Included on this page:
ALBION Staff Information, emails and university links;
ALBION: A brief history of the journal by Michael J. Moore

ALBION Staff Information

Editor: Michael J. Moore, Appalachian State University

Associate Editor: R.J.Q. Adams, Texas A&M University

Office Manager: Patricia Quinn, Appalachian State University

Editorial Assistant: Emily Schwartz, Appalachian State University

Editorial Board:

Richard L. Greaves, Florida State University
Tim Harris, Brown University
T.W. Heyck, Northwestern University
Mavis H. Mate, University of Oregon
John Money, University of Victoria
Retha M. Warnicke, Arizona State University

General: Send address changes to,
ALBION, ASU Box 32072, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC USA 28608-2072
e-mail: albion@appstate.edu

An earlier version of this essay was published in the British Studies Intelligencer, 6th ser., vol. 12, 1 (Spring 1997): 7-13.

ALBION: Innovation and British Studies

Michael J. Moore, Appalachian State University

Early last year Dick Cosgrove (editor of the BSI) asked me to write about my long term as editor of ALBION and to say something about the journal's history or "whatever you would like to." This was a generous offer; but I didn't know what to really say or whether I wanted to say anything, and so I put it off. But Dick persisted, as often editors have to do.

After thinking more about his request, I realized that as historians of Britain we have no forum available to probe, debate, and ruminate about our shared business, and this at just the time when British studies, to which we have given much of our lives, faces an uncertain, even worrisome future. In one of those aha! moments, I said out loud--"thank god for The British Studies Intelligencer"--indeed, its very name connotes the need I am suggesting.

Maybe the BSI can become the place where we talk about our profession--about its present and future, and about its challenges and opportunities in a changing world. H-Albion is excellent for announcements, short exchanges, queries, and brief suggestions; but reflective discussion that certainly will include some of the innovative suggestions carried over H-Albion can draw us all more closely together to deal with the crucially important issues we face as British historians. We could discuss things such as the nature of our profession and how we practice British historical study in North America and its relationship to its practice elsewhere; we could discuss how to prepare future historians of Britain for meaningful and varied careers; we could discuss how to keep British history vital in all levels of education in North America, but especially in our universities; we could discuss how to make British history a better vehicle for continuing and public education.

Many people have asked me about ALBION's history; certainly whatever success it has achieved and whatever service it performs has been due to the unsung voluntary labor and expert advice of a very large number of people. Our goal always has been to try to shape the best possible understanding and presentation of ideas, to publish work representing the diversity of historical scholarship about British history, and to serve NACBS members and other scholars of Britain. Over the last decade or so the North American Conference on British Studies has become an important international professional society. Its evolution and that of ALBION have been complementary in many respects.

The NACBS was a quite different organization thirty years ago. In 1965, when I became a member of the then Conference on British Studies, it was toward the end of the era when one still had to be nominated to membership. Bill Bultmann and Sam McCulloch initiated me into the society that I was glad to be part of then and proud to be part of now. I am grateful that the NACBS, through the tenures of numerous presidents and council members, consistently supported ALBION's tenacious little scholarly business and every once in a while released the strings of its meager purse to assist the journal's growth. Some of this history can be charted in NACBS basic dues rises. Finally, two years ago, ALBION became officially a part of the NACBS. It was long overdue, because most people assumed the journal had been all along owned by the NACBS.

ALBION also has survived because of Appalachian State University, which for twenty-one years underwrote the journal's labor costs and many of its other needs. My chair for sixteen years, George Antone, consistently made available scarce resources that allowed me to nurture and protect the journal, and thanks goes also to my previous chair, Roy Carroll, now Academic Vice-President of the University of North Carolina system, whose original suggestion it was that the journal come to Appalachian.

