Editor's Notebook

Abstract

EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese Nothing hadprepared mefor the wave ofgenerous response to thefirst issue /The Journal, andalthough I neverfound the time to thank in person all ofthose who wrote, their notes and letters warmed my heart and rewarded the efforts ofthose who had conjured up thatfirst issue: mainly our authors, Victor Hanson, Darryl Hart, Mark Smith, and the hte Robert Wiebe, but abo our managing editor, Laura Crawley, and myself. Above all, that warm appreciation ofour efforts strengthened my conviction that it would bepossible toproduce ajournai that combined thefinest scbofarship with a commitment tofostering a conversation about historicalproblems andcommunicatingsomething ofthe excitement ofthoseproblems to a variety ofreaders. The only drawback to our readers'generosity—ifI may be so ungracious as to voice one—lay in the attendant responsibility to live up to thatfirst success and hopefully, toprove it something more than afortuitous accident, which is surely how our critics would like to view it. In the timeworn phrase, so what doyou dofor an encore? Pondering the responsibilities ofan encore, I could not but think sympathetically ofA. E. Houseman's "To An Athlete Dying Young," or, to put it more vulgarly, why not quit while you are ahead? For better or worse, quitting was not an option, and Laura and I set ourselves to putting some flesh on the skeleton ofour original vision. Happily, we have been blessed with assistance from all quarters. The forthcoming double issue will more than testify to the quality of that assistance and—no less important—to the rapidity with which it was tendered, although even that gratifying response did not permit us to assemble a second issue as rapidly as we should have wished. Many thanks to thefolbwing foundations that havegiven THSfinancialsupport: The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation The John M. Olin Foundation The Tom Watson Brown Foundation The Earhart Foundation The William H. Donner Foundation The second issue proved a daunting challenge, primarily because of the nature ofour vision and ambition for TheJournal For ifwe are dedicated to the ideal ofpublishing scholarship of the highest quality—with which our members can abundantly provide us— we are no less dedicated to the vision of a journal that invites conversation and the continuing investigation of important historical questions. Consequently, we needed to persuade others to provide substance for that vision, either by writing responses to one ofour first four essays or by permitting us to publish revised versions of their conference papers or comments. In the end, the commentators proved the most difficult to convince, doubtless because most people do not expect to publish comments, which they often expect to develop for publication in another form. We prevailed only when we convinced them that publication in The Journal did not foreclose the future development and that we especially valued the exploratory and speculative nature of their remarks. continued on page 4 ~3~ The Presidents Comer Editor s Notebook Left, Right, Left Economic History Affiliation Announcement On Libraries Publishing In Memoriam—Robert Wiebe The Academic Job Search Regional Reports Regional Contact Info Recent Publications Awards and Achievements Announcements Membership Form fOR'S NOTEBOOK amtitiutä frompap I Thanks to the efforts of an impressive group of historians from different specializations and different stages of seniority, our forthcoming issue will begin to demonstrate some of the possibilities. For, in addition to original research (Richard Graham and Constantine Gutzman), it will include two responses to one of the articles in the first issue (Dennis Martin and David Whitford), the papers and comments from one of the sessions at our most recent national conference (Robert Kingdon, John Witte, Jr., Steven Ozment, and Philip Soergel), and three probing essays, one on the pitfalls of teaching religion (Norman Ravitch), one on Alan Guelzo's important new book on Abraham Lincoln (Darryl Hart), and one on the pitfalls of postmodern literary studies (Keith Windschuttle). And as the various pieces came in and the issue took shape, it became increasingly clear that, in various ways, they are contributing to a cluster of interlocking themes, which, in their permutations, open new questions and new lines of investigation. Finally, to end with the beginning as it were, we have one that crosses borders in that...