Editor's Note

On december 14, 1819, president james monroe signed the legislation creating the state of Alabama. In the years since, Alabama has been a crossroads of American history. This bicentennial year presents historians with an opportunity to take stock of that history, to understand the "state of the state," and to consider how Alabamians' shared past will shape the state's future.

In commemoration of the state's bicentennial, we are pleased to offer a number of special features, essays that will interrogate the state's storied history, spread across the four issues of volume seventy-two. These articles will provide snapshots of the current scholarship on state history and will celebrate efforts to preserve and share Alabama's story. This issue features two such features, an overview of Alabama history by Wayne Flynt and a survey of the work of Alabama's accomplished local history societies by Gayle Thomas.

MLD