A LITTLE HISTORY
I hope to have a number of posts of my own up later today but here are two on history and historians that caught my eye:
“When Archivists Deal with Power Players” by Dr. Maarja Krusten
I “know” Maarja from our interaction on H-Diplo and at HNN and she brings a wealth of knowledge to the table regarding the politics of the National Archives ( interestingly enough, she had, if I recall, doubts about Bush’s appointment of Cold War scholar Allen Weinstein to head the National Archives, something I strongly supported; I’m betting her opinion of Weinstein is more favorable today). The piece will also interest those readers, like Lexington Green, who have an interest in Richard Nixon.
“Training the Next Generation of Historians ” by Kevlvn
A great post at ProgressiveHistorians on the future of the historical profession and the relationship that universities and professional historians could have in improving the education of K-12 students in history and their own teaching of undergraduates (the quality level of which, to put it kindly, is uneven). A commendable post and one that touches on the larger question of the mission of the American university in the 21st century.
March 13th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Many thanks, Mark, for your very kind comments about my article on HNN. I think Dr. Weinstein and his Information Security Oversight Office director at NARA, Bill Leonard, handled the “reclassification” flap last year in an exemplary manner. Matters related to Presidential records are more complicated. NARA faces many challenges, especially in cases in litigation. Its history-trained officials and staff level archivists are subordinate employees within the executive branch. The Department of Justice speaks for them in court. It can get tricky as there obviously are some competing dynamics, both within NARA and in DOJ.
I posted a comment on the Presidential Records Act on Ralph Luker’s blog today, see
http://hnn.us/blogs/comments/36453.html#comment
Thanks again!
Maarja