	about search site map editors donate contact help

WELCOME TO THE H-IDEAS

H-IDEAS is an electronic forum for discussing the history of ideas, broadly defined. It has a two-fold purpose: (1) to foster communication and debate among the international community of professional historians and scholars interested in intellectual history and the history of ideas, and (2) to serve as a clearinghouse for information relevant to the varied professional interests of this community, including teaching methods, scholarly conferences, and publications.

H-IDEAS encourages scholarly exchanges on all aspects of its subject, regardless of countries or periods involved. It is open to scholars, students, teachers, librarians, and all who want to participate in an academic discussion of the history of ideas and intellectual history. They may raise research questions, open scholarly dialogue, provide information about conferences and symposia, list new sources of information--whether online, print, or archival, report tables of contents of journals, discuss teaching materials, post job openings, and report non-commercial announcements of books, software, datasets, or cd-roms. H-IDEAS also publishes commissioned book reviews. On its web page, readers will find logs containing prior discussions, book reviews, and other matters of interest.

H-IDEAS is a moderated list. The editors reserve the right to see that the list remains devoted to its mission. In addition to the more obvious requirements of readability, accuracy and collegiality, editors seek to ensure that all postings follow the manner of scholarly exchange. Postings should focus on ideas, issues or debates, and situate these in a historical or historiographical context. The editors reserve the right to keep the discussion on the subject, free from ad hominem attacks or other arguments that go beyond the limits of accepted professional discourse. Queries or responses that in the editors' judgement fail to meet one or more of these criteria may be returned to the submitter for revision. The intention of such action is neither to censor nor prejudge any viewpoint, but to retain the professional and scholarly character of H-IDEAS. Following Milton's lead, the editors understand that "a wise man, like a good refiner, can gather gold out of the drossiest volume" (_Areopagitica_).

H-IDEAS is primarily intended for the dissemination and discussion of issues and information in intellectual history and the history of ideas. It cannot and should not promote political causes, nor advocate on behalf of particular political interests, except where those impact directly on the professional or scholarly pursuits of our subscribers or on the future of the list itself. Therefore, H-IDEAS will not post messages which seek to promote specific political campaigns or particular political interests.

H-IDEAS does not run advertisements. It welcomes information about new books, new journals, new sources, fellowship and scholarship opportunities, proposed conferences, and-through H-NET-job listings. But it will not run solicitations to purchase books, or to subscribe to journals, or to apply for admission to particular academic programs.

H-IDEAS will post book reviews it has commissioned through the H-NET book review project, and it will encourage discussion of these once they appear. The editors will also, from time to time, post reviews forwarded from other lists if, in their judgment, these may be of interest to subscribers. H-IDEAS will not, however, post unsolicited book reviews.

H-IDEAS will post abstracts of articles appearing in scholarly journals or of papers presented at scholarly conferences, as well as items from other discussion lists, if in the judgment of the editors these relate to subscribers' interests and are not of excessive length. Copyrighted materials will be posted with the express permission of the copyright holder.

H-IDEAS will regularly post information about new discussion lists or other resources on the Internet that might be of interest.

H-IDEAS welcomes requests for information from subscribers for whom standard reference sources have proven inadequate, but it discourages-and may not run-inquiries easily answerable from such sources. It encourages potential authors of theses and dissertations, as well as articles and books, to use its facilities as a way of determining who else may be working on particular topics; but the moderators ask those responding to such inquiries to consider whether their reply will be of general interest to everyone on the list, or might better be sent directly to the subscriber making the inquiry.

H-IDEAS is very much a "work in progress." Accordingly, the editors and the Editorial Board all strongly encourage suggestions from subscribers as to how the list might be improved.