Invitation to historians: History, the historian, and an autobiography

Abstract

Drawing on perspectives he developed in studying other historians' autobiographies, Jeremy Popkin explores the circumstances that led him to become a professional historian, and the consequences of being a fourth-generation autobiographer. His parents, academics themselves, encouraged his intellectual propensities, as did the atmosphere of the post-Sputnik era and the family's Jewish heritage. The political excitement of the 1960s played its part, as did inspirational teachers, although Popkin came to see his studies as a refuge from the dilemmas of political activism. His career has been less adventurous than those of his great-grandfather, grandmother, and father, all of whom also wrote about their own lives, but it has nevertheless had its satisfactions.