author
Carl L. (Carl Lotus) Becker
1873–1945
A leading American historian of the early 20th century, he wrote with wit and clarity about the American Revolution, the Enlightenment, and the way people make sense of the past. His work remains widely remembered for bringing big historical ideas down to a human scale.
2 Audiobooks
Beginnings of the American People
by Carl L. (Carl Lotus) Becker
The Eve of the Revolution; A Chronicle of the Breach with England
by Carl L. (Carl Lotus) Becker
About the author
Born in Iowa in 1873, Carl Lotus Becker became one of the best-known American historians of his generation. He studied at the University of Wisconsin, taught at the University of Kansas and Dartmouth, and later joined Cornell University, where he spent the central part of his career.
Becker was especially interested in the history of ideas. He wrote influential books on the Declaration of Independence, the American Revolution, and the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, and he became known for a thoughtful, readable style that reached well beyond specialist audiences. Among historians, he is also remembered for his famous essay Everyman His Own Historian, which reflects his belief that history is shaped by the questions people ask in the present.
Although deeply learned, Becker was often praised for being modest, approachable, and unusually elegant as a writer. He died in Ithaca, New York, in 1945, but his work still stands out for combining serious scholarship with a lively sense of how the past connects to ordinary life.