Cultural studies offer historians the ability to adopt a multidisciplinary, self-reflexive approach to the past that recognizes the assumptions behind many historical studies. Literary criticism and anthropology are the two fields from which historians can learn the most about how to study the ways culture, gender and race interact and affect global politics. It is easily shown, for instance, that politicians appeal to cultural beliefs in the US by portraying domestic concerns as feminine and in need of protection, with national security serving as the man of the house, or domestic sphere.
