Historians Against History: The Frontier Thesis and the National Covenant in American Historical Writing Since 1830

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.

David W. Noble is a professor of history at the University of Minnesota and is also the author of The Paradox of Progressive Thought, published by the University of Minnesota Press.