Not that such a decision would be of any significance to anyone but myself, at least in the near future: I haven't even tried to publish anything yet. And even if the niche hasn't yet been filled, I wouldn't necessarily choose to take up the issue. But in my recent readings of other comprehensive historical works, I've come to feel that recent history has lacked that kind of synthesis, and has instead been addressed mainly issue-by-issue or in the broadest political rather than historical terms.
While I'm sure there have been many credible, highly informative works that describe the late, unlamented regime, what I'm asking is whether anyone has written a single work that you think comprehensively addresses it; the historical foundations that led to it; the policies undertaken by it; the actions of accomplices, collaborators, opponents, and other involved parties; and the consequences (so far) both foreign and domestic.
I realize it's a bit early for professional scholars to have put anything out on this yet - it's only been a year since the end of the period in question, and much (if not most) of the relevant material remains either classified or unresearched. So it's possible, if I were to undertake such a work, that I'd be upstaged by someone with greater visibility, broader resources, and perhaps just plain better work. And it's also possible that events could conspire to make such a work totally obsolete, such as if our hopes for prosecutions are realized and a flood of previously obscure information follows.
But for the moment, I would be prepared to set aside such considerations, if there is no work that presently fits the bill. Here is a summary of my internal debate on this.
Pro
- I really want to.
- The years of the Bush regime were not only propagandized by the general media at the time, but we've seen instances where they are now trying to rewrite history in the most absurd and egregious ways (e.g., claiming there were no terrorist attacks on Bush's watch). This may leave a great mass of people with horrible misconceptions that are poorly addressed by the liberal response, which I now address...
- The liberal response, so far as I've seen it, has consisted of many disparate works on a multitude of subjects, or else very general works that are intended to entertain already informed people with polemical mockery.
- In the long term, it might serve to catalyze (or at least support) public opinion behind any prosecutions that occur. Establishing and pursuing these prosecutions will take a long time, so no one should be deluded about the political will that must be sustained for justice to occur.
- I already have a title and a cover design in mind. :-)
Con
- The number of my writing projects is rapidly proliferating, and I'm the kind of guy who takes forever to finish anything.
- I hate work.
- Real historians might already be working on this, and upstage me.
- A prosecution might happen more quickly than I expect and make my work obsolete.
- Public amnesia might cause it to be ignored even by the work's natural audience.
- Too much information might still be hidden to build a solid narrative and draw substantive conclusions.
So please, if such a project has already been published, or you know of any serious scholars who are on the job, tell me about them so I don't waste my time either writing this myself or kicking myself for not doing it.
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BTW, I think it meaningful to mention what motivated this request. I'm reading Thucydides, the ancient Athenian chronicler of the Peloponnesian War (a war that lasted 27 years, and made everyone involved look like a lying, inhuman douchebag), and I thought it would be valuable to introduce that same kind of eye to more immediate events. But I'm also aware that I'm just a dilettante (or Renaissance Man, if I'm to indulge my ego) and have no desire to compete with professional historians.
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