At our recent annual meeting the AHA chose a focus on “the public work of historians” for our plenary session (watch the video of the session). The January issue of Perspectives on History seems to have stimulated the kind of conversation that we as historians need to participate in, and we encourage our members to take a look at a column in Commentary that engages our own commentaries. It’s a sharp piece, which engages with the two of us only to disagree. That’s fine: as we both noted, we know that we don’t have all the answers. We’re hoping that our columns will spark thoughtful discussions of history and historical thinking in as many parts of the blogosphere (and elsewhere) as we can. It looks as if we’ll get our wish.

Tony Grafton, AHA president
Jim Grossman, AHA executive director

This post first appeared on AHA Today.