Robert B. Townsend, Humanities program director at American Academy of Arts and Sciences, is one of the country's leading authorities on the material state of higher education in the United States. In over three decades of close observation, at the Academy and at the American Historical Association, he has tracked the changing course of PhD career outcomes, university work conditions, student interests, and of course the almighty market for academic jobs -- especially in History. As the author of History's Babel: Scholarship, Professionalization, and the Historical Enterprise in the United States (Chicago, 2013), Townsend is capable of taking the longer view on these questions. Join him and Matt Karp for an open-ended conversation on the past, present, and future of the market for jobs in History.