Editor's Note: At its January 2002 meeting, the AHA Council voted to make Presidential Sessions a regular feature in annual meetings. These sessions, to be organized by the AHA president, are intended to address concerns about the relative absence of senior scholars at the annual meetings and the paucity of sessions treating broad historiographical issues. It is important to note that these sessions—implemented for the first time in the 2003 annual meeting—do not come at the expense of panels submitted to the Program Committee, which will still have 150 or more session slots. The following sessions were organized by the 2003 president, James McPherson. The numbers refer to the session numbers as listed in the annual meeting Program.

Friday, January 9, 9:30–11:30 a.m.

2. Perspectives on the American Civil War Marriott, Marriott Ballroom Salon II

Chair: William J. Cooper, Louisiana State University

Paper: "We Should Grow Too Fond of It": Writing Civil War History
Drew Gilpin Faust, Harvard University

Comment: Peter Kolchin, University of Delaware
Bertram Wyatt-Brown, University of Florida

Friday January 9, 2:30–4:30 p.m.

33. Presenting History to the Public: The National Park Service
Marriott, Marriott Ballroom Salon II

Chair: David Blight, Yale University

Panel: Martin H. Blatt, Boston National Historical Park
Rebecca Conard, Middle Tennessee State University
Laura Gates, Cane River National Historical Park
John Latschar, Gettysburg National Historical Park
Edward Linenthal, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh

Saturday January 10, 9:30–11:30 a.m.

65. The Cultural Approach to War
Marriott, Marriott Ballroom Salon II

Chair: Donald Kagan, Yale University

Papers: The Queen at Salamis; or Cunning and the Culture of Ancient Greek Warfare
Barry Strauss, Cornell University

Military Culture in Eighteenth-Century China
Joanna Waley-Cohen, New York University

Problems and Complexities of a Cultural Approach to Military History
John A. Lynn, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Comment: John F. Guilmartin, Ohio State University

Saturday January 10, 2:30–4:30 p.m.

96. Biography and History; A Dialogue
Marriott, Marriott Ballroom Salon II

Chair: Lynn Hudson Parsons, State University of New York College at Brockport

Panel:
Blanche Wiesen Cook, John Jay College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York
Joseph Ellis, Mount Holyoke College
David Levering Lewis, New York University
John Lukacs, emeritus, Chestnut Hill College and Independent Scholar
Robert Remini, University of Illinois at Chicago

Sunday January 11, 8:30–10:30 a.m.

126. The Constitution, the Supreme Court, and the New Deal—Revolutionary Transformation or Legal Adaptation?
Omni Shoreham, Hampton Room

Chair: Alan Brinkley, Columbia University

Paper: New Views of the New Deal, the Supreme Court, and the Constitution
Laura Kalman, University of California at Santa Barbara

Comment: William E. Leuchtenburg, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill G. Edward White, University of Virginia

Sunday January 11, 11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m.

152. The American Empire: Past, Present, and Future
Omni Shoreham, Hampton Room

Chair: Richard Immerman, Temple University

Papers: The Culture of American Empire
Mary Renda, Mount Holyoke College

The New American Militarism
Andrew Bacevich, Boston University

Empire and Systemic Peace and Stability: Allies or Opponents?
Paul Schroeder, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Comment: Robert McMahon, University of Florida