n The History Manifesto, Jo Guldi and David Armitage seek a panacea for what they call short-termism—the shrinking chronological focus of historical studies that leads to the overproduction of micro-histories—in “new” longue durée histories that will rely on big data and on digital humanities.24 We agree that big data and digital humanities offer new and valuable ways of making history, includi...

Historians of science have participated actively in debates over American science policy in the post-World War II period in a variety of ways, but their impact has been more to elucidate general concepts than to effect specific policy changes. Personal experiences, in the case of the debate over global warming, have demonstrated both the value and the limits of such involvement for the making o...

Local history’s Post-war boom in Japan has produced a tremendous volume of publications, hundreds of volumes that provide materials for Japanese historians of all stripes, local sophisticated amateurs and professional university historians alike. As Gary Allinson noted years ago, these materials also provide a rich trove of materials for scholars outside of Japan: the best include not only surv...