Editor's Annual Report, 2001–2002

In the past year, the staff of the Journal of American History devoted much of its effort, as it always does, to the processes of reviewing and publishing. All in all, we considered 217 manuscripts for publication. In the submissions we vetted, the topics most frequently addressed were—in descending order—politics, international relations, African American history, immigration and ethnicity, and urban/suburban history. It took us on average around three months to review manuscripts that we sent out to readers; that is, three months elapsed from the date the manuscript arrived in our office to the date of the letter of decision. The results of our efforts are found in the pages of the Journal. In the last volume, we published 15 regular articles, a number of shorter essays in "round table" format, 2 historiographic essays, 2 review essays, 12 essays on "teaching outside the box," 4 essays on oral history, an OAH presidential address, and reviews of 20 exhibitions, 23 Web sites, 32 movies, and 625 books.	1
We continue to look for ways to present new and innovative scholarship to our readers and to encourage reflection on the state of historical practice. The regular articles and reviews are the heart of our enterprise, but we also solicit essays and round tables that allow for different and sometimes broader approaches to scholarship. Last year we commissioned several historiographic essays on the state of the art in the field. Peter Kolchin's essay on the new literature on whiteness appeared in our June 2002 issue, and we have other such essays—on early American history and on the history of the book—planned for the year ahead. As in the past, we use round tables to invite scholars from disparate subfields to reflect on common themes. Recent round tables addressed the election of 2000; empires, intimacies, and postcolonial studies; and "self and subject," or the connections between the stories we tell about ourselves and the stories we write about history. For the current JAH issue, titled "History and September 11," we took the unusual step of devoting a special issue to historical perspectives on recent events. Last fall we concluded that the horrific events of September 11 merited special attention, and we hope our readers agree.	2
We have additional plans for promoting conversations among historians. In another year, we hope to inaugurate a new annual section of the Journal, tentatively titled "Interchanges: A Forum for the Practice of History." The section will highlight debates, dialogues, and collaborative efforts that reflect on historical practice. Future projects will also take us into the world of electronic scholarship. This past spring the History Cooperative, our partnership in electronic publishing, received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities that will allow the Journal to experiment with new ways of using online technology to enhance collaborative scholarship. Our first such experiment—involving visual images of the American Revolution—is already underway.	. . .