Editorial Note

The last twelve months have been among the busiest ever at the IHR, with a staggering number of projects either completed or underway. A major project now in the “completed” column is the 12th Revisionist Conference, which took place over Labor Day weekend (September 3-5) here in southern California. Conferences are a major undertaking for the IHR, and once again, the staff pulled it off with nary a hitch, prompting many attendees to proclaim this the best Conference ever. Although there is nothing that can replace the experience of attending an IHR Conference in person, video- and audiotapes of the Conference will be available, and the texts of the presentations will appear in this Journal. A complete report on the 12th IHR Conference will appear in the next issue of the Journal.

In this issue of the Journal, we look at an important tradition that once was a major feature in the political landscape of the west, a tradition reviewer Andrew Clarke calls “a significant intellectual-political movement that was suppressed and is now all but forgotten.” This tradition, while called “right-wing” in nature, is not to be confused with modern-day conservatism, which seems preoccupied with turning back the clock, not to correct mistakes in recent policy but rather to make these same mistakes at a more deliberate pace. What might, for lack of a better term, be called authentic conservatism rejects this approach, these goals, and even the foundations of the modern conservative movement (foundations shared with its so-called opponents, the liberals). This tradition nearly disappeared as a result of the Second World War and the Cold War that followed. Now that the Cold War is over, this tradition is again relevant, and its re-emergence would dramatically change the political spectrum.

A surprising number of people have asked about sending messages to the IHR through e-mail (electronic mail). If you have a computer, a modem, telecommunications software, and Internet access, you may send e-mail to the IHR at: … [email address deleted, since no longer active; see www.ihr.org for new contact details; ed.].

If none of this makes any sense, don't worry: an article dealing with revisionism and the “information superhighway” is in preparation for a future issue of the Journal.

– G.R.