Daniel J. Boorstin

Daniel Joseph Boorstin (1914 – 2004) was an American historian at the University of Chicago who wrote on many topics in American and world history. He was appointed the twelfth Librarian of the United States Congress in 1975 and served until 1987. Boorstin was instrumental in the creation of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress.

Repudiating his youthful membership in the Communist Party while a Harvard undergraduate (1938–39), Boorstin became a political conservative and a prominent exponent of consensus history. He argued in The Genius of American Politics (1953) that ideology, propaganda, and political theory are foreign to America. His writings were often linked with the "consensus school", which emphasized the unity of the American people and downplayed class and social conflict.

Some of his most acclaimed works are The Americans: The Colonial Experience (1958), The Americans: The National Experience (1965), The Americans: The Democratic Experience (1973), The Discoverers: A History of Man's Search to Know His World and Himself (1983), The Creators: A History of Heroes of the Imagination (1992), The Seekers: The Story of Man's Continuing Quest to Understand His World (1998).

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