April 2004 Newsletter

Thoughts from SHAFR President Mark Stoler

The SHAFR events at the recent AHA meeting in Washington were certainly grand occasions. Our reception drew a huge crowd that overflowed the room and spilled into the hallway of the hotel. Similarly, the SHAFR Council meeting had near-perfect attendance, despite the 7:30 A.M. start time, and there was not a seat to spare. Even the outrageously priced luncheon was well attended this year!

Frankly, I was quite surprised by this showing. Many SHAFR members are used to being marginalized by the AHA and other larger historical societies and consequently have ceased attending such meetings. This year, however, we apparently showed up in record numbers. So did members of the Society for Military History (SMH), another marginalized group, who filled a large room to capacity in order to hear Richard Kohn of the University of North Carolina deliver the George C. Marshall Lecture on Military History.

The main reason for the crowds may well have been the appearance, for the first time in many years, of numerous panels that actually dealt with diplomatic and military history topics and included SHAFR and SMH members. Indeed, the theme of this year's conference could have been composed by a member of SHAFR or SMH: "War and Peace: History and the Dynamics of Human Conflict and Cooperation." (Perhaps it was, as the AHA president is the distinguished Civil War historian James McPherson of Princeton University.)

Actually, this revived interest in diplomatic and military history is not all that new. Three years ago the distinguished diplomatic historian William Roger Louis was the AHA president. Furthermore, the AHA and OAH have made numerous overtures over the past few years to encourage SHAFR and SMH members to submit panel proposals for the annual meetings. Apparently, we are no longer considered old- fashioned historians with dated methods.

Certainly we have changed in response to criticisms leveled at us, but those changes have been underway for decades. It is the attitude of the profession as a whole that has changed in recent years. Perhaps it has taken this long for our message to filter down. Perhaps history departments, under increasing pressures from administrators to increase their enrollments, have noticed how popular diplomatic and military history remains among students and the public at large.

Perhaps it was simply time for the pendulum to swing back to us. But that pendulum swing was probably accelerated by September 11 and its aftermath. War and diplomacy, it is now apparent, are dominant issues once again, and dominant societal issues have always had a major impact on historiographical trends.

The struggle for recognition within the profession is far from over. Our older colleagues retire and are not replaced. Nevertheless, we appear to be on the upswing. But as a result we now face a new problem of our own making. Consistently rejected for AHA and OAH panels over the years, many of us have stopped even applying and instead turn solely to the annual SHAFR Conference to present our work. Now we are being asked to send proposals once again to the larger organizations. In last August's Passport, Nick Sarantakes urged us to do so and offered sound advice on how to apply. I join him in encouraging you to send such proposals and strongly recommend rereading his recommendations in this regard.

I hope to see many, many SHAFR members in Austin, Texas, at what promises to be an excellent SHAFR conference (June 24-27, 2004)!