author
Herbert Eugene Bolton
1870–1953
A pioneering historian of the American West, he helped reshape the way people understood the past by showing how the histories of the United States, Mexico, and Spanish America were deeply connected. His work opened up the study of the Spanish borderlands for generations of readers and scholars.
1 Audiobook
The Colonization of North America, 1492-1783
by Herbert Eugene Bolton, Thomas Maitland Marshall
About the author
Born in Wisconsin in 1870 and later based for much of his career at the University of California, Berkeley, Herbert Eugene Bolton became one of the most influential historians of the early American West and Spanish America. He taught at the University of Texas, Stanford, and Berkeley, and was closely associated with The Bancroft Library, where his research drew heavily on Spanish colonial records.
Bolton is best remembered for arguing that the history of the Americas should not be told as separate national stories. Instead, he emphasized the connections among Spanish, Mexican, and Anglo-American experiences, especially in the borderlands of North America. That broader view helped change the study of American history and made him a leading authority on Spanish colonial history in the Southwest.
He also wrote and edited a large body of work, including The Spanish Borderlands, Outpost of Empire, and Rim of Christendom, a biography of Eusebio Francisco Kino. Even when later historians debated parts of his interpretation, his influence remained strong because he pushed the field toward a wider, more inclusive picture of the American past.