(There are 2 messages below. -ed.)

1.
Submitted by: Phil Giltner
phil.giltner@worldnet.att.net

The Historical Society was just written up in the 8 May Chronicle of Higher
Ed .

They claim to be motivated by a desire to return to a more traditional
study of history, away from the study of identity, et cetera, in favor of
studying states, empires, whatnot. To cite the article, "the group will
focus on the study of plain-spoken history- - not jargon-laden esoteric
theory - - an not only on mattes of race, class, and gender."

They have been accused of being a 'right-wing' organization, but this
criticism has been countered by the fact that their members include people
of all political stripes, including a Communist.

What to make of this group, who knows? They have some big guns among them.

I, for one, do not see the harm of another forum.

-*-*-*-*-
Dr. Phil Giltner

98 East Lincoln Avenue    email: phil.giltner@worldnet.att.net
 West Harrison, NY 10604               pgiltner@yahoo.com
     ph: +914 328 5447 (h)   +914 933 3109 (w)

2.
Submitted by: Christopher R. Jackson
jacksonc@sfsu.edu

Dear Professor Bridenthal,

When was the last time that the AHA sponsored several panels on military
history?  When was the last time that a *military* historian received a
tenure-track position at a prestigious research institute?  Off hand I don't
know, but Kennedy at Yale is the closest that I can think of, and strictly
speaking, he is not a military historian.

One of the most important fields in our profession concerns war and society,
and that particular aspect of human interaction is woefully neglected at the
AHA in favor of all sorts of things that *are* important--but war is
important too.  Politics is important. Not all history need be cultural
history, which has been the strong trend of the AHA in recent years, and the
people in the Historical Society are starting their little organization in
the hope that important things--like politics--can still be discussed.

A friend of mine was on a panel proposal committee at the AHA, and the other
panel committee members *laughed* at the very notion that someone would
propose a panel concerning military history.  That is rather arrogant,
self-centered, and narrow, and it is that arrogance that I hope the people
in the Historical Society are rejecting.  What the AHA has done over the
past dozen years or so has been to privilege all sorts of "new" history;
some of it has been good, some of it not so well done.  Fine, I say, let's
look at new things.  But the things that we were looking at 100 years ago
are not suddenly unimportant simply because they were the doings of dead
white males.  The trend of the last few years has been to talk about the
disenfranchised, and those without power.  Power has, in fact, become the
center of our historical discourse.  Yet the very study of power has, in the
process, been neglected.  It has been treated as if it is a black-and-white,
you have-it-or-you-don't affair.  Things are not that simple. Talking about
power is not enough; power must be *examined*.

Even more egregious has been the neglect of *formal* politics and political
institutions as a legitimate and *important* field of *current* history.
And yes, that neglect is most obvious when it comes to the neglect of war.
It is difficult to understand virtually *any* important subject that relates
to *history* (as opposed to anthropology) that is not touched by war.  That
little Toy-auto that we all drove back in the 70s because of the oil shock?
That gas-guzzling-four-wheel-drive-wheels-never-leave-
the-pavement-but-screw-the-economy-and-the-environment-because-I'm-protectin
g-my-*baby* monster-truck that we can drive these days because oil is cheap?
Both because of war.

I'll tell you a little story:  I paid my own way to a university in another
state to visit and try to plug myself into their newly-advertised
tenure-track position.  I did my homework, looked at the catalog, researched
the faculty in the department, and discovered that one of them taught a
two-term course on war and society.  Great!  I said to myself, I teach a
one-semester course on war and society at UC Berkeley now and then.  I
mentioned this to the faculty member who was escorting me around campus, and
he laughed and said, "Oh, that was old Professor Dingsbums--we decided to
grow up, so we decided that that course won't be taught anymore."  At another
(failed) application to a job I was queried about my course by a tenured
faculty member, who worried whether teaching about war and society is the
equivalent of *advocating* war.  (He taught a course on the Holocaust.)

At another university at which I've taught (and I have considerable
experience in the realm of low-paid adjunct lecturing) a tenure-track
professor saw fit to teach an entire quarter on "introduction to western
civilization" without so much as *mentioning* the Second World War. You'll
pardon me if I find this just a little wrong-headed, but I do feel strongly
that the attitudes that I've just described are too common, and if we need a
few people standing up for *all* sorts of history, not just the things that
are politically correct these days, then so be it--let's start a new
organization.  From what I understand of the goals and intentions of the
Historical Society, they do *not* want to create a reactionary club where
everyone bitches and whines about books about the role of breasts in history
(Yalom's book is a damn fine one, to my mind, and I would love to see her
join the Society too).  Rather, they would like to see *all* sorts of
history represented, including the stuff that is important, but now woefully
neglected. Politics.  War.  Diplomacy.  Violence against *all* sorts of
people, be they women, workers, or even white men.  The Historical Society
wants to look at things that are important, even if they're ugly and we
don't agree with them, but only if they're important.  Just because the
Third World is important doesn't mean that the First World *isn't*
important--it is.  (Just look at the world around us.)

Please join it, or, alternatively, help reform the AHA; I respect your work
a lot, and we need more quality people in the Historical Society.

Christopher R. Jackson, San Francisco State University

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