Ruth Scurr: evaluation

Transcript context

…But you ended up in your current job somehow, right? Yes, sure. Sure. I think — I have a combination. Talent as a historian is a very specific question. I would say, there would be some of my fiercer colleagues who would be happy to recognize my talent as a biographer and as a writer. I remember my supervisor saying to me — he was a brilliant, brilliant man, István Hont, a Hungarian — he came to Harvard and was absolutely a huge intellectual influence on me. I remember him once saying to me when I would give him drafts of my work, he said, “Well, you’ve got this big disadvantage, Ruth, because you write so well that it takes me quite a long time to realize that you actually don’t know what you’re talking about. ” That was his contribution. I would say he perhaps — there were many different kinds of history. The first real deep support for my Robespierre book came from Norman Hampson, who was a brilliant historian and had written an experimental book about Robespierre in his time. We had a very important exchange about that. Perhaps he was the first to really engage with what I was trying to do as a historian as well as as a biographer. Let’s say a talented young person, a prospective biographer, comes to you and they say, “Well, I’m thinking of having a life where I’m essentially a biographer, with some other job attached, maybe in academia.” You’re trying to figure out, “Does this person make sense as a biographer?” Other than the obvious — hard work, intelligence — what is it you look for in a good or great biographer, to spot one?…

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