The seventeenth quinquennial congress will be held in Madrid in August 1990. The AHA is the official organizer of the US delegation to the congress, and planning for the meeting is now under way. In late September Karen Offen, Stanford University, chair of the Committee on International Historical Activities and AHA delegate to the General Assembly of ICHS, accompanied by an alternate delegate, and Carl N. Degler, Stanford University, member of the ICHS Bureau, attended the General Assembly in Athens to participate in the initial planning of the program.
Proposed major themes for the Madrid Congress are as follows:
Grand Themes: The background to the discovery of America and its consequences for world history; the economic, social, and political role of the megalopolis throughout the ages; revolution and reform—their influence on the history of society; movements toward and away from unity in whole continents.
Methodology: Circular and linear interpretations of the concept of time in history in Europe and Asia; social history today; anthropology and cultural history; historical biography; new mechanical sources at the disposal of historians, especially data banks.
Proposed chronological themes include the following topics:
Antiquity: The first migrations of population in pre-Colombian America; the birth and spread of science and movement of intellectuals (the invisible university); myths and symbols as historical sources. Middle Ages: feudalism in Asia; the communal movement (peasants, etc.). Modern Period (to 1800): cereals in world history; the modernization of the Arab world; the decline of the Ottoman Empire in Europe. Contemporary Period (1800 to present): the role of technology and technical schools in modern society; changes in women’s occupations since the industrial revolution; forward in peace and backward in war, an interpretative model for twentieth-century history; new research concerning treaties of alliance at the beginning of the Second World War; and social policy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Topics concerning several chronological periods include the following:
Middle Ages and Modern Period (to 1800): The organization of work and Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Middle Ages, Modern and Contemporary Periods: methods of holding on to power; center and periphery-home countries and colonies; diseases and society.
Proposed round tables include: manuscript resources in Europe and the East in the age of Marco Polo; the very wealthy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; the Age of “Enlightenment”–comparison between Europe and Asia; the protection of civilians and prisoners of war during the First World War; and research on gypsies.
Two topics treated at the Stuttgart congress—peace and resistance—have also been proposed as continuation topics for the 1990 agenda.
Historians who wish to propose a paper under any of these rubrics should contact the committee chair, Karen Offen (Institute for Research on Women and Gender, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-8640) or any of the current committee members (Robert Darnton, Princeton University; Elizabeth Eisenstein, University of Michigan; C. Warren Hollister, University of Cali fornia, Santa Barbara; William E. Leuchtenburg, University of North Car olina, Chapel Hill; Stuart B. Schwartz, University of Minnesota) before Decem ber
