Progressive Historians

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 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… Keep Reading