While narrative history has been the prevailing mode in historical scholarship, its preeminence has not gone unquestioned. In the 1980s, the role of narrative in historical writing was "the subject of extraordinarily intense debate." The historical backdrop of this debate can be traced to the preceding two decades, when four groups of thinkers…

This conversation begins with two observations: first, the professional organizations--conferences and journals--need to play more self-conscious, activist roles in shaping scholarly canons. Second, whatever canon now presides over American higher educational history is an extremely tolerant one. So much of current scholarship seems to arise out…