We define active history variously as history that listens and is responsive; history that will make a tangible difference in people’s lives; history that makes an intervention and is transformative to both practitioners and communities. We seek a practice of history that emphasizes collegiality, builds community among active historians and other members of communities, and recognizes the public responsibilities of the historian.The principles seem admirable. I hope they prosper, and maybe some readers of this will be moved to contribute. But Active History's method -- put up a website, ask contributors to fill it, wait some more, put out another request for contributors -- seems, well, passive history.
This ain't Wikipedia. You want to put history into the blogosphere, you gotta do the work.... They do have some links I'm going to pursue, however.
Update, October 2: Jim Clifford assures me that Active History will "increase the activity over the next few months, but we also see this as a long term project." And maybe the Wikipedia model does have traction here. "We also noticed that Historyandpolicy.org took a few years to really gain momentum, but it now has the leading historians in Britain writing accessible papers on a regular basis."
