In 1931, Carl Becker delivered what remains the single most famous Presidential Address in the history of the American Historical Association.  Entitled “Everyman His Own Historian,” Becker’s speech continued his by then decades-old assault on the “scientific school” of history, which believed that the historian’s task was simply to correctly assemble the facts of the past, which would, in turn, interpret themselves.  In its place Becker proposed a vision of history that was both more relativistic and more populist. His address was greeted with a standing ovation and has been celebrated in the ensuing decades as both laying the foundations Read more