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Editorial

 
   

     Those who have "watched this space" since our last issue know that our last number was the final one produced under the co-editorship of Heather Streets of Washington State University, whose 5-year term as co-editor was instrumental in the launch and rapid growth of this journal. Founders are precious, their work prodigious, and the gratitude due them is infinite. So it is with Heather.

     World History Connected used the opportunity provided by this, its first major editorial change-over, to re-assess the journal's content, editorial responsibilities, and publication schedule. This meant delaying the next number of the journal until spring of 2009, but we at World History Connected believe you will find that delay well worth the wait.

     World History Connected will in the future appear in late October/early November, late February/early March and the first week of June.

     The March issue, as with this current number, will include new features of special interest to those instructors seeking assistance in preparing students for final examinations and the Advanced Placement examination in World History.

     The June issue will further advance the scholarship of teaching world history by offering a section replicating a summer workshop for instructors of world history as all levels of instruction. Leaders of seminars and institutes in world history aimed at collegiate, regular secondary and Advance Placement courses will offer their expertise in our virtual pages in an effort share it with those unable to attend these faculty development programs.

     The first of these workshop efforts will be lead by Ane Lintvedt of the McDonough School. We hope it will draw further attention to our new "Forum" format.

     Each issue, beginning with this number, will feature a "Forum" section with articles related to a common theme gathered by a "guest editor" who is a specialist in that area of world history. Each of these articles will be developed to serve the journal's dual mission of promoting scholarship in world history and connecting it to the scholarship of teaching world history. To best serve these goals, the editorial staff will produce an accompanying essay which reviews the contributions these articles are making to the field and makes explicit the classroom applications of their content. This is an element long desired by both our readership and also our editorial staff.

     This "Forum" will, however, not be the limit of an issues' content. Due to its new design and its expanded editorial scope and staff, each issue will also offer articles and reviews not devoted to that theme, thus continuing to ensure that each issue serves a wide variety of interests.

     This issue's forum, "China and World History," will be guest edited by Tim Weston, a China scholar who is also an Associate Editor of World History Connected. Its articles trace the Silk Road through time and space, from the pre-modern "southern" Silk Road to the re-birth of the northern Silk Road as a conduit of global trade in the Central Asia of today. They also offer insight into Chinese views of the environment and a Chinese case study of the manner in which globalization has hastened the spread of techniques of political repression and terror.

     Upcoming forums will address "Big History" (fall of 2009) and the New Advanced Placement World History Course Design (Winter 2009-2010), which will be publicly announced that fall: the College Board is looking to World History Connected to serve as a sounding board for the re-design. Subsequent forums may range from recent topics of WHA meetings, such as Oceans in World History, to less traveled topics, such as Latin America in World History.

     Perhaps least visible, but perhaps the most important of the changes effected during our brief hiatus concerns staffing. World History Connected now employs a growing number of editors supervising new departments whose job will be to recruit and develop articles that offer insight into world history scholarship, provide interpretive essays on world history theory and practice, and generate both models of instruction and also provide classroom resources, particularly for under-served topics and periods (such as the pre-modern world). The reviews section is being expanded to include discussion of classroom games and simulations (such as 'Reacting to the Past"), websites, films, and exhibitions (local, national, international and virtual). Future issues will also include new homepage features that will enable readers to share their comments with the authors so as to generate further discussion on the topics they addressed and otherwise facilitate the sharing of news and lessons drawn from fieldwork and classroom experiences.

     Editorial positions include Craig Benjamin (Big History) Wendy Eagan (continuing her service promoting Visual Literacy), William Everdell (Book Review editor), Ane Lintvedt (Guest editor, Workshop Forum), Rick Warner (Associate editor/articles editor), Tim Weston (Associate editor/Guest editor, China Issue), Bill Strickland (Instructional Technology), John Maunu (Internet Resources), Saundra Schwartz (Pre-Modern History) and Heidi Roupp, who remains our indispensable Managing Editor. Several new editors as well as mainstays of the journal, including Sharon Cohen and James Diskant, will also hold portfolios.

     Several aspects of the journal will not change. It continues to enjoy the status of an affiliate of the World History Association and the Editorial Board and staff is ever-grateful to the College Board and its many readers for their financial support.

     Both the new features and the retention of our successful traditions are the product of my working with our continuing co-editor Tom Laichas of the Crossroads School to develop a strategic plan that hopefully will serve the journal for the next five years as well as Heather Streets' vision has served it since its inception.

     My personal commitment is to increase the journal's connectivity in a variety of respects. This includes broadening our understanding of world history, connecting scholars formally working outside the parameters of world history into our discipline; involving more members of the world history community in this publication's editorial work, and opening new lines of communication between contributors and readers. Finally, I wish to further advance World History Connected's dual mission of serving scholarship and teaching by removing as many bricks as possible from the wall that divides the scholar/practitioner from the practitioner/scholar on the grounds that even the best scholarship can be improved by placing it in the crucible of practice, and that "best practices" depend upon the incorporation of the finest in scholarship.

     It is my hope that readers of World History Connected will approve the manner in which these aspirations, fully shared by its editors and the Editorial Board, have been translated into its content and style. Our aim was to enhance the journal's value to the field of world history. Let us know how we are doing!

Marc Jason Gilbert
Hawaii Pacific University

 

 

 
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