Popularizing the Past - Historians, Publishers, and Readers in Postwar America

"Nick Witham investigates how widely popular history books have gotten written, promoted, and institutionalized. Not just a matter of writing style, popular accessibility is also a product of an author's frame of mind, the editor's skill, and the publisher's marketing acumen, among other factors. Witham has done extensive work not just in historians' archives but in publishers' files. His primary subjects are Richard Hofstadter, Daniel Boorstin, John Hope Franklin, Gerda Lerner, and Howard Zinn-all popular historians who were explicitly concerned with the question of popularity. Collectively, they reveal the cross-influences of popular history writing and American popular culture"--

About the author

Nick Witham is associate professor of United States history and head of the department at the Institute of the Americas at University College London. He is the author of The Cultural Left and the Reagan Era: US Protest and Central American Revolution.

Product details

• Authors: Nick Witham, Witham Nick
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.07.2023
• EAN: 9780226826974
• ISBN: 978-0-226-82697-4
• No. of pages: 240
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History; USA, Popular Culture, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Popular Culture, 20th Century, 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000, HISTORY / United States / 20th Century, HISTORY / Historiography, 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999, Historiography, United States of America, USA, History of the Americas