A01=Nick Witham
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American historians
American historical profession
Author_Nick Witham
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Category1=Non-Fiction
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Category=HBJK
Category=HBLW
Category=JBCC1
Category=JFCA
Category=NHAH
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COP=United States
Daniel Boorstin
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Gerda Lerner
Howard Zinn
John Hope Franklin
Language_English
PA=Available
Popular historical writing
Price_€20 to €50
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Publishing industry
Richard Hofstadter
softlaunch
Universities
Product details
- ISBN 9780226826998
- Weight: 313g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 26 Jul 2023
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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Popularizing the Past tells the stories of five postwar historians who changed the way ordinary Americans thought about their nation’s history.
What’s the matter with history? For decades, critics of the discipline have argued that the historical profession is dominated by scholars unable, or perhaps even unwilling, to write for the public. In Popularizing the Past, Nick Witham challenges this interpretation by telling the stories of five historians—Richard Hofstadter, Daniel Boorstin, John Hope Franklin, Howard Zinn, and Gerda Lerner—who, in the decades after World War II, published widely read books of national history.
Witham compellingly argues that we should understand historians’ efforts to engage with the reading public as a vital part of their postwar identity and mission. He shows how the lives and writings of these five authors were fundamentally shaped by their desire to write histories that captivated both scholars and the elusive general reader. He also reveals how these authors’ efforts could not have succeeded without a publishing industry and a reading public hungry to engage with the cutting-edge ideas then emerging from American universities. As Witham’s book makes clear, before we can properly understand the heated controversies about American history so prominent in today’s political culture, we must first understand the postwar effort to popularize the past.
What’s the matter with history? For decades, critics of the discipline have argued that the historical profession is dominated by scholars unable, or perhaps even unwilling, to write for the public. In Popularizing the Past, Nick Witham challenges this interpretation by telling the stories of five historians—Richard Hofstadter, Daniel Boorstin, John Hope Franklin, Howard Zinn, and Gerda Lerner—who, in the decades after World War II, published widely read books of national history.
Witham compellingly argues that we should understand historians’ efforts to engage with the reading public as a vital part of their postwar identity and mission. He shows how the lives and writings of these five authors were fundamentally shaped by their desire to write histories that captivated both scholars and the elusive general reader. He also reveals how these authors’ efforts could not have succeeded without a publishing industry and a reading public hungry to engage with the cutting-edge ideas then emerging from American universities. As Witham’s book makes clear, before we can properly understand the heated controversies about American history so prominent in today’s political culture, we must first understand the postwar effort to popularize the past.
Nick Witham is associate professor of United States history and head of the department at the Institute of the Americas at University College London. He is the author of The Cultural Left and the Reagan Era: US Protest and Central American Revolution.
