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The Middle Ground

Is The Middle Ground intellectual history?

“On the middle ground,” contends Richard White in his famous book of the same name, “diverse peoples adjust their differences through what amounts to a process of creative, and often expedient, misunderstandings. People try to persuade others who are different from themselves by appealing to what they perceive to be the values and practices of those others. They often misinterpret and distort both the values and the practices of those they deal with, but from these misunderstandings arise new meanings and through them new practices—the shared meanings and practices of the middle ground.” (1) As I was rereading this passage Read more