Welcome to Milestone Documents in American History,
the inaugural publication of the Schlager Group imprint.
Although we have produced dozens of titles for other reference
publishers in the past decade, we have long dreamed
of creating our own publications, ones crafted through our
particular vision and perspective. This title represents the
culmination of that dream.
This set also serves as the first offering in a larger series
of volumes that we are calling “Milestone Documents.” For
some years now, primary sources have been at the forefront
of history education at the high school and collegiate levels,
and yet their coverage by reference publishers has been maddeningly
spotty. Either they were relegated to the periphery
of publications as “extra features,” or they were offered up in
large chunks with only the most basic of contextual analysis.
Our goal with this set, as well as with upcoming titles in the
“Milestone Documents” series, is to make the primary
sources the star of the show and to offer students not just a
plethora of full-text documents but something more useful
still: informed, balanced, and engaging analysis written by
trained and knowledgeable historians.
In this first publication and in the “Milestone Documents”
series in general, we seek to live up to the highest
editorial standards in the industry—comprehensiveness,
first-rate writing, painstaking fact checking and editing,
and terrific design. In an age when the information industry
and the general public alike trumpet the dazzling capabilities
of user-generated Web sites like Wikipedia, we
believe that offering readers and librarians a traditional reference
product built on informed scholarly judgment and
professional editorial skills is more useful than ever. This is
not to downplay the revolutionary role of the Internet in
educating students about the past. In fact, throughout this
publication readers will see references to our companion
Web site, www.MilestoneDocuments.com. For now this
site will include both free content (the full texts of the primary
documents covered in this set) and premium content
(aimed at students who do not have access to this publication
through their libraries). Moving forward, we hope to
augment the site with innovative new resources for students
and educators alike. (Some of those resources may
even take advantage of user-generated content.)
I thank the many people who have helped us to make
this first Schlager Group publication a reality. Our advisory
board of librarians and history educators was instrumental
in helping us to hone the concept for this title. Paul
Finkelman, the editor in chief and a renowned legal historian,
crafted a superb, wide-ranging entry list and gathered
a wonderful list of historians and other scholars to write for
the publication. Bruce Lesh, the consulting editor, utilized
his extensive experience as a history educator to write a
compelling introductory essay, “Teaching with Primary
Source Documents,” and to compile eight incisive teacheractivity
guides tied to the National History Standards. The
employees at Salem Press, our distribution partner, have
been unfailingly helpful. This publication was truly a collaborative
enterprise, and it is richer for it.
We’re excited about the upcoming titles in the series,
which include the following:
• Milestone Documents of American Leaders (April 2009)
• Milestone Documents in World History (October 2009)
• Milestone Documents of World Leaders (April 2010)
• Milestone Documents of World Religions (October 2010)
In the meantime, we hope you enjoy this publication, and we
look forward to a long and rewarding relationship with you.
Neil Schlager
Founder and President, Schlager Group
neil@schlagergroup.com
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