One purpose of this book has been to emphasize the great variety of pursuits now undertaken professionally in history's name, as well as the responsibilities that fall on the shoulders of those who take any of them up. I have also tried to make clear my conviction that, barring widespread changes in university-based graduate instruction, historians must now prepare themselves on their own more consciously and intently than they have in the past both for the many, broadened kinds of professional historical work on which they can embark and for the obligations that work entails. Because probably never before have so many contributions to historical understanding originated from so many quarters, in so many forms, and for so many uses, so probably never before have the burdens of determining the courses of their professions and careers in history fallen so heavily and directly on those who practice any of the historical arts. Surely never before have the choices, decisions, and responsibilities facing aspiring and experienced historians at all points in their working lives been so great.