"It's hardly a secret that

ALSO SEE: Join the debate: Do historians need an alternative to the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians? Is the creation of the Historical Society -- led by scholars such as Eugene D. Genovese and Donald Kagan -- a good idea? (The responses) The leaders of the Historical Society FOR SUBSCRIBERS: More stories from this week's Opinion section

the history profession is in disarray," he said at a press conference here last week, announcing the start of the Historical Society.

A renowned historian of slavery, with a reputation for shaking up the status quo, Mr. Genovese says the group will focus on the study of plain-spoken history -- not jargon-laden, esoteric theory -- and not only on matters of race, class, and gender.

"If people were satisfied with the established organizations, we wouldn't be in business," he said.

So far, business is booming. About 250 historians, many of them big names, have signed on. They are of all political and scholarly stripes: Southern historians, classicists, Latin American specialists. There are conservatives, libertarians, leftists, even a Communist, says Mr. Genovese, the group's president and himself a former Marxist. He says his current political leanings are harder to define.

Critics of the society's leader are clear about Mr. Genovese's politics, though -- they view him as a warrior for the right in the culture wars. That view is strengthened by the presence of conservatives in prominent posts in the group; some of them also belong to the tradition-bound National Association of Scholars. The critics are dismissive of some of his characterizations of the two established scholarly societies in history -- although they acknowledge that some of the complaints are widespread and long-standing -- and they are suspicious of his motives. Many think that the leaders of the Historical Society, whatever they may officially say, really long for the good old days, when their specialties dominated the profession's meetings. (Donald Kagan, the Yale University classicist and the man who dreamed up the Historical Society, admits as much. "That's true of me," he says. "I do want the good old days.")

Still, many aren't sure what to make of the group. The membership Mr. Genovese has attracted had surprised observers, who note such prominent liberal and leftist historians as: Walter LaFeber, of Cornell University; Martin J. Sklar, of Bucknell University; and Sean Wilentz, of Princeton University. Those names are curve balls to people who thought they could predict the Historical Society's pitch.

"It seems to represent an interesting diversity of perspectives," says Bill Chafe, a Duke University historian and president of the Organization of American Historians. "But I couldn't quite see what brought them together."

Laying out the political pedigrees of the membership helps establish the breadth of the his group, says Mr. Genovese. But he and his colleagues don't aim to talk politics at the Historical Society. That's one of their beefs with the two established groups: too much politics, not enough serious history.

Some members of the society attack the American Historical Association for having taken stands on issues such as the Vietnam War, nuclear disarmament, and civil-rights legislation for gay people. Others criticize what they view as an overemphasis on cultural and social history.

As an alternative, the meetings of the Historical Society will focus on perhaps one weighty issue -- the causes of the rise and fall of empires, for example -- says Elizabeth Fox- Genovese, an Emory University historian, Mr. Genovese's wife, and a leader of the group. "That does not preclude women, ethnicities, anything else," she says. "They're questions that brought a lot of us into history and keep a lot of the public still reading history."

The society won't focus on what Mr. Genovese and his colleagues see as theory for theory's sake. "There is a general revulsion against what is considered to be the dominant fads and trendy stuff that are of significance only to small groups of people with nothing better to do," he says.

That said, the Historical Society bills itself as "open to all who want to do serious history." (Postmodernists, postcolonialists, and deconstructionists are welcome, Mr. Genovese says, so long as they can defend their ideas.)

Aside from the $20 membership fee, the society advertises itself as requiring only that "participants lay down plausible premises; reason according to the canons of logic; appeal to evidence; and prepare to exchange criticism with those who hold different points of view."

Mr. Genovese, who retired three years ago as scholar-in- residence at the Atlanta University Center, says the society aims to publish a journal and hold annual and regional meetings. It also plans to work to improve the job prospects for new Ph.D.'s.

To accomplish all that, Mr. Genovese is applying for grants for projects -- not overall support for the group -- from foundations. He won't say which ones until the money has been secured. (So far, he says, the society has spent about $2,000.)

