However, nowhere in my post do I claim that no historian, anywhere, is qualified to discuss the great depression. That’s absurd, and would be an offensive claim. Perhaps this came out in the tone of the post, however, but it was not stated nor I don’t think can be reasonably read out of it. Indeed, I state that we contacted several Canadianists – who I won’t mention here as it’s not fair to them. These are busy people, perhaps because there aren’t very many Canadianists who do these topics – and some were indeed writing op-eds, being quoted in newspaper articles, etc. Most labour historians (as well as women’s historians, gender historians, etc – I’m thinking here of Denyse Baillargeon’s excellent _Making Do_, as well as a host of other books) in this country could write a great post about this, although I don’t think many in the media (who are working under tight deadlines) might think to ask them to do so because their topic doesn’t seem to directly touch on this. I don’t think its fair for Smith to say that I argue that “nobody in the academy is qualified to talk about the Great Depression in historical terms,” because quite frankly I don’t say anything like that.

As I mentioned earlier in a comment on his site, we were focused on Canadianists and still need to completely figure out that questions as a committee. Yet even if we weren’t, I don’t think that as a beginning website with no track record of success (a situation which is improving, to be sure), we would have Niall Ferguson or Paul Krugman (or even Ben Bernanke!) write us a paper. It’s worth noting that I’m a reader of both those individuals, both their books and op-eds. Smith’s post implies that I don’t know of these people, or others.

Thanks for your comments, and I’m glad we could have this discussion. But I do want to set the record straight. We’re trying our best, and it’s great to move this discussion beyond the TA rooms and offices of York University.