What’s in a Name?

My memories of Diplomatic History’s start up are, I confess, dim. Thank heavens for some surviving editorial board correspondence from 1976 when the groundwork was laid. The letters touch on the nitty gritty of launching a new journal such as selecting an editor and a publisher and setting up an editorial board. The heavy lifting here fell to a set of senior historians: Robert Divine (SHAFR president), Robert Ferrell (chair of the editorial board), Paul Holbo (interim editor who got out the first issue), and Armin Rappaport (editor). More interestingly, the correspondence reminds me of questions that arose at the time about the suitability of the name for the new journal. The best I can tell Diplomatic History got the nod because it signaled a commitment to publish on the history of international relations broadly conceived rather than taking a more limited U.S. frame of reference. I apparently had my doubts about the title.