From the Teaching column of the April 2007 Perspectives "Beyond
Tense": Encouraging Historians to Think Hard about Writing and
Reading Few people would challenge Jerry Z. Muller's contention
that "Style is Not a Luxury Option" in historical writing.1
Although many beautifully written histories appear each year,
there are also books in which the form does not do justice to
the content. This disjuncture warrants ongoing conversation
about style and compositionin short, the literary aspects of
history. Just because writing is too rarely a topic of
professional development does not mean the majority of
historians want to write and read unwieldy books or stifling
papers. We all aspire to write good books with clearly written
prose that advances a coherent argument supported by well-
documented, transparent use of evidence. As historians we
undoubtedly appreciate other bonus features of a really good
book: imaginative deployment of sources not often used by
others, the clear articulation of new research problems, an