What Is To Be Done? Historians of Crisis in a Moment of Crisis

Abstract: This issue of the Journal of the Civil War Era departs from our normal work of publishing articles and review essays to ask, "What should historians of crisis do in a moment of crisis?" We invited these essays over the summer of 2025, when many of our historian friends and colleagues especially those who study the Civil War Era—felt disturbed by political developments and uncertain about how to respond. The tools many had previously used to engage in public discussions seemed quaint or less useful in the face of what appeared a threat not just at the margins but to the very existence of the political and cultural order we operate within. The essays published here illuminate scholars wrestling in different ways with their hopes and fears, their expertise and uncertainty, their determination and confusion. They have lifted some of the veils that often cloak us and have exposed themselves—and all of us—as vulnerable at a very vulnerable moment in the country's history. None of them offer a single trick that will save us from the present predicament. All suggest ways of clarifying our thoughts, reckoning with our limitations, and finding meaning in our work.