Some Important Historians
Herodotus = this Greek historian is considered the beginning point of western history writing
Thucydides = An ancient Greek general and historian, his history of the Peloponnesian War is considered a classic example of careful reporting of events with good analysis
Livy = he produced many volumes on the history of Rome
Plutarch = he wrote many biographies on Greek and Roman figures
Suetonius = he provided posterity with an interesting record of the first twelve caesars of the Roman Empire
Luke = although trained as a physician, he wrote The Gospel According to Luke and its companion The Book of Acts, the New Testament books most closely resembling works of history
Josephus = thanks to his history of the Jewish people, many aspects of the gospels have been corroborated
Eusebius = thanks to him we know of many things that happened to the twelve apostles nowhere else recorded in extant sources (many of the sources he used for writing the History of the Church were later destroyed in the burning of the Alexandria Library)
Edward Gibbon = he wrote The History of the Decline and the Fall of the Roman Empire
Francis Parkman = one of the most famous American historians, his writings mostly focused on the American frontier
Samuel Eliot Morrison = he wrote on Christopher Columbus and the early American republic and was the official US Navy historian during WWII
George Sarton = he is considered the founder of the field of study known as history of science
E.H. Carr = the author of What Is History?
Henry Steele Commager = he wrote The American Mind, compiled and published primary documents, co-authored textbooks, and was outspoken about current events of his day
Allan Nevins = focusing primarily on the United States in the 1800s, he wrote on the history of politics and business, including John D. Rockefeller: The Heroic Age of American Enterprise, a two-volume work
A.J.P. Taylor = a revisionist historian, his work The Origins of The Second World War presents Hitler as less than evil and more of an opportunist
C. Vann Woodward = his work on Jim Crow expanded our understanding of the history of the South
Bruce Catton = an historian of the U.S. Civil War
Edmund Morgan = he has written on the Puritans, the American Revolution, and slavery in the United States
William Appleman Williams = a diplomatic historian, he wrote in The Tragedy of American Diplomacy that U.S. foreign policy has long been based on imperialistic intentions
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. = he worked for President John F. Kennedy and later wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning work about JFK
Gordon Wood = a scholar of the American Revolution
Paul Kennedy = in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers he discusses “imperial overstretch”
Walter LeFeber = his work America, Russia, and the Cold War is a classic historical work
Ernest R. May = this Harvard historian was called on to head up the writing of the 9/11 Commission Report
Joseph Ellis = he has written well-received works on the American founders
Patricia Limerick = thanks to her historical research, our understanding of the “winning of the West” has been enriched
Mark Noll = the renowned evangelical historian, he has presented useful works on the history of Christianity in America; in The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind he calls on conservative Christians to purse the highest intellectual standard
George M. Marsden = his writings, including Jonathan Edwards: A Life, have chiefly focused on religion in America
David McCullough = a winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, he has written biographies on Harry Truman and John Adams as well as an account of the construction of the Panama Canal
J.M. Roberts = his accounts of the history of the world are considered the standard
John Lewis Gaddis = anyone who seeks to understand the history of the Cold War must read his books
Ronald Radosh = he has written of the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Stephen Ambrose = a popular writer, his works have included a three-volume work on Richard Nixon and an account of the D-Day invasion, but his reputation has been tarnished because of charges of plagiarism
William Manchester = he wrote about the JFK assassination, WWII in the Pacific, and the life and times of Winston Churchill
Ellen Schrecker = a leading historian on McCarthyism
Allen Weinstein = his work on Alger Hiss convinced most historians that the former State Department official had indeed committed perjury when he denied communist affiliation and denied passing on government documents to the Soviet Union
Thomas J. Schlereth = his emphasis on material culture and everyday artifacts has contributed to museum practices
John Earl Haynes = collaborating with the political scientist Harvey Klehr, he has produced numerous works showing that the Communist Party of the USA had strong ties to the Soviet Union
Donald Worster = his The Wealth of Nature is an example of environmental history
R. David Edmunds = a specialist in Native American history
Niall Ferguson = his work has focused on business and financial history; he is also the editor of the bestseller Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals
David R. Roediger = much of his writings reflect on the history of race, including the well-regarded The Wages of Whiteness
Eric Foner = a prolific writer, his specialty is the United States during the 19th century
Howard Zinn = his controversial A People’s History of the United States is a revisionist history that focuses on “history from the bottom”
Michael Hogan = a diplomatic historian, one of his important works is A Cross of Iron: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of the National Security State, 1945-1954
John Thornton = an important historian specializing in the Atlantic world, he is the author of the seminal Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1650
Philip Jenkins = the author of The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity and Decade of Nightmares: The Ending of the 1960s and the Making of Eighties America