If there is no history of America comparable in scope and style to Green’s “Short History of the English People,” there are several American historians of high rank. Perhaps because they were endowed with dramatic imagination, or were influenced by the literary rather than the scientific masterpieces of history, American historians of genius have applied their talents to romantic periods in the story of foreign nations, or to those early navigations and settlements which resulted in the founding of our nation. Washington Irving began in his “Life of Columbus” and “The Conquest of Granada” the brilliant stories of Spanish chivalry and adventure, which were continued by William Hickling Prescott in “The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella,” “The Conquest of Mexico” and “The Conquest of Peru.” The writings of Prescott and Irving have a kind of antique gorgeousness in which the modern historian does not allow himself to indulge. The history of the French and the Indians and the pioneers appealed to the genius of Francis Parkman. The beginner may settle down to any book of Parkman’s with the happy certainty of finding a brilliant and thrilling story. John Lothrop Motley, in “The Rise of the Dutch Republic” and “The United Netherlands,” treats of a people whose story the American reader may learn in youth or may postpone until after he has become acquainted with some books on English and American history. The colonial history of America is best read in the work of John Fiske, whose gifts of style and philosophic outlook on life place him among the great historians. The history of America from the beginning to modern times must be read in books by various authors, who deal with limited sections and periods. It is especially true of recent periods that no one historian is adequate. Partisanship and our closeness to the Civil War have prevented the American historian from seeing the conflict clearly in its relations to the rest of our national story, and for a just impression of the struggle between the states, the reader should go to the documents and the memoirs of the time. The reminiscences of the political leaders, the biography of Lincoln, and the excellent narratives of Union and Confederate generals--Grant, Alexander, Longstreet, Gordon, Sherman, Sheridan, and others--constitute a history of the period. There is peculiar validity in the reminiscences of the contemporary witnesses of historical events. The writer of autobiography and memoirs is not expected to give final judgments, and we unconsciously allow for his personal limitation. The professional historian, on the other hand, is obliged to make sweeping decisions, and we are likely too often to accept his decisions as final, unless we are trained and critical students of history. If one reads several memoirs of the same period, one gradually forms an historical judgment about it and comes to a position midway between the points of view of the various writers.