A Study Of The Challenges To Historiography Of Post-war American And Its Responses,1945-2005

After the second world war, the history, the theory and methods of the historians, and the historical organizations of the United States have changed greatly in the face of a series of challenges from both internal and external environment. Studying the challenges of post-war American and responses from the authority of American historians has significantly academic value and enlightenment for us to understand the evolution of the American history and promote China’s history development.American Historical Association is one of the biggest U.S. history academic groups. It brings together the various kinds of historians, which study different periods, all countries and regions in the world, and disparate methodology. At the end of each year, the chairman of the Association delivered a valedictory speech in work conference, before the relief of his office, concluding the present situation of historian circles, or summarizing the history research trends, or elucidating the theme concerning the President himself. Association president speeches provide for us a more complete and self-contained archives to understand and study the American historical evolution process. Through this historical literature, we can contemplate the American history development, especially to gain insight into the history academic debates.Focusing the chairmen speeches on American history and social background to which the American history affiliate, concentrating on the subjects of what challenges of the post-war history American historians faced and how they met the challenges, this paper have deeply interpreted, compared and analyzed the addresses of postwar president of American Historical Association from American history, American historians and American Historical Association respectively. First of all, the post-war history of United States met with a series of challenges, both from huge social changes of post-war American, rapid developments of social sciences and post-modernism effects, and such drastic problems as specialization, and decentralization by itself. The chairman of the Association explored and analyzed the cause and the impact of these challenges in-depth, putting forward Suggestions to meet the challenges. Secondly, the American History Association, as the core of American historian organizations, played an important role in American history education and popularization of history knowledge. In their speeches, the Association presidents carried on illuminated discourses in terms of distress encountering historians in their teaching and research, and the statuses and roles of historians in the process of communicating history knowledge. The presidents emphasized the historians, whose responsibility for the influence on the public is no less than the scientists, should pay more attention to the spread of historical knowledge in the general populations. Moreover, the greatest risk the AHA faces is that it has been involved in drifting and dawdling at the usual pace of a learned society. Such a course risks the danger that an increasingly autonomic and specialized and profession will pass by the AHA and declare it obsolete. If the Association can’t step out of academic barriers, adapting itself to the needs of the general readers, he cannot provide personal services for public thirsting for knowledge of history. American Historical Association must contemplate how to adjust himself to lead the American historical circles through dangers and win the future development opportunities. This paper not only opened up a new perspective of studying the evolution of historiography of postwar America, but also proposed a frame of reference for the all-round development of Chinese history research.