Truth in History and Other Essays

Description

An introduction by one of Dunning's students, J.G. de Roulhac Hamilton, revivifies for the reader some of the qualities of Dunning, the teacher and human being, who inspired a whole school of historical writers. The volume collects in convenient form seventeen interpretative articles, critical essays, and reviews of books as a further monument to the man whose influence on the study of Reconstruction in American history and of political theory has made him significant in the group that established history and political science as scholarly professions. The most noteworthy article is the title essay in which Dunning sounds a pertinent warning to scholars whose delight in destroying old errors and beliefs may make them exaggerate the importance of their new "truths." Years after the articles were first published, the essays for the most part still exhibit freshness and relevance to current problems. Truth in History.3 Liberty and Equality in International Relations . . .21 Contrasts and Parallels in American Politics, 1800 and 1900.38 An Historic Phrase.56 The Fundamental Conceptions of Nineteenth-Century Politics.60 More Light on Andrew Johnson.80 The Second Birth of the Republican Party.108 Paying for Alaska: Some Unfamiliar Incidents in the Process.118 The University as Rationalizer.134 The War Power of the President.145 A Generation of American Historiography.153 Disloyalty in Two Wars.165 James Schouler’s History of the Civil War, 1861-1865 . . 173 The Autobiography of George F. Hoar.178 Rhodes’s History of the United States.184 The Diary of Gideon Welles.192 Henry Adams on Things in General.214