[SIGCIS-Members] Why don't real historians write popular works?

[McMillan, William W]

I know in some cases popular history and biography are produced by real historians, but the lively discussion on this list about the failings of popular writers in the history of computing gives me the impression that the field of battle has been left to the pithy and the superficial.  Is this community sniping from the hilltops, hoping that the writers down on the mass-market battlefield will march up with a white flag, an acknowledgment, and a pledge to respect real scholarship?

If real historians charged down the hill with a barrage of their own popular histories, wouldn't that overwhelm the errant?

Just askin'.

Bill