The historical present: what has superseded the academic culture wars of the 1990s? It's not what you think. (State Of The Debate).(Column)

THE PHONE CALL MADE ME nervous. I'd never been offered an all-expense-paid press junket before. Wasn't this the sort of thing you'd expect from a petroleum conglomerate, sponsoring a conference on debunking global warming? Instead, a humble scholarly organization, the Historical Society (THS), was proposing to fly me to Atlanta, Georgia, for its annual meeting. What's more, the group wanted to put me up in a nice hotel, where it would pay all the tabs I cared to charge them. What could these people possibly be up to?

The Historical Society's executive director, Louis Ferleger, ...

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