chapter 1 About the Editor
chapter 2 Acknowledgments
chapter 3 Introduction:Local History-In Search of Comon Threads
chapter 4 I:The Local Historian
chapter 5 1. The Amateur Historian by Carol Kammen
chapter 6 2. Some Impressions of the Nonacademic Local Historians and Their Writings by David J. Russo
chapter 7 3. Local Historians and Their Activities by Judith M. Wellman
chapter 8 II:Nineteenth-Century Views of Local History
chapter 9 4. An Address Delivered Before the New Hampshire Historical Society by Salma Hale
chapter 10 5. Deficiencies in Our History: An Address Delivered Before the Vermont Historical and Antiquarian Society at Montpelier, October 16, 1846 by James Davie Butler, Jr.
chapter 11 6. The Literature of American Local History: A Bibliographical Essay by Hermann E. Ludewig
chapter 12 III. The Nature of Local History
chapter 13 7. The Value of Local History by Lewis Mumford
chapter 14 8. The Value of Local History by Constance Mclaughlin Green
chapter 15 9. Nearby History: Connecting Particulars and Universals by David E. Kyvig and Myron A. Marty
chapter 16 10. State, Local, and Regional Studies by John Alexander Williams
chapter 17 IV:Thinking Anew about Local History
chapter 18 11. Changes in the Community by Constance Mclaughlin Green
chapter 19 12. Challenges and Opportunities in Writing State and Local History by Michael Kammen
chapter 20 13. The Usable Past: A Study of Historical Traditions in Kansas City by Richard Wohl and A. Theodore Brown
chapter 21 14. A Manifesto: The Defense and Illustration of Local History by Paul Leuilliot
chapter 22 15. A Sense of Place: A Historian Advocates Conceptual Approaches to Community History by Shelton Stromquist
chapter 23 V:Rx for Local Historians
chapter 24 16. How Not to Write Local History by H. P. R. Finberg
chapter 25 17. The Local Historian: His Occupational Hazards and Compensations by John Walton Caughey
chapter 26 18. How to Write a Dull Town History by Geoffrey Elan
chapter 27 19. Local and Community History: Some Cautionary Remarks on an Idea Whose Time Has Returned by David A. Gerber
chapter 28 VI. A Passion for Local History
chapter 29 20. The Stuff of History by Robert Archibald
chapter 30 Suggestions for Further Reading