do it. Vaublanc, in [Haiti] so sympathetic to the sorrows of labor in France, had to fly from Paris ... to escape the wrath of the French workers."

Just pointing out hypocrisy in contemporaries. Amazing.
The point of this thread is I want more funny asshole historians. It makes my major less boring.

Also I just wanted to quote James because he’s fun to read.
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