I was teaching at Western Washington University in Bellingham in 1969 when my friend and colleague, Barry Gough, with the help of Joel Rodney at Washington State University, launched an odd little magazine called ALBION to record the proceedings of the Pacific Northwest Conference on British Studies. Our collective godfather was the effervescent Bultmann, who was chairman of the History department and a devoted supporter of British studies. Barry soon left for another posting, but remained as the journal's Managing Editor, and Rodney somehow wheedled $600 a year from the Conference on British Studies while promising to publish its proceedings. Kent Hackmann at Idaho efficiently kept the journal barely in the black, and Rodney indefatigably searched everywhere for money; I certainly had no idea that I would end up fulfilling all three of their positions. Meretriciously, Joel promised schools a listing on the journal's masthead in exchange for a few hundred dollars. The journal inconsistently published the CBS's proceedings, and Barry had a larger vision for it until his other priorities conflicted fully carrying out his hopes.

I had left Bellingham for Boone and Appalachian State University in 1971, but returned to a fall 1972 PNWCBS meeting in Eugene, Oregon where Barry, among others, asked if I could find a few hundred dollars from Appalachian to help keep the journal alive: "tell them we'll put their name on the masthead." I returned to Boone and did just that, but Roy Carroll said "Why don't you suggest they move the whole journal here?" Little did I know how that innocent encouragement would forever change my professional and personal life. ALBION came to Appalachian and in spring 1973 I put together volume 5, number 1, drawing on skills acquired during my early teen years when I had been an entrepreneurial printer working out of my parents' basement. Barry had all the copy ready, including an article by George Rude, which he was proud to have secured. The cover featured prominently the familiar unicorn, which Joel had had designed, and I cut in footnotes, because that seemed professionally responsible.

At times, the journal nearly consumed me, as many of my friends surely knew just by having watched and talked with me over the years. But I shared Barry's dream, added my own emphasis, and plowed ahead scouring for papers presented at various meetings and suggesting their authors submit them for possible publication. Fortunately for us, the 1970s were tough hiring years in history, and there were numerous scholars seeking outlets for excellent work that couldn't be published in the limited number of existing journals. From then until two years ago I did nearly everything behind the scenes (for its first three years I even did all the layout). But it was always my passion and its encouragement by others that made it possible to go on. Supremely important, it is Sharon's love that provides me sustenance, insight, and courage, and which I have taken in absolutely enormous quantities while doing my work for the journal and for Appalachian, while also trying to be the best father possible for Shelley and Christina. It's time to reciprocate.

The ALBION enterprise has succeeded, as I hoped it would, on innumerable little signifiers that have been anchored in a central principle of seek the very best possible from yourself and others and then back them to the hilt by working cooperatively together. This principle took shape during my undergraduate and graduate education at the University of Washington, whose History department then, like today comprised a remarkable combination of gifted people. It was Giovanni Costigan, my intellectual mentor from 1960 onwards, who inspired me to seek truth and justice through history and to remain skeptical of the motives of those who make the rules. It was Lance Farrar, now living in Chestnut Hill, Mass., who taught me to see the academic world in non-traditional terms. It was David Pinkney, literally at whose knee I learned to ground my knowledge in rigorous criticism. John Williams, now at Stony Brook, broadened my intellectual life into a world perspective. And it was Fritz Levy, whose penetrating exuberance bounded by clear standards I will always be thankful for having encountered. Thus armed I sailed off to Bellingham and later Boone.

While navigating with ALBION I sometimes modified custom. For instance, in 1977 I encouraged Joe Slavin (with whom I still hope to play that golf match we long have talked about) to publish an article for us, despite his being then on our editorial board. It seemed to me that it was the usefulness of his work that mattered most, not the propriety associated with his position, and we profited our readers by his historical and intellectual insight. There is one custom, however, that I have only broken once; fortunately, it revealed fully the dispassionate engagement of our scholarly inquiry. When the profoundly gifted Stephen Koss joined our editorial board in 1979 he insisted that no article be sent to him blinded. Stephen wanted to know immediately who was writing what and to enter into a completely open dialogue with the author whose work he was critiquing. Stephen carried on a model scholarly dialogue so that the finest work possible might result. We still miss his joie d'vivre and creative thought.

