August 2004 Newsletter
Thoughts From SHAFR President Mark A. Stoler
On April 29 I participated in a fascinating one-day workshop, sponsored by the Security Studies Program at MIT, on the status of diplomatic and military history in the academy. The workshop focused on two papers: one by Professor Emeritus Edward M. Coffman of the University of Wisconsin-Madison on the status of military history; and the other by former SHAFR President and Professor George Herring of the University of Kentucky on the status of diplomatic history. Although both scholars noted serious problems, they also emphasized the fact that the status of their sub-fields was not as bad as many believe. To the contrary, diplomatic and military history both flourished during the 1990s in terms of student interest, expanded membership in SHAFR and the Society for Military History (SMH), and the variety, vitality and quality of scholarship as presented in their annual conferences, in books, and in their specialized journals, Diplomatic History and The Journal of Military History. All of this suggests that the two fields are quite strong and vibrant. To paraphrase Mark Twain, rumors of our death have been highly exaggerated.
Nevertheless, both scholars noted that very real and serious problems do exist. Herring believes the most serious are the “aging” of diplomatic historians and their non-replacement within university history departments as they retire-- clearly a result of the continued marginalization of diplomatic history within the profession. Although our fields of study are different, Coffman made clear that military historians face similar problems within academia.
The two groups also share some common and important scholarly ground. As Michael Hogan in last year’s SHAFR presidential address emphasized our common ground with social/cultural historians, so in my presidential address last June in Austin I focused on what we share with military historians—particularly in terms of the very close relationship between the causes and consequences of war on the one hand and its conduct on the other, and the role military officers have played and continue to play in the formulation and conduct of foreign policy. We also share some common and important scholarly ground with members of the Peace History Society (PHS) who study past efforts to avoid and/or end wars.
Yet how many of us belong to the SMH and PHS as well as SHAFR? As a member
of all three organizations and an officer in two of them, I admittedly speak
here with a degree of self-interest and run the risk of attempting to universalize
my own situation and values. Nevertheless, with common interests and common
problems, is not a closer relationship between these three groups appropriate?
This relationship need not be limited to historians. Political scientists in
the fields of international relations and security studies also share our scholarly
interests. Indeed, the decline in the number of diplomatic and military history
positions in academia has drawn the concern of these scholars, such as those
in the MIT Security Studies Program who sponsored the April 29 conference. Perhaps,
then, it is time to apply some basic lessons from the history of international
relations to our own situation. Nations possessing common interests and facing
common problems tend to form coalitions: is it not appropriate and timely for
us to do the same by forging an intra and interdisciplinary alliance to promote
our common interests and tackle our common problems?
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