Darth Vader or Don Quixote? Keith Jenkins in review

Abstract

Keith Jenkins is undoubtedly one of the most controversial and divisive historical theorists of the contemporary era. This article examines the reception that Jenkins's work has received from academic reviewers, in order to see how the Jenkins ‘brand’, so to speak, has been constructed over the past 20 years or so. The article studies how the reception of Jenkins's work by reviewers allowed them to continue the ‘history wars’ away from the main battleground of full-length books and journal articles. We argue that the reviews liberally blended empirical fact, interpretation and personal opinion with a series of literary flourishes. All in all, and for the most part, consumers of these reviews were cued to ‘imagine’ Jenkins as a strange combination of Darth Vader and Don Quixote; further evidence that Jenkins remains one of the most significant and misunderstood figures in historical theory today.