ABSTRACT
That the works of American historians were deeply influenced by the political climate in which they were written does not mean that they can simply be dismissed as polemics. American historians were scholars schooled in and committed to the highest standards of scholarship their age could offer. American historians worked from assumptions about the nature and purpose of historical inquiry that were similar to those of their European counterparts; the difference lay in their application of those principles. The writings of American historians were governed by polemical considerations, but for them the situation was somewhat different. Unlike European countries, the United States had no long traditions as a nation; it had appeared suddenly, composed of a mixture of ethnic stocks, a variety of religions, and diverse and sometimes warring economic and geographic interests. Nineteenth-century European nationalists would proclaim national independence by referring to their old and different civilization, common religion and descent, or roots in ancestral soil.
