Detachment and the Writing of History

First published in 1958, Detachment and the Writing of History collects essays and letters by Carl L. Becker in which the noted historian outlines his views on the study of history, the craft of the historian, the art of teaching, and the historical evolution of the idea of democracy. Together, these invaluable writings demonstrate Becker's conviction of the moral seriousness of the historian's calling and of the importance of history as a factor, at once intellectual and artistically imaginative, in the life of society.

Carl L. Becker (1873–1945) taught at Cornell University, where he was John Wendell Anderson Professor of History and University Historian, from 1917 to 1941. His many books include The Declaration of Independence (1922) and The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers (1932).