[chmod600]

> However, part of the shift away from war studies owes to the quest for “social justice”

...

> history overall is worryingly in decline as an academic subject

There might be a connection there.

People who want to think about social justice will go to the political science department. Nothing wrong with that. But people who are passionate about history want professors who are also passionate about history.

History and social justice can go together, of course, but the passion really goes behind one or the other.

[watwut]

I think that bigger effect is that economy is not that great, college expensive and students are choosing major they perceive as practical.

[QuesnayJr]

The people who work on "social history", which is the social justice-y branch of history, are passionate about history. Just different history. I'm not uncritical of social history (I think they're not good at economic history), but I don't think you can say that they don't care about history. No one who lacks passion for history is going to spend years reading papers in dusty archives.