After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection, Vol. 1

After the Fact (first edition) has guided students through American history and the methods used to study it. In dramatic episodes that move chronologically through American history, this best-selling book examines a broad variety of topics including oral evidence, photographs, ecological data, films and television programs, church and town records, census data, and novels. Whether for an introductory survey or for a historical methods course, After the Fact is the ideal text to introduce readers, step by step, to the detective work and analytical approaches historians use when they are actually doing history.

James West Davidson received his B.A. from Haverford College and his Ph.D. from Yale University. A historian and full-time writer, he is author of The Logic of Millennial Thought: Eighteenth Century New England, Great Heart: the History of a Labrador Adventure (with John Rugge), and other books. Mark H.Lytle received his PhD from Yale University and is Professor of History and Environmental Studies as well as Chair of the American Studies Program at Bard College. He is also Director of the Master of Arts in Teaching Program at Bard. His publications include The Origins of the Iranian-American Alliance, 1941-1953, After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection (with James West Davidson) and, most recently, "An Environmental Approach to American Diplomatic History" in Diplomatic History. He is at work on The Uncivil War: America in the Vietnam Era.