Richard B. Morris and American History in the Twentieth Century

Richard B. Morris, an internationally known early American scholar, was a historian at both City College of New York and Columbia University. Morris’ dissertation, Studies in the History of American Law, helped establish American legal history as a field. His Government and Labor in Early America was a landmark publication. He won the Bancroft Prize for his masterpiece, The Peacemakers, in 1966. This biography is based primarily on Morris’ extensive papers and the recollections of historians who knew him well. Prominent historians of the twentieth century such as Evarts Greene, Charles M. Andrews, Lawrence Henry Gipson, Perry Miller, Merrill Jensen, Dumas Malone, Julian Boyd, Allan Nevins, and Henry Commager, among others, appear throughout. Subjects discussed include anti-Semitism, the celebrated New American Nation series, and Morris’ suspicions about the innocence of Alger Hiss. This book was one of the History New Network’s books of the month in July 2005.