1 Writing the History of Public Administration The Challenge of Change Key-note lecture at the workshop “Was ist Verwaltungsgeschichte?” organized by the Swiss Federal Archive, August 14, 2013 Patrick Overeem Leiden University p.overeem@cdh.leidenuniv.nl Introduction Five years ago, in 2008, the last edition appeared of the Jahrbuch für Europäische Verwaltungsgeschichte (JEV). This yearbook had been published for exactly 20 years and contained articles in German, French, Italian, and English. It covered very diverse themes, ranging from the most central to the most quaint, but always addressed from a comparative perspective. The Yearbook was the initiative of Erk Volkmar Heyen, a professor from peripheral Greifswald, who thus almost singlehandedly put administrative history in Europe on its feet. With his retirement, the Yearbook also came to an end – a genuine loss. Of course, the fate of the Yearbook need not be the fate of administrative history as a whole. In fact, the field seems to be in relatively good shape – even without it. Handbooks and textbooks are coming out and special issues appear in academic journals; there are recognized experts, panels at conferences, and research projects with international exposure. Another piece of evidence is that here today, in the midst of summer, we have gathered for this workshop. Although not recognizable as a subfield until about three decades ago, administrative history now seems to be doing pretty well. Two challenges And yet, there are two massive developments that, I think, pose serious challenges to administrative historians. 1. First of all, there is what I will simply call the ‘information revolution,’ by which I mean the growth of the internet and the digitalization of sources, including historical documents and government papers. In the time of ‘Big Data’ and WikiLeaks, avalanches of information about governments past and present have become easily accessible at our fingertips – and those