"Thinking Is Where So Much of the Historical Action Is"

"Ideas are never frozen in their time and place, nor are they vapors that float in some otherworldly, transcendent realm. Rather, they are historical forces that move—and thereby change—from one interlocutor to another, one place to another, and even one time period to another. To be sure, throughout our history, many Americans have exalted ideas like democracy, freedom, and equality, while others experienced them as fighting words meant to deny them their benefits. But these ideas have achieved their power not because their meanings are absolute but precisely because they are so fluid, so multivalent, and so prone to redefinition when they come into new conditions of possibility. The vibrancy of American thought lies in the movement of ideas as they have been enlisted to mean different things to different people throughout the American past."

Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen at Literary Hub praises studying intellectual history.