The Association of University Presses (AUPresses) has joined nearly 40 scholarly groups in a statement that criticizes the September 17th “White House Conference on American History” as a “campaign stunt” and “political theater.” Staged amid our nation’s cherished founding documents in the Rotunda of the National Archives, the event stoked ahistorical and inflammatory misconceptions of US history and historical scholarship in general, and deployed those ill-informed views to attack political opponents. The joint statement was issued by the American Historical Association (AHA), whose publishing program is an AUPresses member.
The AHA statement instead encourages understanding the complexities of US history that includes “an appreciation for the persistent struggles of Americans to hold the nation accountable for falling short of its lofty ideals.” As a global community of publishers whose mission is to cultivate knowledge, AUPresses supports this goal as part of its commitment to intellectual freedom, encompassing the free exchange of ideas, the unfettered pursuit of scholarly inquiry, the emergence and evaluation of new theories, and the expansion of human knowledge.