Re departmental historians: the UK’s Foreign Office does have (or had) a small team of historians; someone I know was one of them for a year or two. Apparently they were writing up the history of the Foreign Office in chronological order, at slower than real time; hence were falling further and further behind. They had got up to 1947 or something, but would never catch up. When they completed the history of a year, it was published in an internal book (I assume not publicly available due to national security etc.), which went on a shelf and no-one ever read.
Each year the historians had to submit a justification for their continued existence. The guy I know said there was none, and they should just write: “The Foreign Office should close down its history department.”
I suppose what this shows is that if internal historians have a use, it’s important that they know the full departmental history, particularly recent decades; they are involved in departmental decisions; and the history is as up-to-date as possible.
Re departmental historians: the UK’s Foreign Office does have (or had) a small team of historians; someone I know was one of them for a year or two. Apparently they were writing up the history of the Foreign Office in chronological order, at slower than real time; hence were falling further and further behind. They had got up to 1947 or something, but would never catch up. When they completed the history of a year, it was published in an internal book (I assume not publicly available due to national security etc.), which went on a shelf and no-one ever read.
Each year the historians had to submit a justification for their continued existence. The guy I know said there was none, and they should just write: “The Foreign Office should close down its history department.”
I suppose what this shows is that if internal historians have a use, it’s important that they know the full departmental history, particularly recent decades; they are involved in departmental decisions; and the history is as up-to-date as possible.