Reprint of the original, first published in 1883.

Originally published in 1970. Professor Callcott's analysis of the rise of historical consciousness in the United States from 1800 to 1860 offers a new dimension to American historiography. Other books have provided insight into the works of Bancroft, Parkman, and others, but Callcott goes beyond to explain the meaning of the past itself rather than the contributions of particular historians. As the anatomy of an idea, this is an important contribution to American intellectual history; and as a study of humans' need for the past and their use of it, it is an important contribution to American social history. The author begins by analyzing the European and Romantic background for American historical thought. He then explores the rise of historical themes in literature, education, the arts, and scholarship. By describing the type of historical subject matter, the methods of writing history, the interpretive themes historians used, and the standards by which critics judged history, Callcott offers a new understanding of the social and personal meaning that history had for Americans at the time. The American people were especially convinced of the utility of history—its social use in supporting accepted values, its personal utility in extending human experience, and its philosophical value in pointing people toward ultimate reality. The idea of history possessed a remarkable coherence that reflected the preoccupations and aspirations of the young nation. Callcott also demonstrates, however, that when basic historical assumptions were challenged by controversy, the entire edifice collapsed.

First published in 1953, revised in 1964, and presented here with a new foreword by Arnold Krupat and new postscript by the author, Roy Harvey Pearce's Savagism and Civilization is a classic in the genre of history of ideas. Examining the political pamphlets, missionaries' reports, anthropologists' accounts, and the drama, poetry, and novels of the 18th and early 19th centuries, Professor Pearce traces the conflict between the idea of the noble savage and the will to Christianize the heathen and appropriate their land, which ended with the near extermination of Native American culure.

Vols. 5-15 include "Bibliography of child study," by Louis N. Wilson.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1883.

A new definitive volume of the retirement papers of Thomas Jefferson This volume’s 627 documents feature a vast assortment of topics. Jefferson writes of his dread of “a doting old age.” He inserts an anonymous note in the Richmond Enquirer denying that he has endorsed a candidate for the next presidential election, and he publishes two letters in that newspaper under his own name to refute a Federalist claim that he once benefited by overcharging the United States Treasury. Jefferson does not reply to unsolicited letters seeking his opinion on constitutional matters, judicial review, and a call for universal white male suffrage in Virginia. Fearing that it would set a dangerous precedent, he declines appointment as patron of a new society “for the civilisation of the Indians.” Jefferson is also asked to comment on proposed improvements to stoves, lighthouses, telescopes, and navigable balloons. Citing his advanced age and stiffened wrist, he avoids detailed replies and allows his complaint to John Adams about the volume of incoming correspondence to be leaked to the press in hopes that strangers will stop deluging them both with letters. Jefferson approves of the growth of Unitarianism and predicts that “there is not a young man now living in the US. who will not die an Unitarian.”