Detachment and the Writing of History: Essays and Letters of Carl L. Becker

by Carl Lotus Becker, Phil L. Snyder (Editor)

First published in 1958, Detachment and the Writing of History collects essays and letters by Carl L. Becker in which the noted historian outlines his views on the study of history, the craft of the historian, the art of teaching, and the historical evolution of the idea of democracy. Together, these invaluable writings demonstrate Becker's conviction of the moral seriousness of the historian's calling and of the importance of history as a factor, at once intellectual and artistically imaginative, in the life of society.

240 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1968

About the author

Carl Lotus Becker was an American historian. He is best known for The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers (1932), four lectures on The Enlightenment delivered at Yale University. His assertion that philosophies, in the "Age of Reason," relied far more upon Christian assumptions than they cared to admit, has been influential, but has also been much attacked,

Cornell has recognized his work as an educator by naming one of its five new residential colleges the Carl Becker House.

Reviews

[Lytle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lo! Paul de Man in a history department in the US in the 1910s, long before anyone had heard of the Annales School! How come your history has vanished from history?