Critics speculate that the society's support will come eventually from conservative foundations interested in furthering their own political agendas. Mr. Genovese dismisses that idea. Exhaling smoke from one of his ever-present cigarillos before the press conference, he says potential supporters are as diverse as the membership, and that he'll reveal them in good time.

But the new group's executive director, Marc Trachtenberg, a University of Pennsylvania historian, bristles at the notion that the society is a conservative tool: "There's not a shred of evidence to support that. The fact that they would say that without any evidence tells you a lot about what they're like as historians."

Mr. Genovese says he quit the two big historical associations "in a huff" years ago, along with some of his new colleagues. But some others still belong to those groups. As a result, the members of the new group are hardly monolithic, either in their politics or in their reasons for joining. Some criticize the two associations for focusing on trivial, trendy scholarship and driving scholars to splinter off into smaller specialty groups. Others just think the big associations are boring.

"Those groups have lots to offer, but there's something missing," says Princeton's Mr. Wilentz, a member of both the established organizations. "I like to be wherever the debate is, wherever there's a fight. If the Historical Society can stir something up, that's great."

While Mr. Genovese views the Historical Society as a direct competitor of the two big groups, Mr. Wilentz calls it complementary. "There will be a tendency to see this as a secession, since Gene is involved," he says. "But it's not that. I'm a Yankee, not a secessionist."

Leaders of the A.H.A. and O.A.H. aren't viewing the new group's formation as a call to war -- not just yet.

Joyce Appleby, a historian at the University of California at Los Angeles and a former president of the historical association, says the new group's stated purposes are like apple pie and motherhood. "It's hard to be against them," she says. "Those are the principles of the A.H.A." as well. For her part, she sees nothing wrong with the historical association membership's taking political positions.

She suspects that the Historical Society has a "biographical origin," tied to what's going on in Mr. Genovese's life rather than to "the general intellectual environment." Another historian, who asked not to be named, sees the "center of gravity" in the group's membership as Southern historians and "Genovesians -- people who like him and admire him and will associate with him in anything."

Ms. Appleby suggests that members of the new group may be suffering from nostalgia. "Over the last 20 years, there's been an outpouring of history on women, urban life, ethnicity, popular culture. I see that as an incredible enriching of historical knowledge. But there's no question that that has led to diminishing attention paid to diplomacy, government, and military history. I think that's hard for some people."

Harder still, she says, would be telling young historians "that they shouldn't be interested in the way the suburbs developed after the Second World War -- that they really ought to be interested in NATO policy."

Stanley Katz, a former president of the American Council of Learned Societies and a leader of the A.H.A., also doesn't see the new society as a threat. "If this organization can put out an interesting journal and interesting meetings, blessings on them," he says. "Maybe I'll join."

But he has noticed the curve balls on the society's roster. "Those names represent to me something that is different -- feelings that are pretty deep for some historians, that the traditional areas of research and writing are getting short shrift."

In that vein, he mentions Mr. LaFeber, the Cornell historian. A professor of U.S. foreign relations who is viewed as a liberal, he is a lifelong member of the A.H.A. and a former member of its council, and he has no plans to quit, even though he has joined the Historical Society, too. He says it was worth $20 to get to talk with its members.

Beyond that, he thinks the two established history groups must pay attention to disaffected members and to the proliferation and growing popularity of splinter groups, like the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. That group, which he also belongs to, started small in 1967 and has grown to 1,900 members.

"One of the real problems for the A.H.A. doesn't involve culture wars, it involves area-studies people who, like diplomatic historians, have gone off to their own meetings," he says. "In that sense, the Historical Society is another manifestation."

Leaders of the two umbrella groups are worried about some of their shortcomings. But they also argue that they have been working to respond to some criticism about their shortchanging certain fields. They have tried, sometimes unsuccessfully, to encourage more historians of diplomacy and politics, for example, to participate in their conventions.

