Alex Clarke describes a colleague's concern about attracting public funding for a niche historical subject. His response is to find a way to make the subject interesting to a wider audience or support it through other work. His own example is proposed research into a January 1939 crisis when Britain and Japan nearly went to war. He expects it to produce only a few journal articles or perhaps a video and to need subsidy from work on other subjects. For a historian working through video, that means covering areas beyond personal specialization and interest.
Notable Point · 3:23:04-3:24:33
How public history can finance specialist research
Broader public work can support research into a narrow historical subject whose publications are unlikely to cover its costs.