In response to the below.
1. How could anyone leave off the Big Red Machine? Now that, my friend, was a powerhouse. Rose, Bench, Foster, Perez, Griffey, Morgan, Concepcion — walloping the Red Sox in what was probably the best Series ever, and the Yankees in what was merely an emotionally gratifying Series.
2. By assertion (to borrow from our guest of a few weeks ago) I say that parity came about in History departments because of the bad job market. First rate people went to, let’s not be unkind but, second rate places because they were grateful to get anything at all. And many of them learned to like it and stayed, or else never had an opportunity to move up.
3. The post brings up measurable accomplishment and then drops it. But it’s key to the distinction between sports and history departments. Top teams can’t happily cling to players with lousy batting and fielding averages. But top history departments can do the equivalent — clinging to someone who, objectively speaking, isn’t any good — who hasn’t published in decades — by saying they’re Good, because they’re Here. And people who are not Here are not Good. Because they’re not Here. See?
The Edge of the American West 
2 comments
November 9, 2007 at 5:37 pm
kelmanari
1) Like I said, I didn’t follow baseball back then. I’m aware of the Big Red Machine, but only as a historical concept. Oh, also that Joe Morgan was on that team, and he’s an idiot. Do you ever read http://www.firejoemorgan.com/. Funny. One-trick-pony funny, but funny.
2) Yes, I think that’s true. “It’s the job market, stupid” is a good response to almost any question about history departments. Like “Steve McQueen” was for A&E questions in the first iteration of Trivial Pursuit.
3) This is an excellent point, as I’ve said before. The “shine” I talked about the overly long post has a way of rubbing off on the people in those departments, even if those people are actually pretty dull.
Finally, I still don’t know if it’s better to have three, four, maybe even five powerhouse departments, or to have the current diffusion of talent.
November 9, 2007 at 6:11 pm
eric
From the standpoint of training graduate students, which is what departmental strength is supposed to produce, I guess, it’s best to have concentration of talent. Because graduate students need more than one bright, productive person to bounce off.
From the standpoint of teaching undergrads, assuming some of these first rate people are good teachers (and in my experience, contrary to stereotype, they are) it’s best to have diffusion of talent.