Volume 40, Number 15 · September 23, 1993
Pioneer
By George M. Fredrickson
Race and History: Selected Essays, 1938–1988
by John Hope Franklin
Louisiana State University Press, 450 pp., $29.95
The Color Line: Legacy for the Twenty-First Century
by John Hope Franklin
University of Missouri Press, 87 pp., $14.95
The Facts of Reconstruction: Essays in Honor of John Hope Franklin
edited by Eric Anderson, edited by Alfred A. Moss Jr.
Louisiana State University Press, 239 pp., $14.95 (paper)
John Hope Franklin, now in his late seventies and a professor emeritus at Duke University, is one of the most respected historians of the United States. Indeed to judge by the numbers of honorary degrees, presidencies of professional associations, distinguished lectureships, and other forms of special recognition he has received, it would be easy to conclude that he is the most esteemed living American historian. Yet his very substantial body of work has not visibly influenced other scholars in his field as much as his eminence might have led one to expect (apart, that is, from his extremely devoted doctoral students at the University of Chicago, where he taught between 1964 and 1982). Although I have not made a systematic survey, it is my impression that only on relatively rare occasions have his numerous books and articles been discussed in the historiographic footnotes that scholars use to connect their own work with current trends of historical thought. There has been no 'Franklin thesis' at the center of debate in his fields of southern and African American history, and no conspicuous 'Franklin school' of disciples.
Review, 4465 words
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