Historians Against History

The Frontier Thesis and the National Covenant in American Historical Writing Since 1830

David W. Noble

• Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press
• Year: 1967
• eBook ISBN: 9780816663842
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

Historians Against History was first published in 1967. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

Professor Noble examines the basic philosophy and writing of six American historians, George Bancroft, Frederick Jackson, Charles A. Beard, Carl Becker, Vernon Louis Parrington, and Daniel J. Boorstin, and finds in them a common tradition which he calls anti-historical. He argues that this viewpoint is founded in the frontier interpretation of American history, that American historians have served as the chief political theorists and theologians of this country since 1830, and that their writings can be interpreted as Jeremiads designed to preserve a national covenant with nature.

Table of contents

• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• 1 FLIGHT FROM FEUDALISM: THE NEW WORLD AND THE PURITAN COVENANT
• 2 GEORGE BANCROFT: NATURE AND THE FULFILLMENT OF THE COVENANT
• 3 FREDERICK JACKSON TURNER: THE MACHINE AND THE LOSS OF THE COVENANT
• 4 CHARLES A. BEARD: INDUSTRIALISM AND THE COVENANT RESTORED
• 5 CARL BECKER: EUROPE AND THE ROOTS OF THE COVENANT
• 6 VERNON LOUIS PARRINGTON: THE COVENANT AND THE JEFFERSONIAN JEREMIAD
• 7 BEARD: THE COVENANT THREATENED BY INSTITUTIONAL POWER
• 8 BECKER: THE COVENANT REPLACED BY CIVILIZATION
• 9 DANIEL BOORSTIN: BLACKSTONE AND THE CONSERVATION OF THE AMERICAN COVENANT
• 10 THE END OF THE COVENANT AND THE BEGINNING OF AMERICAN HISTORY
• NOTES
• INDEX