e-FRUS: All Of The History, None Of The Dust

E-books will always lack the nice satisfactory heft of a brown leather bound reference volume, not to mention the dusty ambiance of library stacks. And I like those things, because I'm a bit of a Luddite at heart. I even write with fountain pens.

But, hey, it's 2012 and we're long overdue for the E-Books Initiative from the Office of the Historian:

The Office of the Historian at the U.S. Department of State is pleased to announce the release of its Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series in a new e-book format that is readable on popular electronic devices such as the Amazon Kindle and Apple iPad. The e-book edition combines many of the benefits of print and web publications in a new form that is portable and extremely convenient. During the pilot phase of the FRUS e-book initiative, five selected FRUS volumes are available here. The public is invited to download the new e-books and provide feedback to help improve the FRUS e-book edition. At the conclusion of the pilot phase later this year, the Office will work to offer e-book versions of many more FRUS volumes both through the Office website and on a wide array of e-bookstores. The Office will continue to expand and enhance its e-book offerings, as part of the ongoing FRUS digitization effort.

The FRUS e-book initiative is an outgrowth of the Office of the Historian’s efforts to optimize the series for its website. Because the Office adopted the Text Encoding Initiative’s open, robust XML-based file format (TEI), a single digital master TEI file can store an entire FRUS volume and can be transformed into either a set of web pages or an e-book. The free, open source eXist-db server that powers the entire Office of the Historian website also provides the tools needed to transform the FRUS TEI files into HTML and e-book formats.

For questions about the FRUS e-book initiative, please see our FAQ below; for other questions or to provide feedback, please contact history_ebooks@state.gov.

I'm putting away my ink pot and downloading one now.

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1973: Arab-Israeli War, And The First Oil Shock

The latest volume of the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series publishes the foreign policy documentation surrounding the Arab-Israeli Crisis and War, 1973:

This volume documents U.S. policymaking toward the Arab-Israeli conflict between January and December 1973, i.e., during the months before, during, and immediately after the Arab-Israeli war of October 1973. Documentation in the volume includes memoranda; records of discussions both within the U.S. policy-making community, as well as with foreign officials; cables to and from U.S. diplomatic posts; and papers that set forth policy issues and options, and which show decisions or actions taken.

This volume covers an important period in the history of the U.S. engagement with the Arab-Israeli dispute. The October 1973 War represented not only a renewed clash of Arab and Israeli forces, it ignited an energy crisis brought on by an Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) oil embargo against the United States, and led to the threat of a direct superpower confrontation. The war also prompted the United States to undertake an unprecedented role in the pursuit of a negotiated settlement to the dispute.

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Conference Proceedings Available For "The American Experience in Southeast Asia, 1946-1975"

The Office of the Historian has released the proceedings of its September conference on U.S. policy and the war in Southeast Asia.

Go to its website (here) and you'll find transcripts and videos for the following:

Opening Address by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
Address by Dr. Henry A. Kissinger
Keynote Address by Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke
The View from Hanoi: Historians from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam
Senior Scholars’ Interpretations of the American Experience in Southeast Asia
Media Roundtable Discussion
Address by Ambassador John D. Negroponte
With Friends Like These: The United States and its Allies
Fighting While Negotiating: Force and Diplomacy in the Vietnam War
The Battle for Hearts and Minds: Counterinsurgency and Reconstruction Programs in Vietnam
Ours to Reason Why: Intervention in Vietnam, Reaction in America

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