Ron Grossman: A Historian Looks Back -- With Shivers and Memories

Ron Grossman writes for the Chicago Tribune.

Crossing the lobby of the Chicago Marriott Downtown hotel later this week, you might hear enigmatic snatches of conversation, like:

"I'm intrigued by 'Constructive Aspects of Mass Violence.' And you?"

"I'm off to 'Pirates, State Actors and Hegemonic Systems in the pre-Modern Mediterranean.'"

Those would be the voices of historians choosing from among the 257 sessions of their annual gathering. Upward of 1,500 scholars are expected to attend the convention of the American Historical Association, which meets in Chicago every half-dozen years or so.

When it does, I'm flooded with nostalgia accompanied by cold sweats. Half a century ago, I was a graduate student in history. The AHA's meeting is both a forum for the exchange of ideas and a job market — my memories of which co-mingle with scenes of the longshoremen's shape-up in "On the Waterfront." It's done more civilly now, across tables in a ballroom....