While it is not the practise of the Journal of American Studies to have editorials, this issue marks an exception. We celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the British Association for American Studies (BAAS), the academic organization which sponsors the Journal, and whose members receive the Journal as one of the benefits of membership. Most practitioners of American studies in the United Kingdom belong to the BAAS, giving it a truly interdisciplinary membership united by interest in the United States as a site of academic study. Members are drawn principally from the ranks of historians, litterateurs, political scientists and analysts of popular culture, along with some geographers, sociologists and economists. Its annual conference draws participants from many nations and at all levels of the academic hierarchy.

The years following the Second World War, according to the Norwegian scholar Sigmund Skard, witnessed the “Rediscovery of America,” as European academics belatedly turned their attention to the United States at a time when its pre-eminent global role could not be ignored. In Britain some believed that the awakening was already under way, the Principal of what became Exeter University having described 1941 as the year of the British “discovery of America.” The jarring realization that the very survival of Britain depended on a close alliance with the American giant had precipitated not only frenetic governmental activity but also intense interest in the United States throughout the media. Perhaps the “discovery” or “rediscovery” of America in British consciousness cannot be dated with exact precision, but the years from the war to the mid-1960s may fairly be called the “take-off period” for the academic study of American history in Britain. This essay briefly considers the role of some of the participants in this endeavour.

Marcus Cunliffe (1922–1990) was incontestably an important figure in American studies. In the early part of his academic career he helped to found the subject area in Britain, and he was later both awarded professorial appointments at the Universities of Manchester and Sussex and elected to the chairmanship of the British Association for American Studies, from which positions he served as a personal inspiration and professional mentor to several “generations” of UK American studies academics. Those who knew him and worked with him were invariably struck by his tall good looks, charisma and charm – characteristics that no doubt also contributed to his successful career, in Britain and in the United States, first as a visiting scholar, and later, during his final years, as the occupant of an endowed chair at George Washington University in Washington, DC. As the correspondence in his papers attest, he was held in high – and warm – regard by many of the leading US historians of his heyday. More might be said about his charm here because it also permeates his writing and persists there as a kind of afterglow, and not only for those who encountered him in person – but this essay is a critical reconsideration of his published work that, though appreciative, at least aspires towards objectivity.

When Abraham Minis, merchant and tavern keeper, of Savannah, Georgia sat down to draw up his last will and testament he faced a heart-wrenching dilemma: how would he successfully provide for all of his eight children and also ensure that his beloved wife Abigail would have enough to live out the rest of her days in widowhood in comfort? Three years later, in spring 1757, Abraham died. When his will was read, there were thankfully no surprises for Abigail and their children – Abraham had followed Low Country custom regarding the division of family wealth. He gave his three sons his horses and mares and left five daughters all of his black cattle. It was Abigail, he explained, who was to inherit “all the rest of my Estate both real and personal” to be “enjoyed by her” so that she would be able to “maintain educate and bring up our children.” He sealed his love, approval, and trust in his wife's abilities to meet this request by nominating her his sole executrix. Any help that she might need when settling the affairs of his estate, he observed, would be provided by his loyal friends Joseph Phillips and Benjamin Sheftall, who would assist and advise her.

George Washington died much as he lived, stoic, dignified, controlled to the very end. True to form, his last moments, much like his life, saw him surrounded by slaves. At daybreak on the day he died – Saturday, 14 December 1799 – Caroline, a housemaid, bustled into his room to make a fire. Three other slaves fetched the physicians, who ministered to the dying General. Washington's body servant, twenty-four-year-old Christopher, otherwise known as Christopher Sheels, attended his master throughout the long day of his last illness. Indeed, in the afternoon Washington motioned Christopher to take a seat by his bedside as he had been standing throughout his vigil. At the moment of death, blacks outnumbered whites in the room. Caroline, Charlotte, a seamstress, and Molly, a domestic, were all standing near the door, and Christopher was by the bed, while only three whites – Dr. James Craik, his primary physician and old friend; Tobias Lear, his secretary; and Martha Washington, his wife – were present. At Martha's behest, Christopher aroused Lear from his grief by asking him to take care of the General's keys and other personal items which the body servant had taken out of the dead man's pockets. On the day after Washington's death, Frank Lee, the family's mulatto butler, Christopher, and Marcus, another house servant, received new shoes so that they would look presentable at the funeral.

The Tortilla Curtain (1995), a novel by T. Coraghessan Boyle, juxtaposes the existence of southern California's affluent whites and non-white underclass by relating the stories of two couples whose lives become irrevocably entangled following a fateful automobile accident. The period flavour derives from racial tensions that culminated in the Los Angeles riots of 1992 and the passage, two years later, of Proposition 187, a package of prohibitive measures to curb the influx of “undocumented” immigrants from Mexico. Delaney Mossbacher, the book's main character, is a freelance nature writer with orthodox liberal views – a caricatured Sierra Club member. He contributes a monthly, Annie Dillard-esque nature column (“Pilgrim at Topanga Creek”) to an outdoor magazine. He lives in an upscale hilltop community designed in impeccable Spanish mission style – the product of white flight – apparently safe from the Mexican hordes that have broken through the border (the brittle “tortilla curtain” of the novel's title) and are overrunning the flatlands.

Richard Nixon gained a poor reputation as President for his work as leader of the Republican Party. His attitude towards the party was seen as neglectful at best, destructive at worst. It was clear that Nixon revelled in the details of electoral politics as far as his own position was concerned, but it seemed equally clear that he had little concern for the political fortunes of his party at large. Among the most partisan of American politicians during his earlier career, Nixon seemed to shrug off this partisan past when he reached the White House in 1969. But this understanding of Nixon's relationship with the Republican Party is in some respects misleading. Although it is true that his record provides significant examples of presidential neglect of the party, it also contains equally significant examples of presidential concern about the party's future. Few American Presidents of the modern era paid much attention to their responsibility for party leadership, so the nature of Nixon's support for the Republicans distinguishes him as a party leader of notable strength rather than notable weakness.

Since Arthur Miller is frequently considered the most European of American playwrights it is hard to understand why we still lack a history of his drama in our continent and hence ignore much more about its presence here than we know. Unfortunately that has given rise to misconceptions which it would be the task of historians to refute and place in correct focus. One such misconception is that his drama was extremely successful in Europe during the 1950s. Some European productions of Miller were not successful at all and many of those that were proved less spectacularly so than is often held.

On 30 November 1978 thousands of people from across the United States took part in “Justice for J. P. Stevens' Workers Day.” In seventy-four cities activities such as rallies, marches, press conferences, film premieres, and leafleting were held in support of a union boycott against a giant textile company that had persistently shown its willingness to violate the law rather than recognize its workers' right to organize. In New York City more than 3000 demonstrators marched in front of the company's midtown headquarters as part of the nationwide day of protest that was endorsed by Governor Hugh L. Carey and the City Council. In Los Angeles hundreds of trade unionists and their supporters rallied in front of City Hall, while in Indianapolis protesters gathered at the local Hilton Hotel for a “hard times luncheon” of ham and beans that was designed to express solidarity with the company's low-paid workers. Finding that the hotel's table cloths were made by Stevens, enraged protesters ripped the fabrics from the tables and dumped them in a pile on the floor. Activities were also held in many smaller cities; in Albany, New York, for example, a rally was addressed by Secretary of State and Lieutenant Governor-elect Mario Cuomo, who told consumers “to shun the products of J. P. Stevens as you would shun the fruit of an unholy tree.” Across the country, protesters carried signs urging consumers to steer clear of the company's sheets, a staple part of its textile business.