author
George Bancroft
1800–1891
A leading 19th-century historian and public figure, he devoted his life to telling the story of the United States on an epic scale. His writing helped shape how generations of readers understood the nation's origins and early growth.
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About the author
Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, George Bancroft became one of the best-known American historians of the 1800s. After studying at Harvard, he continued his education in Germany, where he earned a doctorate at the University of Göttingen while still very young.
He is best remembered for his sweeping multivolume History of the United States, a work so ambitious and influential that he was often called the father of American history. Alongside his literary career, he was deeply involved in public life and held important political and diplomatic posts.
Bancroft served as U.S. Secretary of the Navy during the presidency of James K. Polk, and he later represented the United States abroad, including in Britain and in Germany. His life joined scholarship, politics, and diplomacy in a way that was unusual even for his time, and his books remained widely read long after his death in 1891.