Mr. Chafe, president of the Organization of American Historians, said his group had recently surveyed its members on their views of the organization. The executive committee plans to meet in October to determine action on long-range plans. "We are not complacent," he says. "It's ironic that we're engaged in this effort of reassessment and rebirth at a time which antedated this new organization. This is our own sense of wanting to be better."

Many historians argue that if members who feel left out of the big groups actually leave, it will be difficult for the groups to address those scholars' concerns.

Historians in the big groups stress that creating a forum for debate is only one role of professional organizations.

Leaders of the American Historical Association note their advocacy role: defending historians' access to electronic documents and other archives, raising concern about part-time professors, and battling for continued financing of the National Endowment for the Humanities. They ask, Will the Historical Society do any of that?

"If the idea is to provide a niche for a certain set of intellectual interests, that seems like a valuable goal," says Sandria B. Freitag, executive director of the historical association. "If others are coming in with expectations that are larger and see this group as a substitute for the kinds of things the A.H.A. does, I think they're going to find that's not likely to happen."

The Historical Society's leaders intend to assiduously avoid becoming a substitute for anything the American Historical Association does.

Alan Charles Kors, a historian at the University of Pennsylvania and a leader of the Historical Society, hardly expects the new group to supplant the old one.

They'll coexist, he says, and scholars will join both. "At one they'll interview for jobs. At the other they'll rediscover the thrill of history."

THE LEADERS OF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

President
Eugene D. Genovese, retired, Atlanta U. Center

Executive Director
Marc Trachtenberg, U. of Pennsylvania

Executive Committee
Don Avery, Harford Community College
Pete Banner-Haley, Colgate U.
John Diggins, Graduate School and University, City U.
  of New York
Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Emory U.
William W. Freehling, U. of Kentucky
Sarah Gardner, Mercer U.
Richard Jensen, emeritus, U. of Illinois at Chicago
Donald Kagan, Yale U.
Alan C. Kors, U. of Pennsylvania
Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn, Syracuse U.
Paul Rahe, U. of Tulsa
Martin J. Sklar, Bucknell U.
Deborah Symonds, Drake U.

Board of Governors
Michael Burlingame, Connecticut College
Henry C. Clark, Canisius College
Gerald Feldman, U. of California at Berkeley
Sylvia Frey, Tulane U.
William C. Fuller, Jr., Naval War College
Lloyd Gardner, Rutgers U.
William Gienapp, Harvard U.
Thavolia Glymph, Pennsylvania State U.
Paul Gottfried, Elizabethtown College (Pa.)
Richard Graham, U. of Texas at Austin
Theodore Hamerow, emeritus, U. of Wisconsin at Madison
D. H. Hart, Westminster Theological Seminary (Pa.)
Richard Hellie, U. of Chicago
John Higginson, U. of Massachusetts at Amherst
Gertrude Himmelfarb, emeritus, Graduate School
  and University Center, City U. of New York
Emmet Kennedy, George Washington U.
Kenneth Kiple, Bowling Green State U.
Franklin W. Knight, Johns Hopkins U.
Allan Kulikoff, Northern Illinois U.
Stanley Kutler, U. of Wisconsin at Madison
Mary Lefkowitz, Wellesley College
Daniel Littlefield, U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
John Lukacs, retired, Chestnut Hill College
Pauline Maier, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Forrest McDonald, U. of Alabama
Walter A. McDougall, U. of Pennsylvania
Robert L. Paquette, Hamilton College
Richard Pipes, emeritus, Harvard U.
Leo Ribuffo, George Washington U.
Susan Rosa, Northeastern Illinois U.
Jeffrey Burton Russell, emeritus, U. of California
  at Santa Barbara
Joanna Shields, emeritus, U. of Alabama at Huntsville
Joel Silbey, Cornell U.
Richard H. Steckel, Ohio State U.
William W. Stueck, U. of Georgia
Lynne Viola, U. of Toronto
Sean Wilentz, Princeton U.
John Womack, Harvard U.
Nan Woodruff, Pennsylvania State U.
Bertram Wyatt-Brown, U. of Florida