Letter to the Editor

U 2 — s O a IFOR PAPERS continuedfrom page I • China after the Japanese invasion and the civil war of 1 937- 1 949; • The restructuring of the world economy after World War I; • Germany and japan under tlx- military occupations after World War II; • The social and state systems of Russia, Yugoslavia, and other eastern European countries after the fall of communism. The program directors welcome ppers that are comparative in scope, or those which may be combined in order to illuminate the bearing of some historical experiences on others. The directors extend a special invitation to those whose principal concern is teaching in schools at all levels. In the September 2000 (Volume 1 1. Number I ) issue of Historically Speaking, the affiliation of Homer D. Hill, author of the review of Proudly We Served, was listed incorrectly . Hill is a graduate student at Duke University and an adjunct instructor at Drake University. We apologize for the error. Volume II, Number 2 Historically Speaking The Newsletter of The Historical Society 656 Beacon Street Mezzanine Boston, MA 02215-2010 617/358-0260 Fax: 617/358-0250 historic«!' bu.edu www.bu.edu/historic Editor: Kirse G. May Assistant Editor: Sarah M. Abbott Those whose expertise lies outside the immediate subject arc invited to comment formally, or participate from the floor. To illustrate: papers on the scope and effects of the military regime imposed in the South after the Civil War should profit from criticism by those who know about military occupations in other times and places. Please send five copies of your paper proposal, a brief abstract no more than two pages in length, to: 2002 Program Directors, The Historical Society, 656 Beacon Street, Mezzanine, Boston, MA 022 1 52010 . Submissions sent to other addresses will not be accepted, and nor will e-mail attachments. The deadline for submission is April 3, 2001. ·-*-¦ Program Directors: William W. Frechling, University of Kentucky Robert Herzslein, University of South Carolina O tu O Many thanh to thefollowingfoundations that have given THSfinancial support: The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation The William H. Donner Foundation The Earhart Foundation The John M. ONn Foundation Dear Editors. I agree with Wlliam Freehling's article "Second Thoughts on the Job Crisis." However, I would like to propose another avenue for improvement. I suggest that universities encourage student authors to prepare their graduate dissertations and other monographs for Web publishing. Hopefully, this would change the 'jargonish style' which Dr. Freehling notes. Encouraging students to prepare their results in html for the Web, in my opinion, is almost as important as making them learn how to use the Internet for research. If history is to be made useful, readable, and even read by a wider public, much attention has to be paid to proper presentation, not only painstaking research. And, of course, it would be very inexpensive for the universities to make this work available on the Internet Dr. Freehling notes that fewer than IO percent of history PhD theses are published. Using the Internet, the majority could be published. Of course, direct publication of individual papers in this manner would bypass the 'peer review' process at the institutional journals. I expect that would generate much criticism, but so much the better. If young scholars could get their work to the public without the censorship imposed by the powers controlling the institutional journals, conformity to reigning standards of 'political correctness' could not stand. One result would be even more 'chaff on the Internet than there already is, but the additional measures of valuable 'wheat' would more than compensate. And if the public was thereby encouraged to evaluate what they read absent the interposition of censors, that would be a good result as well. Learning how to present their work via the Internet would also help in "training our students to educate beyond the university," which Dr. Freehling so rightly advocates. We do indeed need more, not fewer, PhDs or masters' graduates in history. John Sloan John Sloan is a retired professor ofhistory from the United States Military Academy. S),^- ...