Commager, Henry Steele

Related Category: Historians, U.S.: Biographies

(kŏm´ĭjər), 1902–98, American historian, b. Pittsburgh, Pa. He received his Ph.D. from the Univ. of Chicago in 1928 and taught history at New York Univ. (1926–38), Columbia (1938–56), and Amherst (1956–94). He was an outspoken opponent of both McCarthyism (see McCarthy, Joseph R.) and the Vietnam War. His writings, often in collaboration with other historians, are extensive. Among them are The Growth of the American Republic (with Samuel E. Morison, 1930; 6th ed. 1969), The American Mind (1950), The American Character (1970), and Commager on Tocqueville (1993). Among the books he edited are Documents of American History (1934, 8th ed. 1968) and Readings in American History (with Allan Nevins, 1939).

See the biographical essays in Freedom and Reform, ed. by H. M. Hyman and L. W. Levy (1967).