The Future of History
Is the history you know complete or is it subject to change? Is there such a thing as the final word when it comes to chronicling historic events? With the release of previously unavailable documents (the kind available through the Wilson Center Digital Archive: digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/) our understanding of well-known events can change significantly. And now that we are moving from a document-based world to a digital world, how will future historians piece together the stories of our times? Will it be easier or more difficult to do so? Historian James Hershberg shares insightful thoughts on the past, present, and future of history in this edition of Wilson Center NOW. Guest Born in New York City (Brooklyn) in 1960, Professor James Hershberg received an A.B. in American History from Harvard College in 1982; a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University in 1985; and a Ph. D. from Tufts University in 1989. After teaching at Tufts and the California Institute of Technology in 1989-91, he directed the Cold War International History Project (and edited the project's Bulletin) from 1991-96 before coming to George Washington University in 1997 and now edits the CWIHP book series co-published by the Stanford University and Wilson Center Presses. He received the 1994 Stuart Bernath Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Policy for James B. Conant: Harvard to Hiroshima and the Making of the Nuclear Age (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1993; Stanford University Press, 1995). Currently working on various case studies of U.S. communications with Cold War adversaries (Cuba, China, North Vietnam, Iran), he is a co-founder of The GW Cold War Group, a Cold War studies group at GWU for both faculty and students, and works closely with the National Security Archive, a declassified documents repository and research institute based at the University. Host John Milewski is the executive producer and managing editor of Wilson Center NOW and also serves as director of Wilson Center ON DEMAND digital programming. Previously he served as host and producer of Dialogue at the Wilson Center and Close Up on C-SPAN. He also teaches a course on politics and media for Penn State’s Washington Program.
