Continuity and contingency: the medical-historical world according to Charles E. Rosenberg.

F EW American historians of medicine and health care are as well known as Charles E. Rosenberg. Since his first book, The Cholera Years, appeared in 1962, the conceptual frameworks Charles (as everyone calls him) developed and refined in his many publications have formed the historiographic backbone of our field. His interests in history have been so catholic, and his personal support of individuals so wide-ranging, that several generations of scholars have been shaped by his influence. Yet perhaps because his influence has been so pervasive, his impact on the history of medicine remains largely unarticulated and unexamined. This roundtable represents a first effort to articulate and examine that influence. The articles gathered here were first presented at a conference held 18–19 June 2004, at Harvard University, where Charles currently holds the position of Ernest E. Monrad Professor in the Social Sciences in the Department of the History of Science. Unlike the conventional festschrift, the conference did not mark Charles’s retirement, but rather represented a celebration of his continued productivity as a thinker and as a mentor. Co-sponsored by the Harvard History of Science Department and the