Post-WWII American Historiography: From Progressive Legacy to the Consensus Shift

The Second World War intensified American historians' focus on foreign policy and military history. In diplomatic history, nationalist interpreters like Samuel Flagg Bemis and Thomas A. Bailey remained dominant. Military history flourished institutionally through projects like the "History of the United States Army" series and Samuel Eliot Morison’s monumental naval history. Concurrently, political historians strengthened ties between academia and the federal government, viewing historical work as a public service that legitimized the New Deal-Fair Deal state and supported Cold War objectives. During this period, Charles Beard’s economic interpretation retained major influence, despite fierce criticism of his later work on Franklin Roosevelt.

Historians largely continued to champion the Progressive-New Deal tradition of pragmatic reform. Key works like Eric Goldman’s Rendezvous with Destiny (1952) and Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.’s Pulitzer-winning study of Andrew Jackson reinforced this liberal reform narrative. While the post-war generation is often labeled "consensus historians," significant diversity and dissent persisted. Scholars like C. Vann Woodward on Southern history, Merrill Jensen on the Revolution, and Merle Curti in intellectual history maintained conflict-centered, Progressive interpretations. A definitive shift away from this view did not solidify until the mid-1950s.

The figure most emblematic of the new consensus history was Richard Hofstadter. Though initially indebted to Beard, Hofstadter’s work evolved from The American Political Tradition (1948) to The Age of Reform (1955), rejecting economic determinism for interpretations stressing status anxieties and adopting a more critical, elitist stance toward Progressive movements. Similarly, Louis Hartz’s The Liberal Tradition in America (1955) argued that a narrow liberal consensus dominated an ideologically impoverished political culture. These works redefined the central theme of American history from conflict to continuity.

A more conservative strand of consensus thought emerged with Daniel J. Boorstin, who celebrated American pragmatism and tradition in works like The Genius of American Politics (1953). This "counter-progressivism" was reinforced by monographic studies, such as those by Forrest McDonald and Robert E. Brown, which challenged Beardian class conflict theories of the Revolution. Simultaneously, the rise of business history, exemplified by Allan Nevins’s rehabilitative studies of industrialists like John D. Rockefeller, reassessed corporations as engines of modern progress. Nevins’s own shift from Progressive to moral interpretations of the Civil War underscored the broader conservative trend reshaping American historiography by the late 1950s.

TIMELINE/KEY DATES:
- 1945: WWII ends; Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. wins Pulitzer for The Age of Jackson.
- 1947-62: Samuel Eliot Morison publishes History of United States Naval Operations in World War II (15 vols.).
- 1948: Richard Hofstadter publishes The American Political Tradition.
- 1955: Hofstadter's The Age of Reform and Louis Hartz's The Liberal Tradition in America are published.
- 1950s: Rise of "consensus" and business history; critical reaction to Progressive historiography solidifies.