CHRONICLE of Higher Education DAILY NEWS
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Wednesday, April 29, 1998

Organizers of New Society for Historians
Call It an 'Antidote' to Existing Groups
By COURTNEY LEATHERMAN

WASHINGTON
For historians turned off by the state of scholarship encouraged by the
American Historical Association and the Organization of American
Historians, there's a new game in town -- the Historical Society, which
officially announced its formation at a press conference here Tuesday.

"It's hardly a secret that the history profession is in disarray," said
Eugene D. Genovese, a Southern historian who retired from teaching three
years ago and serves as president of the Historical Society. "And if people
were satisfied with the established organizations, we wouldn't be in
business."

Listing a "bill of particulars," Mr. Genovese denounced those groups for
taking political stands on issues such as the Vietnam War and nuclear
disarmament, and for their role in encouraging "trivial" scholarship and
excluding the work of political, diplomatic, and economic historians from
their programs.

Neither Mr. Genovese nor many other members of the new group have attended
meetings of the A.H.A. or O.A.H. for several years. Many Historical Society
members quit those groups "in a huff," he said. He said he had kept up with
the goings on in those groups through other scholars, but had come to the
conclusion that trying to change the organizations from within would be
fruitless.

He and others said they considered the Historical Society an "antidote" to
the proliferation of splinter groups of historians, a trend they see as
evidence of widespread dissatisfaction with the A.H.A. and O.A.H.

The Historical Society hopes to hold meetings -- alternating annually
between national and regional sessions -- as well as to put out a journal
and work to improve the lot of graduate students in the discipline. The
society plans to keep membership dues low -- right now they're $20 a year
-- and hopes to attract financial support for projects from foundations.
Mr. Genovese said he would name those foundations soon, once some of the
money has been secured.

Mr. Genovese, a onetime Marxist, said he was not interested in forming a
"right-wing conspiracy" group and noted that the Historical Society had
already attracted 250 members of all political stripes, areas of expertise,
and types of institutions. They include conservatives, libertarians,
leftists, even a communist, he said. Professors at research universities
and community colleges, graduate students, and high-school teachers have
joined. And the society hopes to attract more. Its only requirements, as
stipulated in a press release, are that "participants lay down plausible
premises; reason according to the canons of logic; appeal to evidence; and
prepare to exchange criticism with those who hold different points of view."

The press release further stated, "We have no interest in endless
controversies and 'cultural wars' with those who are satisfied with the
status quo." What members are interested in, the statement said, is
"reshaping our profession."

But some other scholars are skeptical of the group's pitch. They wonder
why, if the society has no interest in perpetuating the culture wars, so
many old warriors from at least one side hold prominent posts in the
society and also are active in the National Association of Scholars -- a
group that has fought for a return to traditional approaches to the
curriculum. (See a list of the society's leaders and charter members.)
Moreover, those skeptics argue that the two big history organizations
represent a range of interests in the field.

Five other leaders of the new group spoke with Mr. Genovese at the press
conference. They were Donald Kagan, a Yale University historian and
classicist who began thinking of starting the society two years ago;
Sheldon Avery, of Harford Community College; Charles Banner-Haley, of
Colgate University; Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, of Emory University and Mr.
Genovese's wife; and Marc Trachtenberg, of the University of Pennsylvania,
who is the group's executive director. They plan to hold their first
executive-committee meeting next week.

For more on the new society, watch for a longer story in next week's
Chronicle, to be posted on line on Monday.
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