Innovation always has been intertwined with the history of ALBION. Since neither the NACBS nor Appalachian seemed overly concerned with what the journal was doing we were free to experiment. In the fall of 1978 I brainstormed with my old friend Quince Adams about starting book reviewing to replace the too difficult to control publication of conference abstracts. As an avid reader of the TLS I had admired and engaged the quality of thought and expression in many of its reviews (it was a welcome departure, by the way, when that paper began signed reviews), and I was impressed by the heroic efforts of the AHR to review over the whole of historical fields. Why not try something that joined in ALBION the quality of TLS reviews with the breadth of AHR reviewing; but for the more manageable field of British history? Since neither of us knew anything much about how to set up the effort, Quince traveled to Bloomington to talk with Nelson Lankford, then review editor for the AHR. The next year, 1979, book reviews began appearing in ALBION under Quince's supervision.

By 1981 Quince had taken on the massive job of supervising re-accredidation for the whole of Texas A&M University and we began talking about whether I could join the responsibility for reviewing with my editing and publishing duties at Appalachian. I rarely shied from an interesting professional challenge, usually because I seldom thought seriously either of failure or of the nature of the responsibilities involved. I quickly learned the latter, however, and then learned about the former as well.

At a 1981 Midwest CBS meeting where I was presenting a paper on scholarly journals at the invitation of Walter Arnstein, I noticed Michael MacDonald and Mark Kishlansky caucusing in the hallway outside the door as I was finishing. In the question period Michael made it very clear that if ALBION were going to review books, it had better get its standards for reviewers and reviewing straight. Thus stung, I vowed to myself that we would review no book unless its reviewer was undoubtedly qualified for the task. The only way to do this was to carefully read notes and bibliography and ask first for reviews from people whose work was cited, usually more than once. If those people could not undertake the task, I asked them if they would suggest someone equally qualified. So, thanks to Michael, and residually Mark, our standards rose. I also wanted to involve scholars from Britain and other foreign scholars as reviewers; when asked they also generously welcomed our invitations. In fact, I thought that by soliciting reviewers from around the world the journal would become better known. I also was aware that this would increase the pressure on us to keep improving.

ALBION's book reviews have some attraction because they are concerned with a broad historiography that we allow reviewers to address in slightly larger compass than is usual when so many reviews are published in an issue. Since most British historians have specialists' knowledge along with a variety of creative expertise, and a multitude of intellectual hobbies, I thought we might be able to present conveniently in one journal a concentration on the first of that trilogy, while also addressing its second part and recognizing that the third might be serendipitous. Thus, in addition to the expected concentration of our reviews, we also review literary history, art, architecture, and music history, archeology, or even heraldry or numismatics--and we occasionally review foreign language monographs that make unique contributions (this is another reason to mourn Geoffrey Elton's passing, for he reviewed and sometimes advised about reviewing books written in German).

Since the costs in time and money are paramount for most reviewing journals they often make their choices either by emphasizing fewer but longer reviews of single books, like the Journal of Modern History, or of multiple books with apparent relationships, as does the JBS. Since the profit motive has not so far unduly constrained ALBION, we have addressed both of these orientations from time to time, but we know our bread and butter rests on reviews of single books, or of maybe two books that are related, and then publish a large number of reviews--about 280 in each volume. Finally, we have actively reviewed the genre of collected works, especially assemblages of conference or subdisciplinary papers where there lies so much valuable scholarly discourse among the relatively fewer historians with similar interests. Many years ago Dan Baugh reinforced how useful was this practice and I am grateful to him for that, but I am considerably more so indebted for his later and repeated provision of advice and support when I was most in need. From time to time I add in my own idiosyncrasies or even impulses about a book to be reviewed, with the result, I hope, of reasonably satisfying our incredibly diverse audience. However, to do all this well requires help, a lot of it.

In 1984 the first of a series of Masters-candidate graduate students began working for me on two-year rotations. Bill Owens, who is now editor of The North Carolina Historical Review, stoically innovated behind the scenes many of the organizational practices that supported our enterprise for some time. He was followed in 1986 by Erich Staib, now journals marketing manager for Oxford University Press. I am gratified that these young men joined me to work, learn, laugh infectiously, and, of course, complain loudly, because the journal was turning its corner into maturity and we had battles to fight on its behalf.

