Contents: I. History and its philosophic-scientific setting: Philosophy, history, and man; History and science: pre-Ranke era; History and science: Ranke and the post-Ranke era; The history-as-science concept in America -- II. Some historical interpretations in review: Chaos, providence, and religion; Great men in history; Economic and physical-environmental influences in history; History as literature; The universal approach in history -- III. Historicism, relativism, and other concepts: Historicism; Relativism; Presentism; Causality; The unknowable in history; History as thought and as an act of faith -- IV. Historianship, citizenship, and moral responsibility: The historian as citizen in war and peace; The historian and moral responsibility; A historian's historian: J. Franklin Jameson -- V. The growing complexity of historianship: History's losses to other disciplines; History and the behavioral sciences; American historianship comes full cycle -- VI. The preparation and practice of the historian: Launching a historical career; History as a "profession"; The historian as a teacher; The historian as a productive writer; The historian as a reviewer -- VII. The American character and American history: The cult of the practical; The cult of bigness; The cult of individualism; The cult of democratic accommodation; The cult of progress; The cult of invincibility; America in the pattern of Western culture; Interpreting American history -- Notes -- Index. Binding is Hardcover