Comments on Bailey, Sutthiphisal, and Bergmann

Extract

Before I provide the substance of my remarks, I would like to thank two people. The first, Farley Grubb, who convened this session at last year's meetings, so thoroughly summarized the career of Allan Nevins, that I can skip doing so by providing just a reference. The second is Roger Ransom for asking me to do this. Though I was certain at this time last year that I would be able to say that only with sarcasm, two things have made my gratitude genuine. The first, a result of historical forces much larger than the Economic History Association, was the early elimination, for all practical purposes, of the Chicago Cubs from serious play-off contention. This freed up a great deal of my time in the late spring and early summer. The second was the sheer quality of the seven submissions. They made the reading more a pleasure than a chore, though they left me with one tough remaining task: choosing the three finalists. I will make a few remarks about all three as a group before offering specific comments on each.