In 1983, Bentley Gilbert, another long-time mentor whose friendship I treasure, wanted to end his tenure as JBS editor, but he feared that the then lackadaisical posture of NACBS toward JBS might doom the journal's future. So, he arranged for the University of Chicago Press to take over the JBS, and the press suggested that its editors be University of Chicago faculty. I gather that's how, in general, Mark Kishlansky and Edward Cook became co-editors of the JBS.

I didn't know much of anything about Mark or Ted, but I quickly found out about Mark. In an alcove at Massey College of the University of Toronto not far from the room where the NACBS Council was to meet in October 1984, Mark introduced himself and in effect told me that there was only room in the NACBS for one journal and it wasn't going to be ALBION. I was puzzled by his challenge, since naively I didn't think it unusual for a professional society to be associated with more than one journal. But I was concerned, because there were some officers and councilors who were skeptical of ALBION's long term value and others who probably thought me too contentious in my quest for more NACBS money when officials did not want to raise dues; but my lack of subtlety paled dramatically by comparison to Kishlansky's as he extolled to NACBS Council members the benefits of the University of Chicago Press' publication of JBS. It seemed to me that he and the Press thought themselves to be the NACBS's savior. I was shocked to learn that in its contract with UCP NACBS had given up complete financial control of JBS; I chafed at the restrictions implied and at the inequity I perceived.

Often I voiced my keen concern that NACBS members' getting ALBION for their very low dues were in effect riding upon my back, and that residually so was University of Chicago Press, which tonned money from JBS while its reports to Council took credit for membership and subscription increases that Albion had generated. So, I took up defense of not only my enterprise but also NACBS'. The latter was the wrong battle for me, and my fighting it sometimes highlighted my own conflicting interests. It also underscored the relative differences of support provided the journal by my university and out of members' dues, and my dean became impatient with NACBS riding on Appalachian's back, as he understood it. These were difficult years working with diverse and sometimes conflicting agencies as emphasis shifted away from universities underwriting professional scholarly service. I sometimes keenly felt their bind.

Some officers and council members understandably didn't want to put up with my peskiness--could I not accept a done deal? Finally, a resolution developed in the report of the NACBS's ad hoc publications committee, ably chaired by Peter Stansky, which about two years ago paved the way for ALBION, and me, to become more secure. Ownership of the journal, which my university no longer wanted me to exercise, was transferred to NACBS. All of the difficult process of clarifying the procedures for an orderly transfer was guided by the patient hand of Reba Softer. But eight or so years earlier no one could have predicted such an outcome, when the pinnacle of the battle between me and the University of Chicago Press was reached toward the end of Warren Hollister's presidency.

Warren has my gratitude for his long time support of ALBION. By 1986 Warren also seemed to be skeptical of the University of Chicago Press' service to the conference, but apparently he knew that JBS could survive in its fold. Out of the blue, in the fall of that year, Basil Blackwell proposed that they become the publishers of ALBION. I said no thanks, I had too much personally invested in the journal to give up its control, but told them if they were interested in acquiring journals that they might contact Hollister since the JBS was on a five-year initial contract with Chicago Press that was due for renewal.

In October 1987, at the Council meeting during which Lois Schwoerer assumed the presidential gavel from Hollister, the Blackwell proposal to publish JBS and service NACBS membership, just as UCP had been doing, was presented to the Council. The proposal seemed significantly more beneficial for NACBS than the existing arrangement; but Mark, obviously angered at its existence, blustered an attack that ended the Blackwell threat. One of its results was to sharpen awareness of UCP and ALBION jockeying with each other in Council meetings for the next six years. Throughout the whole affair, I thought the Press's posture to be arrogant and preposterous, and often my frustration was patent; but because of that I ignored or misunderstood that I was continuing to fight the wrong battle, so I may have contributed to the reluctance of NACBS to raise dues and provide the monies I wanted for ALBION; hence the double bind, which was partially bandaged by small increases in the NACBS's subvention. Nonetheless, the best thing to have resulted from all this history is that NACBS now has complementary journals serving British historical scholarship.

