Editing George Bancroft (section)

===Historiographical reception and legacy===
Bancroft's orotund romantic style and enthusiastic patriotism fell out of favor with later generations of scientific historians, who did not assign his books to students.<ref>Vitzthum, "Theme and Method in Bancroft's "History of the United States," p 362</ref> After 1890, American scholars of the [[Historiography of the British Empire|Imperial School]] took a more favorable view of the [[British Empire]] than Bancroft.<ref>N. H. Dawes, and F. T. Nichols, "Revaluing George Bancroft," ''New England Quarterly,'' 6#2 (1933), pp. 278–293 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/359126 in JSTOR]</ref><ref>Michael Kraus, "George Bancroft 1834–1934," ''New England Quarterly'', 7#4 (1934), pp. 662–686 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/359191 in JSTOR]</ref>

[[Edmund Morgan (historian)|Edmund Morgan]] compares Bancroft's history to that of the Liberal statesman [[Sir George Trevelyan, 2nd Baronet|Sir George Trevelyan]] in that both reject the [[Progressive Era|Progressive]] view of the Revolution as a mere invocation of political philosophy as a means to keep and consolidate power. Morgan and other neo-Whig historians have embraced Bancroft's view that the patriots were motivated by a deep commitment to individual liberty.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The American Revolution:a review of changing interpretations.|last=Morgan|first=Edmund S.|series=Service Center for Teachers of History. Publication no. 6. Reprinted by Macmillan. Includes bibliography |date=1958|publisher=Washington|hdl = 2027/uc1.b4374046}}</ref>

Inspired by Bancroft, [[Bernard Bailyn]] and a cohort of mid-twentieth-century historians challenged the dichotomy between "national self-awareness" and the study of history.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Guyatt |first1=Nicholas |title="An Instrument of National Policy": Perry Miller and the Cold War |journal=Journal of American Studies |year=2002 |volume=36 |issue=1 |pages=107–149 |doi=10.1017/S002187580100665X |jstor=27557067 |s2cid=145703312 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27557067 |issn=0021-8758}}</ref> Although they had found "limitations" in Bancroft's works, mid-twentieth-century "instrumentalist" historians wished to reexamine the "image of colonial origins" of the [[American Revolution]]. By 1956, this subset of scholars had tentatively determined that, "toward the end of the seventeenth century there emerged an entire apparatus of local politics" that "came, gradually, to accommodate itself" within the imperial system and in various "forms...it is their collapse under the pressures of new circumstances after 1760 that alone made the Revolution
'irrepressible.' "<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bailyn |first1=Bernard |title=Becker, Andrews, and the Image of Colonial Origins |journal=The New England Quarterly |date=1956 |volume=29 |issue=4 |pages=522–534 |doi=10.2307/362146 |jstor=362146 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/362146 |issn=0028-4866}}</ref>