The
H-Net Community: Building Bridges

A CENTURY'S RETROSPECTIVE:
THE H-IDEAS YEAR 2000 BOOK REVIEW PROJECT

Mark Reger, the current H-Ideas Book Review Editor, and the H-Ideas Editors, invite all members of the H-Ideas community to participate in a once-in-a-century opportunity, a year-long retrospective of the most important and influential works of intellectual history and the history of ideas published in the 20th century. The project will consist of a series of scholarly review essays of these works to be published in chronological order over the course of the coming year.

A Century's Retrospective will succeed only if the entire H-Ideas community actively involves itself in the project. Works must be nominated, and individual list members must be willing to review specific titles.

Ideally, the editors hope to select at least 50 texts, if not more, from the titles nominated, and to present review essays, on average one per week, for the entire year. Texts may be drawn from the vast international corpus of intellectual history and the history of ideas published in the 20th century. Although reviews will be published in English, the Editors are especially eager to include important works by Asian, Latin American, and non-Western scholars whose work warrants greater recognition by the international community of intellectual historians.

We will accept nominations through October 15, 1999. We will also prepare a master list of all nominations for distribution to list members once we have received and organized the titles. A schedule of titles selected for review will be posted in December, 1999, once the editorial decisions have been finalized and reviewers selected.

WHAT TO DO:

  1. To nominate texts, send your list of suggested titles to Mark Reger, the H-Ideas Book Review Editor, at . Make sure to include the name of the author, the full title, and, if possible, a complete citation. A brief description of the text's significance would be helpful.

    All nominations will be posted to the list, but to avoid e-mailbox clutter items may be placed together for distribution.

  2. To review texts, (1) indicate when nominating texts which title(s) you are interested in reviewing, (2) respond to a posting of an unclaimed nomination, or (3) send a note to Mark Reger indicating your interest in writing reviews, and specifying your area(s) of expertise.

    Be sure to include your institutional affiliation, full mailing address, and phone number.

  3. All reviews will be between 750-1500 words, and must follow the established guidelines for all H-Net Reviews. As in the case of all H-Net reviews, reviews will be copyrighted and will be available on the H-Ideas and the H-Review web sites.
This is more than a once-in-a-century opportunity. Owing to the development of the Internet, it is in fact the first such opportunity of its kind in the history of scholarship. The Editors are unaware of any other similar projects planned for 2000, so we want to emphasize that if the H-Ideas community doesn't undertake this project, a century's worth of great intellectual histories will simply go unrecognized. DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN. The Retrospective will be archived on the H-Ideas Website and will be an invaluable resource to scholars for years to come.

Please take a few minutes to nominate works of outstanding scholarship in intellectual history or the history of ideas, and better yet, offer to review some of these important works for the coming year.