Benson J. Lossing (1813-1891), whose career as a populizer of United States history spanned nearly sixty years, is the focus of this study of the production and uses of history in nineteenth-century American culture. After an introduction on relevant theory and methodology and the background for American historical writing, nine chronological chapters trace Lossing's career from an impoverished youth in rural New York through a thirty-year sojourn in New York City and later periods of voluminous writing. A conclusion discusses how Lossing's reputation suffered after the rise of academic historians who perceived him as lacking scholarly exactitude.
Format:
CONTRIBUTORS: Harold Mahan
EAN: 9780313288067
COUNTRY: United States
PAGES:
WEIGHT: 0 g
HEIGHT: 0 cm
PUBLISHED BY: ABC-CLIO
DATE PUBLISHED: 1996-03-20
CITY:
GENRE: HISTORY / United States / General, HISTORY / Americas (North, Central, South, West Indies)
WIDTH: 0 cm
SPINE:
Book Themes:
United States of America, USA, 19th century, c 1800 to c 1899, Biography: historical, political and military, Cultural studies, Historiography
?Benjamin J. Lossing was a self-taught editor, engraver, writer, and prolific American historian whose career spanned much of the 19th century. Once relatively popular but now almost entirely forgotten, Lossing's work was precariously located somewhere between serious schoarlship and 'popular scribbling.' Mahan's book is a welcone addition to the limited work being done on American historiography; it is a generally solid, intelligent, well-written study.?-Choice, "Benjamin J. Lossing was a self-taught editor, engraver, writer, and prolific American historian whose career spanned much of the 19th century. Once relatively popular but now almost entirely forgotten, Lossing's work was precariously located somewhere between serious schoarlship and 'popular scribbling.' Mahan's book is a welcone addition to the limited work being done on American historiography; it is a generally solid, intelligent, well-written study."-Choice
HAROLD E. MAHAN is Professor of American Studies at Minnesota Bible College.
