Adventures in Reputation

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With keen insight and an all-embracing knowledge of historical backgrounds, Professor Wilbur Cortez Abbott has probed into the repute and into the disrepute of several historical characters and has placed them in their true light. Macaulay, Chesterfield, Queen Victoria, David Hume, and Cromwell come under his scrutiny. He adds to the series an essay on James Bloxham, a farmer who had much business with George Washington; a sketch of Lecompton, the little town in Kansas that played an important part in history just before the Civil War; and finally an article on “Some ‘New’ History and Historians,” which has many wise things to say about the writing of history. The tang and zest of Professor Abbott’s literary style carry his readers along irresistibly.