Like scholars in other fields, historians have long occupied themselves in self-justification. In a society which calibrates all measures by a single standard, the proof of scientific worth became relevance, which in turn was interpreted as a search not for truth but for political correctness. In a blistering professional critique of this tendency in academic scholarship, perhaps the first of its kind, Oscar Handlin offers an analysis that, if anything, has grown more pertinent over the past decade.
In seventeen chapters, written with the brilliant assurance of a master craftsman,...
Like scholars in other fields, historians have long occupied themselves in self-justification. In a society which calibrates all measures by a sing...
This book is a methodological primer on how historians gather evidence, presume reliability of witnesses, and develop forms of verification in the conduct of analysis and research. It is an introduction to the study of history and an examination of specific instances in which ideology has distorted the study of American history.
Oscar Handlin is best known as America's leading historian of ethnicity and the immigrant experience in the new nation. When it was first published in 1961, The Distortion of America was perhaps the first critique of anti-Americanism as an...
This book is a methodological primer on how historians gather evidence, presume reliability of witnesses, and develop forms of verification in the ...
Rarely is it possible to hear the voice of the people in a revolution except as it filters through the writings of articulate individuals who may not really be representative. But on several occasions during the effort to draft a constitution for Massachusetts after 1776, the citizens of the Commonwealth were asked to convene in their 300 town meetings to debate and convey to the legislators their political theories, needs, and aspirations. This book presents the transcribed debates and the replies returned to Boston which constitute a unique body of material documenting the political...
Rarely is it possible to hear the voice of the people in a revolution except as it filters through the writings of articulate individuals who may n...
Using the ability of the individual to take action as a working measure of the extent of liberty at any time, Oscar Handlin and Mary Handlin identify and describe numerous factors that have had an important effect on American freedom since colonial days. In defining the broad dimensions of the conception, they investigate, among other subjects, the significance of the idea that the state derived power from the consent of the governed, the early concept of the Commonwealth, the later one of police powers, the roles played by governmental institutions, churches, secret lodges, voluntary...
Using the ability of the individual to take action as a working measure of the extent of liberty at any time, Oscar Handlin and Mary Handlin identify ...
This book is a methodological primer on how historians gather evidence, presume reliability of witnesses, and develop forms of verification in the conduct of analysis and research. It is an introduction to the study of history and an examination of specific instances in which ideology has distorted the study of American history.
Oscar Handlin is best known as America's leading historian of ethnicity and the immigrant experience in the new nation. When it was first published in 1961, The Distortion of America was perhaps the first critique of anti-Americanism as an...
This book is a methodological primer on how historians gather evidence, presume reliability of witnesses, and develop forms of verification in the ...