While all this contesting was going on, David Spring suggested in 1984 that he and his wife Eileen review the Stones' An Open Elite?, and that maybe I would contact Lawrence to see whether he would reply to their review. I knew about the historiographical battling over interpreting the nature of the English aristocracy, but was unaware of how it might have been joined in Princeton and Baltimore, spending most of my time and thought taking care of the day-to-day of ALBION and teaching three classes each semester (which I have done since 1973). So, I contacted Lawrence and he agreed to reply to whatever the Springs wrote as long as there were to be no protracted counter replies. With Lacey Baldwin Smith's advice I set up the ground rules of a major exchange and one short reply. This 1985 exchange certainly stimulated interest in the journal, and similarly it might be said for our publication in 1986 of an exchange of views by Richard Southern and Sally Vaughn over interpreting Anselm, or of our symposia concerned with Victorian culture in 1991 and about Restoration politics in 1993.

Two issues after the Stone/Springs' debate we published a collection of essays as tribute to the work of George Dangerfield, which I will always cherish as a unique contribution typifying the willingness of ALBION to usefully serve our profession in non-traditional ways. Dangerfield wrote shortly before his death expressing his appreciation, which made it poignantly worthwhile--and I remain deeply grateful to the authors who participated, especially Carolyn White, whose fine essay had suggested the whole project.

The symposia genre is not our innovation, of course; but our concern to publish fairly regularly intelligent historiographical field studies seems a little more so. Bob Zaller was, I think, the first to write such a piece, and his work set a high standard for those that have followed. I envisioned these studies to be useful for seminar students whose teachers could tell them they needed to read the article in order to know about the nature of the field under study. It is pleasing to know that the authors of all subsequent essays have agreed with this principle and carried it out admirably.

Another innovation akin to the symposia was our publication in 1978 of a supplement to our quarterly issues of essays celebrating the quincentennial of Thomas More's birth. The project was suggested by Joe Slavin, because Thomas More College in Kentucky had hosted an international conference concerned with the great British martyr, and they were interested in finding a publisher for the conference papers. It turned out that Sixteenth Century Journal and ALBION both had made publication proposals to the college; but ALBION won out, mostly, I suspect, because my inexperience in estimating costs meant we came in with the lowest bid. It is another nice irony that soon after that competition Bob Schnucker and I became the close associates in the Conference of Historical Journals and have since supported and learned from one another in our lives and in our work.

So, with financial help from Thomas More College and with the valuable assistance of one of their gifted professors, Raymond Hebert, and after refereeing all the papers that Ray had collected, we published many of them as a supplement to volume 10 and in a hardcover edition as well. I was aware that most libraries did not coordinate periodical and monographic purchasing and I took advantage of that to sell copies of the hardcover to many libraries that did not know they already had the work in their periodical collections. Since the book was under-priced at $14.95, the damage to our library victims was slight. However, the price benefited many more individual and small library purchasers, and there were times when those sales saved ALBION from going into the red.

It is no secret that the quality of ALBION's book reviewing is the most widely useful of the journal's presentation. Book reviewing in ALBION sets a respectable standard (we may even have influenced citing pages when quoting from books under review, which many journals now do). One result of this is that we seldom receive slipshod reviews; although we fail to ever receive a review from about 6% of reviewers, which is frustrating. All of this is clearly due to much behind the scenes effort by a large number of people, especially those graduate students who have trooped into my office for unsuspectingly busy two-year stints learning as much as they could about academic publishing and the myriad idiosyncrasies of the scholarly world of British studies. In addition to Bill Owens and Erich Staib, there have been Anastasia Gounaris, Susan Walters, Keith Lynip, and Paul Bonnell. Paul has been joined by Michelle Kilbourne, who is finishing her Ph.D at Emory, teaching at Appalachian, and copyediting for ALBION. I have learned a lot from each of them and encourage their successes.

Dick Soloway once long ago worried to me that too few seemed adequately to know how valuable ALBION really is; he would ask, why don't you consider changing its name so that people will clearly understand that it is concerned with British studies? (Dick's query is the source for our subheading, "A quarterly journal concerned with British Studies.") I kind of smirked a reply: "I don't know why we don't, but if we just keep working people will come to know it well enough." I really like the unicorn, anyway; it has a quixotic flavor about it. And I'm curious to see how ALBION might innovate next.