I suppose there's no point in being the voice of one crying in the wilderness, but in the change I fear lest concern specifically with alcohol (thus with "Temperance" as generally understood, and with alcoholism and its treatment -- my field in this context) will become swallowed up in the concern for the more wide-ranging, more "relevant," and perhaps trendier world of drugs (or as some would say, "drugs other than alcohol"). Doubtless due care will be taken to see this does not happen? -- Jared Lobdell
-------------- Original message --------------
This summer has seen the beginning of exciting changes. What was called the Alcohol and Temperance History Group (ATHG), founded in 1979, now will be called the Alcohol and Drugs History Society (ADHS). The organization’s publication has gone through a series of names, most recently, the Social History of Alcohol Review. Now it will be the Social History of Alcohol and Drugs: An Interdisciplinary Journal (SHAD). ADHS and SHAD will expand the interest in drugs that already had existed under the previous names. Earlier this year our president Ian Tyrrell recommended the expansion in the scope of the organization and its journal. Illustrating the overlap between alcohol and drugs history, the meetings held in Canada in May 2004 were called the International Conference on Drugs and Alcohol in History. The publication series planned by Northern Illinois University Press also combines alcohol history with the history of drugs.
The first number of SHAD will be an annual. We expect that it will go to the printers this autumn, so those of you who have been revising an article or writing a critique of one or reviewing a book or an exhibit should complete your work ASAP. David Fahey is serving as interim editor-in-chief for this issue only. Jon Miller is executive editor. The other editors are Scott Haine, Dan Malleck, and (with focus on the history of drugs) Jim Mills.
We welcome your suggestions for the journal: its contents, frequency, and format (electronic or print). SHAD is a refereed journal.
Sometime in the not distant future, the names of the website and the listserv discussion group will change, the former probably to and the latter to <[log in to unmask]>. Matthew McKean is the new webmaster and the new co-moderator of the discussion group.
At the beginning of 2005, Scott Martin will become secretary-treasurer.
David M. Fahey
History Department
Miami University
Oxford, Ohio 45056, USA
[log in to unmask]