History is both a branch of literature and a scholarly discipline; and American historical writing has produced a number of memorable works as well as a sizeable body of literature. The historians selected for this volume include academic, professional, and popular historians, along with several journalists, a political publicist, a poet and a railroad executive. They represent most of the various schools of American historical study that have emerged during the 20th century, including the New Englanders of Federalist and patrician heritage who dominated the early part of the century; the frontier-oriented progressives of the Middle West; the liberal writers whose themes were prevalent after World War I, and the conservative writers who provided a strong, subtle counterpoint.

59 entries include: James Truslow Adams, Charles A. Beard, Samuel Flagg Bemis, Albert J. Beveridge, Bruce Catton, Henry Steele Commager, William E. Dodd, Shelby Foote, Douglas Southall Freeman, Richard Hofstadter, Samuel Eliot Morison, Allan Nevins, Carl Sandburg, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Frederick Jackson Turner and C. Vann Woodward.