Popular history

Conceptualizations

Some see popular history as a moral science, one that reconstructs the past not just for its own sake but to show how history can guide an ethically responsible present. Others view it as history written by authors who act as skilled translators, turning academic language into everyday speech. The rise of popular history is partly linked to writers who became historians, like Benson Lossing, David Pae, and Mary Botham Howitt. They presented historical events in good style, making them more appealing to the public.

Popular historians

Some popular historians are without academic affiliation, while others are academics or former academics who have become somehow abstracted from the academic arena, becoming cultural commentators. Many worked as journalists, perhaps after taking an initial degree in history. Popular historians may become nationally renowned or best-selling authors and may or may not serve the interests of particular political viewpoints. Many authors of supposed official histories and authorized biographies would qualify as popular historians serving the interests of particular institutions or public figures. They aim to appear on the "general lists" of general publishers rather than university presses. Increasingly, popular historians have taken to television, often accompanying a series of documentaries with a tie-in book.

Examples

Popular history often blurs the line between academic credentials and public appeal. In the United States, historians like Daniel J. Boorstin, Stephen E. Ambrose, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Pauline Maier have held academic posts while reaching a broad audience. Across the Atlantic, British academics such as Niall Ferguson, Mary Beard, Christopher Hibbert, David Starkey, Dan Jones, Simon Sebag Montefiore, and Simon Schama have done the same, as did earlier figures like Eric Hobsbawm, Paul Johnson, E. P. Thompson, A. J. P. Taylor, and Christopher Hill. Tom Holland, a podcaster and popular history author without formal qualifications, still maintains an academic affiliation. Hugh Trevor-Roper also directed much of his work toward a general readership, and Stella Tillyard’s book Aristocrats mixed scholarly research with accessible storytelling.

Canadian academics whose work has entered public awareness include Michael Bliss, Donald Creighton, Desmond Morton, J. L. Granatstein, and Margaret MacMillan. In French Canada, Father Lionel Groulx had a dominant influence on twentieth-century historical thought. American non-academics in the field include Walter Lord, Bruce Catton, Shelby Foote, David McCullough, Max Cutler, Ron Cutler, Bill Bryson, and Barbara W. Tuchman. Podcasting has become a new platform for popular history, with Americans Dan Carlin and Robert Evans making notable contributions.

British popular historians who never held academic positions include John Julius Norwich, Charles Allen, William Dalrymple, and Tariq Ali. English-Canadian popular history writers come from varied backgrounds: journalists Pierre Berton and Peter C. Newman, humorist Will Ferguson, folklorist Thomas P. Kelley, and television presenter Patrick Watson. In nineteenth-century French Canada, François-Xavier Garneau was the leading historian outside academia. Polemicists in Canada’s national unity debate have also shaped historical writing, including militant Pierre Vallières, journalist Normand Lester, and novelist Mordecai Richler. Canada has also produced popular histories of specific ethnic communities, such as Ken McGoogan on Scots and Irish and Myrna Kostash on Ukrainians.