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German Historians at the Back of the Pack: Hiring Patterns in Modern European History, 1945–2010
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2013
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Some years ago, I realized that I was the first historian of Germany hired in a tenure-track position at Amherst College. I got my job in 2000. Steeped in German history, I was surprised that a premier liberal arts college chose to hire a historian of Germany only at the very end of the twentieth century. My generation of historians of Germany often think—and other historians of Europe share our perception—that German history is a strong (if not the strongest) field in modern European history. Whether measured anecdotally by the number of job openings, the number of historians hired, the stream of published books, or the share of German history articles in academic journals, it always seems that German historians and German history are at the forefront. In fact, though, historians of Germany have always made up the smallest cohort of historians of the major European history fields (that also include British, Russian, and French history). According to the latest figures available from the American Historical Association (AHA), in 2010 there were 990 historians of Britain, 668 historians of Russia, 605 historians of France, and 592 historians of Germany in the United States.
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References
1 For the purposes of this article, the modern period begins in 1750 for Britain and in 1789 for the continental countries. British history includes Britain, Ireland, and the British Empire. Modern Russian history includes the Russian Empire and the former Soviet Union. Modern French history includes the French Empire. Modern German history includes German-speaking central Europe, including Habsburg history.
2 The AHA table includes all historians of a national history, not just historians of the modern era. The category of Germany in the AHA table covers historians who have self-identified as historians of Germany, but not those who have self-identified only as historians of Austria, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, or central Europe. If German history is viewed more capaciously (as it is in this article), the AHA numbers may well be low.
3 In compiling this database, I included only advertisements for tenure-track positions in history departments in the United States. In addition, to get a more accurate count of the true number of jobs filled (as opposed to listings), I deleted a job advertisement if a virtually identical position was advertised by the same institution within the next four years. Given that advertised jobs are sometimes canceled or otherwise go unfilled, this was intended to avoid counting the same job twice. Unfortunately, I was unable to locate job postings listed between October 1969 and November 1971. During that period, the AHA published a separate Professional Register Bulletin; see “The Professional Register,” AHA Newsletter 8, no.1 (1969): 16Google Scholar. This publication is not listed in any catalog of serials. It also does not appear to be in the papers of the American Historical Association housed in the Library of Congress.
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