The Progressive Historians: Turner, Beard, Parrington
by Richard Hofstadter
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Richard Hofstadter, the distinguished historian and twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize, brilliantly assesses the ideas and contributions of the three major American interpretive historians of the twentieth century: Frederick Jackson Turner, Charles A. Beard and V.L. Parrington. These men, whose views of history were shaped in large part by the political battles of the Progressive era, provided the Progressive movement with a usable past and the American liberal mind with a historical show more tradition. The Progressive Historians is at once a critique of historical thought during this decisive period of American development and an account of how these three writers led American historians into the controversial political world of the twentieth century. Turner, in developing his idea that American democracy is the outcome of the experience of frontier expansion and the settlement of the West, introduced his fellow historians to a set of new concepts and methods, and in doing so doing re-drew the guidelines of American historiography. Beard insisted upon the elitist origins of the Constitution, crusaded for the economic interpretation of history, and ultimately staked his historical reputation on an isolationist view of recent American foreign policy. Parrington emphasized the moral and social functions of literature, and read the history of literature as a history of the national political mind. In recent years, the tide has run against the Progressive historians, as one specialist after another has taken issue with their interpretations. The movement of contemporary historical thought has led to a rediscovery of the complexity of the American past. Although he cannot share the faith of the Progressive historians in the sufficiency of American liberalism as a guide to the modern world, Richard Hofstadter believes we have much to learn about ourselves from a reconsideration of their insights. show lessTags
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2962 The Progressive Historians: Turner, Beard, Parrington, by Richard Hofstadter (read 2 Mar 1997) This 1968 book discusses Frederick Jackson Turner, Charles A. Beard, and Vernon L. Parrington. It is a "heavy" book and talked a lot about sophisticated historical theory, which I am not much into, so there were great gobs of the book which were not very interesting to me. I only found about half of the book interesting. To appreciate it one would have to be studying the things Hofstadter talks about.
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53+ Works 6,925 Members
DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University from 1959 until the time of his death, Richard Hofstadter was one of the most influential historians in post--World War II America. His political, social, and intellectual histories raised serious questions about assumptions that had long been taken for granted and cast the American show more experience in an interesting new light. His 1948 work, The American Political Tradition, is an enduring classic study in political history. His 1955 work, The Age of Reform, which still commands respect among both historians and general readers, won him that year's Pulitzer Prize. A measure of Hofstadter's standing in literary and scholarly circles is the honors he received in 1964 for Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1963)---Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction, the Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize of Phi Beta Kappa, and the Sidney Hillman Prize Award. Hofstadter's greatest talent, however, may have been his ability to order complex events and issues and to synthesize from them a rational, constructively critical perspective on American history. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Vintage Books (V-591)
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Progressive Historians: Turner, Beard, Parrington
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- 136
- Popularity
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- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.75)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 6
- ASINs
- 7
