Some Aspects of The Recent History of American Historiography

Abstract

My title is already long. Yet it does not say all that it should. My proper subject is certain aspects of the writing of American history in the United States during the last three-quarters of a century. But in order to deal with that I must say much that applies with equal force to American historiography at large during that period. In so doing, I run the risk of leaving, a false impression. There is a danger that I may suggest that the events of the earlier years, where I am speaking of what is more general, had issue in the later in something much narrower than was in fact the case. But that which I leave out will be much more familiar to my audience than it is to me; and it may be sufficient if I say that when I turn away from the general subject of the writing of history in the United States to the more particular one of the writing of American history, I do so not unaware, and trusting my audience to be much more fully aware, of the parallel cultivation by American historians of other fields of historical investigation.