New Directions in American Intellectual History

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Until the 'coming of age' of social history in the 1960s, intellectual historians had taken the lead in the 20th-century study of the American past.

This volume reflects the recent resurgence of interest in intellectual history. It exemplifies the concerns of a new generation of intellectual historians and highlights the various directions probed by their scholarship. Taken in its entirety, the book is the broadest and most sophisticated examination of a historical specialty yet published.

The book contains theoretical perspectives on the field and scholarly evaluations of major themes in American intellectual history. John Higham's introduction evaluates the changes and problems in the discipline, including its part in the development of other fields of inquiry.

Laurence Veysey, Gordon S. Wood, and David A. Hollinger each take up the question of intellectual history's importance and its relationship to other disciplines, particularly social history and the social sciences.

Several historians explore the role of beliefs and values in American history. Rush Welter defends a continuing effort to identify an 'American mind'. Sacvan Bercovitch offers a perceptive new reading of Perry Miller's influential essay, "Errand into the Wilderness." Henry F. May reflects on the similarities and dissimilarities between religious and intellectual history.

Dorothy Ross takes a new look at two broad interpretations of American political thought - the 'liberalism' of Louis Hartz and the 'Republicanism' of J.G.A. Pocock. Thomas L. Haskell writes about the deterministic implications of recent approaches to intellectual history.

Other contributors relate beliefs to the larger culture. Murray G. Murphey proposes an anthropological understanding of belief and culture and stresses the hazards of broad generalizations in intellectual history. David D. Hall, by analyzing the impact of printing upon popular thought, suggest ways that historians can relate the beliefs of intellectual elites to those of the masses.

Thomas Bender focuses on the interaction between the city and the professions. Neil Harris shows how photography has changed the way American society 'sees' and relates to an environment. And Warren I. Susman analyzes modern psychology's understanding of human personality in shaping the development of the larger society.

Paul K. Conkin's afterword summarizes the current state of the field, highlighting the many continuities with the discipline's past.