Central European Historyat Fifty: Notes from a Longtime Fan

Abstract

In the mid-1960s, a small delegation of graduate students went to Theodore S. Hamerow's office at the University of Wisconsin—Madison. Noting that theJournal of Central European Affairshad ceased publication in 1964, James Harris, Stanley Zucker, and I asked our advisor why there was no academic journal dedicated to German history, a new field that had been developing rapidly. What could we do to create such an organ? The otherwise placid Hamerow wrinkled his brow and angrily asked who had put us up to this initiative! When we answered that this was just our idea, he relaxed and told us that he was the chair of a committee charged by the Conference Group for Central European History with doing just that, namely, founding such a new journal. Douglas A. Unfug of Emory University had already put in a bid, in fact, andCentral European Historystarted to appear in 1968. By using a variation of the previous name, the journal hoped to pick up prior subscribers and avoid being identified by its title with the erstwhile enemy—Germany.