From lagging book sales and shrinking job prospects to concerns over the discipline's "narrowness," myriad factors have been cited by historians as evidence that their profession is in decline in America. Ian Tyrrell's "Historians in Public" shows that this perceived threat to history is recurrent, exaggerated, and often misunderstood. In fact, history has adapted to and influenced the American public more than people - and often historians - realize. Tyrrell's elegant chronicle of the practice of American history traces debates, beginning shortly after the profession's emergence in American academia, about history's role in school curricula. He also examines the use of historians in and by the government and whether historians should utilize mass media such as film and radio to influence the general public. As "Historians in Public" shows, the utility of history is a distinctive theme throughout the history of the discipline, as is the attempt to be responsive to public issues among pressure groups. A superb examination of the practice of American history since the turn of the century, "Historians in Public" uncovers the often tangled ways history-makers make history - both as artisans and as actors.

About the Author
Ian Tyrrell is professor in the School of History at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. He is the author of five previous books, including Sobering Up: From Temperance to Prohibition in Antebellum America.

Reviews
"An indispensable record of the discipline and practice of history in the United States. By uncovering a vast range of early initiatives that historians undertook to deal with issues that included the very practice of scholarship, the appropriateness of utilizing new mass media opportunities, state funding and support, political ideology, and 'the objectivity question,' Ian Tyrrell has created a useful new history from which historians can think and act more creatively in the present." - David Thelen, Indiana University"



Book Information
ISBN 9780226821948
Author Ian Tyrrell
Format Paperback
Page Count 312
Imprint University of Chicago Press
Publisher The University of Chicago Press
Weight(grams) 539g
Dimensions(mm) 23mm * 16mm * 2mm