Oscar Handlin, a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian, was Carl M. Loeb University Professor, Emeritus, at Harvard University. He was the editor of This Was America.

• Preface. The Abuses of History Personal Reflections on a Calling 1. A Discipline in Crisis 2. Living in a Valley The Central Themes of American History 3. A History of American History 4. Theories of Historical Interpretation 5. Historical Criticism 6. An Instance of Criticism Dealing with the Evidence 7. How to Read a Word 8. How to Count a Number 9. Seeing and Hearing 10. History in a World of Knowledge Persistent Themes and Hard Facts 11. Political Theory and Popular Thought 12. Man and Magic 13. Good Guys and Bad 14. The Two-Party System The Uses of History 15. The Diet of a Ravenous Public 16. Ethnicity and the New History 17. The Uses of History Acknowledgments Index

By any standard Oscar Handlin ranks among the most influential historians of the American past…Truth in History…provide[s] the most complete statement of Handlin's approach that we can hope to get. In these essays, written over many years but here reworked into a remarkably unified whole, Handlin examines the limits and possibilities of historical thought.

Oscar Handlin, a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian, was Carl M. Loeb University Professor, Emeritus, at Harvard University. He was the editor of This Was America.

• Preface. The Abuses of History Personal Reflections on a Calling 1. A Discipline in Crisis 2. Living in a Valley The Central Themes of American History 3. A History of American History 4. Theories of Historical Interpretation 5. Historical Criticism 6. An Instance of Criticism Dealing with the Evidence 7. How to Read a Word 8. How to Count a Number 9. Seeing and Hearing 10. History in a World of Knowledge Persistent Themes and Hard Facts 11. Political Theory and Popular Thought 12. Man and Magic 13. Good Guys and Bad 14. The Two-Party System The Uses of History 15. The Diet of a Ravenous Public 16. Ethnicity and the New History 17. The Uses of History Acknowledgments Index

By any standard Oscar Handlin ranks among the most influential historians of the American past…Truth in History…provide[s] the most complete statement of Handlin's approach that we can hope to get. In these essays, written over many years but here reworked into a remarkably unified whole, Handlin examines the limits and possibilities of historical thought.

Oscar Handlin, a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian, was Carl M. Loeb University Professor, Emeritus, at Harvard University. He was the editor of This Was America.

• Preface. The Abuses of History Personal Reflections on a Calling 1. A Discipline in Crisis 2. Living in a Valley The Central Themes of American History 3. A History of American History 4. Theories of Historical Interpretation 5. Historical Criticism 6. An Instance of Criticism Dealing with the Evidence 7. How to Read a Word 8. How to Count a Number 9. Seeing and Hearing 10. History in a World of Knowledge Persistent Themes and Hard Facts 11. Political Theory and Popular Thought 12. Man and Magic 13. Good Guys and Bad 14. The Two-Party System The Uses of History 15. The Diet of a Ravenous Public 16. Ethnicity and the New History 17. The Uses of History Acknowledgments Index

By any standard Oscar Handlin ranks among the most influential historians of the American past…Truth in History…provide[s] the most complete statement of Handlin's approach that we can hope to get. In these essays, written over many years but here reworked into a remarkably unified whole, Handlin examines the limits and possibilities of historical thought.