Michael Douma

Georgetown University, McDonough School of Business, Director, Institute for the Study of Markets and Ethics

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Books by Michael Douma

Creative Historical Thinking (Routledge, 2018)

Creative Historical Thinking offers innovative approaches to thinking and writing about history. ... more Creative Historical Thinking offers innovative approaches to thinking and writing about history. Author Michael J. Douma makes the case that history should be recognized as a subject intimately related to individual experience and positions its practice as an inherently creative endeavor. Douma describes the nature of creativity in historical thought, illustrates his points with case studies and examples. He asserts history’s position as a collective and community-building exercise and argues for the importance of metaphor and other creative tools in communicating about history with people who may view the past in fundamentally different ways. A practical guide and an inspiring affirmation of the personal and communal value of history, Creative Historical Thinking has much to offer to both current and aspiring historians.

What is Classical Liberal History? (Lexington Press, 2017)

Historians working in the classical liberal tradition believe that individual decision-making and... more Historians working in the classical liberal tradition believe that individual decision-making and individual rights matter in the making of history. History written in the classical liberal tradition emerged largely in the nineteenth century, when the field of history was first professionalized in Europe and the Americas. Professional historical research was then imbued with liberal values, which included rigorous attention to the sources, historicist suspicion of an ultimate mover, an honest and dispassionate rational outlook, and humility towards what could be known. Above all, liberals wanted to chart the history of liberty, warn against threats to liberty, and defend it in an evolving political world. They believed history was real, and that it had lessons to teach, but that these lessons could not provide sufficient knowledge to predict the future or reorganize society around a central plan.

This book demonstrates how the classical liberal tradition in historical writing persists to this day, but how it is often neglected and due for renewal. The book contrasts the classical liberal view on history with conservative, progressive, Marxist, and post-modern views.

Each of the eleven chapters address a different historical topic, from the development of classical liberalism in nineteenth century America to the the history of civil liberties and civil rights that stemmed from this tradition. Authors give particular attention to the importance of social and economic analysis. Each contributor was chosen as an expert in their field to provide a historiographical overview of their subject, and to explain what the classical liberal contribution to this historiography has been and should be. Authors then provide guidance towards possible tools of analysis and related research topics that future historians working in the classical liberal tradition could take up.

The authors wish to call upon other historians to recognize the important contributions to historical understanding that have come and can be provided by the insights of classical liberalism.

(2014) How Dutch Americans stayed Dutch: An Historical Perspective on Ethnic Identies (Amsterdam University Press)

(2005) Veneklasen Brick: A Family, an Industry, and a Unique Nineteenth Century Dutch Architectural Movement in Michigan (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).

Papers by Michael Douma

The Argument

Routledge eBooks, Aug 6, 2018

My Backyard History Chapter

How Creative Historians Read and Research

Sorting the Past: the Social Function of Antique Stores as Centers for the Production of Local History

The international journal of regional and local history, Jul 3, 2015

As centers of material culture and storytelling, antique stores are useful sources for writing lo... more As centers of material culture and storytelling, antique stores are useful sources for writing local history. Through interviews with store owners in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, this article attempts to understand the purpose and function of antique stores, and to serve as a guide for how local and regional historians might consider using antique stores to aid their own research. It argues that material objects, buildings, places and stories are necessarily linked in telling local history.

Rethinking History Education With Photographs and Material Culture

Metaphors of Space and Time

Beyond Simple Linear History

Money and Credit on the American Frontier