A Canon of U.S. Intellectual History?

6 Thoughts on this Post

1. I posted a similar query about a year ago. We got some good responses, but then the thread just petered out. It’s something I’d like to see continue; perhaps the blog could come up with a “canon” of its own.

   In any case, here are the collected recommendations of everyone who posted before, listed alphabetically by author.

   Appleby, Joyce Liberalism and Republicanism in the Historical Imagination
   Bailyn, Bernard Ideological Origins of the American Revolution
   Beard, Charles Whither Mankind: A Panorama…
   Beard, Mary America Through Women’s Eyes
   Bender, Thomas (ed.) The Antislavery Debate
   Bender, Thomas The New York Intellectuals
   Bercovitch, Sacvan Rites of Assent
   Conkin, Paul Puritans and Pragmatists
   Eagleton, Terry Literary Theory: An Introduction
   Frederickson, George The Black Image in the White Mind
   Frederickson, George The Inner Civil War
   Haskell, Thomas Objectivity is Not Neutrality
   Higham, John (ed.) New Directions In American Intellectual History
   Higham, John History: Professional Scholarship in America
   Hofstadter, Richard The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It
   Hofstadter, Richard Anti-Intellectualism in American Life
   Hofsteadter, Richard The Progressive Historians
   Hollinger, David In The American Province
   Iggers, Georg Historiography in the Twentieth Century
   Jacoby, Russell The Last Intellectuals
   Kloppenberg, James Uncertain Victory
   Kloppenberg, James The Virtues of Liberalism
   Kuklick, Bruce The History of Philosophy In America, 1720-2000
   Langer, Suzan Philosophy in a New Key
   Lears, T.J. Jackson No Place of Grace
   May, Henry The Enlightenment in America
   Menand, Louis The Metaphysical Club
   Miller, Perry The New England Mind
   Murray, M. (ed.) A Jacques Barzun Reader
   Noll, Mark The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind
   Novick, Peter That Noble Dream
   Parrington, Vernon Main Currents in American Thought
   Pells, Richard The Liberal Mind in a Conservative Age
   Perry, Lewis Intellectual Life In America: A History
   Rodgers, Daniel Atlantic Crossings
   Ross, Dorothy Origins of American Social Science
   Tully, James (ed.) Meaning and Context: Quentin Skinner and His Critics

2. This is a great start. I would definitely add:

   Denning, Michael, _The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century_

   Nash, George, _The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America_

   Purcell, Edward, _The Crisis in Democratic Theory: Scientific Naturalism and the Problem of Value_

   Wald, Alan, _The New York Intellectuals: The Rise and Decline of the Anti-Stalinist Left_

3. Michael O’Brian, Conjectures of Order

4. I like the books listed already, from Conjectures of Order to Mike’s list above it. But I want to tackle the unexplored question in the post and add a few more points.

   There is little question that a canon of U.S. intellectual history exists. Period. This is seen already in the comments above and on Mike’s first weblog post on the subject last year.

   Evidence of the canon also exists in the commonality of readings suggested during field exams. Who can doubt that books by Higham, Curti, Conkin, Hollinger, Bender, etc. are on those lists? If you’re coming at USIH from the cultural side, then you’ve certainly at least read something of Denning, Higham (again), and Lears.

   Sure, every PhD candidate’s list will differ in its details, but I seriously doubt that he/she who is unfamiliar with several of these authors, and some of their works, will be taken seriously. Think of how many books here all of us agree on—despite our diverse backgrounds.

   But I want to ask some tougher questions:

   – What makes a great book in U.S. intellectual history? What are its defining, or minimal, characteristics?
   – Who vets intellectual histories of the U.S. for their greatness?
   – What are the ~undisputed~ greats covering U.S.I.H.? Are all listed here so far “undisputed?” Is that too high a standard?

   – TL

5. Some more widely-read classics and/or celebrated volumes on their way to classicdom, old and new:

   Dorothy Ross, The Origins of American Social Science

   Harold Cruse, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual

   David Levering Lewis, WEB Du Bois, 1868-1919: Biography of a Race

   Ann Douglas, Terrible Honesty

   Ross Posnock, The Trail of Curiosity: Henry James, William James, and the Challenge of Modernity

   Kevin Gaines, Uplifting the Race: Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture in the 20th Century

   Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness

   Cornel West, The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism

6. These are my candidates. I decided that the list didn’t mean so much unless a) I tried to make it complete, rather than naming all my favorite books off the top of my head, and b) I limited myself to a certain number of books, so that I would actually decide which ones are the most important.

   So I imagined that I had a Ph.D. candidate (that’ll be the day!) for whom I was assembling a list for comprehensive exams. I decided on 25 as the number, but kind of cheated by allowing myself another list in primary sources in U.S. intellectual history, which I will post shortly as well. (There’s even a third list, of literature and perhaps film, that I will probably not getting around to compiling any time soon.) Though I spent several days thinking about this to make sure that I didn’t forget any obvious candidates, the list still feels to me rather idiosyncratic. I’ll be curious to see what others think or, alternatively, to see different lists of books.

   Like Tim in his earlier post, I can only say I’ve read about two-thirds of these books. But how often a book comes up in other reading is a good test of how important it is to read, so I didn’t distinguish between books I’d read and those I had not.

   –Mike

   Appleby, Joyce; Liberalism and Republicanism in the Historical Imagination

   Bailyn, Bernard; The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution

   Beard, Charles; An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States

   Bederman, Gail; Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race, 1880-1917

   Bender, Thomas; The New York Intellectuals

   Curti, Merle; The Growth of American Thought

   Frederickson, George; The Black Image in the White Mind
   The Inner Civil War

   Gaines, Kevin; Uplifting the Race: Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture in the 20th Century

   Genovese, Eugene; Roll, Jordan, Roll

   Hingham, John and Paul Conkin (eds.); New Directions in Intellectual History

   Hofstadter, Richard; Anti-Intellectualism in American Life

   Hollinger, David; In the American Province: Studies in the History and Historiography of Ideas

   Jacoby, Russell; The Last Intellectuals

   Kloppenberg, James; Uncertain Victory: Social Democracy and Progressivism in European and American Thought, 1870-1920

   Levine, Lawrence; Highbrow, Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America

   Lewis, David Levering; W.E.B. Du Bois, 1868 1919: Biography of a Race
   W.E.B. DuBois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963

   Menand, Louis; The Metaphysical Club

   Morgan, Edmund; The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop

   Russett, Cynthia Eagle; Darwin in America: The Intellectual Response, 1865-1912

   Turner, Frederick Jackson; “The Significance of the Frontier in American History”

   Wilentz, Sean; The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln

   Wills, Gary; Lincoln at Gettysburg
   Inventing America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence

   Wood, Gordon; The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787

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