We usually think of William Appleman Williams as a revisionist diplomatic historian of the Wisconsin school. On its face, this reputation does not seem to jive very well with early American intellectual history. After all, it was one of Williams’ greatest influences, Charles Beard, whose supposed disregard for intellectual history has irked many champions of early American intellectual history over the years. Contrary to such an impression however, Williams was one of the most original and insightful intellectual historians of the early United States, yet is rarely given credit for that. In fact, in some ways we have come full Read more