"Those dispirited by today's skirmishes over the American past should seek out Nick Witham's wonderful book on postwar history writing." —Sarah E. Igo, author of The Averaged American
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.
"Astute, informative, and skillfully researched, Witham's thought-provoking analysis will appeal to historians (and aspiring historians) who want a better grasp on the challenges and opportunities of history as a profession and the business of popular-history books." - Library Journal
