Paleface and Redskin in American Historiography: A Comment

Abstract

appeal and in access to sources and publishing outlets easily provoked invidious comparisons. History departments have become far more complex and multidimensional in subsequent decades, but Americanists and Europeanists remain the major blocs in most departments. Their members inhabit distinct and sometimes rival spheres. The most recent survey of the output of the American historical profession, The Past Before Us, inadvertently makes the separation abundantly clear. More than half of the essays in this collection deal with hot topics or methods; the balance encompass whole periods or continents. The authors of the topical chapters were obviously encouraged to range beyond the limits of any single country. A few-only a few-did so. The topical chapters that were not confined to United States history showed a vigorous circulation of ideas: the American historians of European history responded to European intellectual leadership, whereas the historians of American history drew on the American social sciences and to a lesser extent on the work of historians in