The Book Prize Index

That Noble Dream: The ‘Objectivity Question’ and the American Historical Profession

Peter Novick

The aspiration to relate the past 'as it really happened' has been the central goal of American professional historians since the late nineteenth century. In this remarkable history of the profession, Peter Novick shows how the idea and ideal of objectivity were elaborated, challenged, modified, and defended over the last century. Drawing on the unpublished correspondence as well as the published writings of hundreds of American historians from J. Franklin Jameson and Charles Beard to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and Eugene Genovese, That Noble Dream is a richly textured account of what American historians have thought they were doing, or ought to be doing, when they wrote history - how their principles influenced their practice and practical exigencies influenced their principles.

HistoryHistory · medium confidenceHistory81 signalsLlm Classifier: History -> HistoryGoogle Books: Political Science -> ScienceGoogle Books: Political Science -> Politics & GovernmentRegional & Local History

Award History

1 wins · 1 total

AwardYearResultCategory / Notes
American Historical Association Book Prizes: Beveridge Family Prize in American History1989WinnerOfficial source
View all award history (1)
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies

This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact.

  1. 01 Central figures

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

    These suggestions did not meet the normal display threshold and are more likely to be wrong.

    • Charles Beard45%
    • Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.40%

  2. 02 Central places

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

  3. 03 Suggested argument

    American professional historians’ central goal since the late nineteenth century has been to relate the past “as it really happened,” and this objectivity ideal was repeatedly elaborated, challenged, modified, and defended in their practice.

    Model confidence 78%

  4. 04 Reading orientation

    78 / 100 academic

    Academic

    An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.

Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 72%.