A.jernigan

The final historiographical essay requires that you write a 1250-1500 word research essay about a significant work of United States history written before our time. All essays must have a suitable title. Footnotes are required. All sources, as well as the bibliography, must conform to Turabian’s
A Manual for Writers, 9th ed. Please make your selection from the list which follows.

You have
three main tasks in this essay. You should:

1. Discuss the origins of the book. How does it reflect the historical, intellectual, and/or biographical context in which it was written? What works did it build on, complement, or seek to revise or refute?

2. Discuss the life of the book after publication. How was this work received by other scholars (and possibly the public) in its time, and how have opinions of the book changed in the years since then and now? What historians have responded to it, challenged it, or rejected it?

3. Offer your own judgments as to how the book is, or is not, useful to historical scholarship today. Was the book important? Why or why not?

Your job is
not to summarize the argument of the book. You will end up doing some summarizing in order to make your points, but this is not a standard book review, which usually summarizes a book and then offers a thumbs up/thumbs down evaluation. To quote Pierre Bayard, in this assignment, “the interior of the book is less important than its exterior.” Your essay is about the “location” of your book, or in other words, how it is situated in relation to other scholarship – in a word, context.

This means you will have to read the book selected as well as other scholarship. You should also read:

· Reviews of your book from as many places as possible

· Biographical information on its author if available

· Retrospectives on the book if you can find them

· Works that may have influenced, or been influenced by, the book you chose. Note that the short reviews in scholarly history journals like The American Historical Review do not offer very useful models for this assignment. 

Once again, this essay is
NOT a review of book reviews.

Your book choice must be selected from this list of known winners:

· Frederick Jackson TURNER, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” (1893)

· Charles BEARD,
An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (1913)

· Ulrich B. PHILLIPS,
American Negro Slavery (1918)

· W. E. B. Du BOIS,
Black Reconstruction in America (1935)

· Richard HOFSTADTER,
The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It (1948)

· Henry Nash SMITH,
Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth (1950)

· Oscar HANDLIN,
The Uprooted: The Epic Story of the Great Migrations That Made the American People (1951)

· Richard HOFSTADTER,
The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F.D.R. (1955)

· C. Vann WOODWARD,
The Strange Career of Jim Crow (1955)

· Perry MILLER,
Errand into the Wilderness (1956)

· Stanley ELKINS,
Slavery (1959)

· Eleanor FLEXNER,
Century of Struggle: The Woman’s Rights Movement in the United States (1959)

· William Appleman WILLIAMS, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (1959)

· Richard HOFSTADTER,
Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1964)

· Kenneth M. STAMPP,
The Era of Reconstruction, 1865-1877 (1965)

· Gerda LERNER,
The Grimké Sisters from South Carolina: Rebels against Authority (1967)

· John BLASSINGAME,
The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South (1972)

· Edmund MORGAN,
American Slavery, American Freedom (1976)

· Howard ZINN,
A People’s History of the United States (1980)

Important Notes:

· The essay you submit should be carefully scrutinized for errors. I tire quickly with essays that use “their” instead of “there” or “where” instead of “were.” Proofread, and then proofread some more!

· In general, all-purpose internet sources cannot be used for citation purposes. Exceptions are the scholarly websites and documents available through the APUS Online Library, or other academic websites. While indeed useful for a quick reference, Wikipedia is not considered a valid academic source. 

· The number of students using generative AI tools to compose posts and replies is escalating at an alarming rate. Just so you know, I can sort of tell when AI has been used and whether its usage is a sign of misuse or misconduct. I have NO problem if you are using AI intelligently and responsibly. BUT, if you do use AI you also need to:

· cite the tool used, and

· cite the text used in your prompt

· Please make sure you have carefully reviewed
University Guidelines Resources: AI in the Classroom [content page].