# Perry Miller

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American historian (1905–1963)

For the ice hockey player, see [Perry Miller (ice hockey)](/source/Perry_Miller_(ice_hockey)). For the American musician born Perry Miller, see [Jesse Colin Young](/source/Jesse_Colin_Young).

**Perry Gilbert Eddy Miller** (February 25, 1905 – December 9, 1963) was an American [intellectual historian](/source/Intellectual_historian) and a co-founder of the field of [American Studies](/source/American_Studies).[1] Miller specialized in the history of early America and took an active role in a revisionist view of the colonial [Puritan](/source/Puritans) theocracy that was cultivated at [Harvard University](/source/Harvard_University) beginning in the 1920s. Heavy drinking led to his premature death at the age of 58.[2]

## Early life

This section needs expansion with: more details about early life. You can help by adding missing information. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. (January 2024)

Miller was born in [Chicago](/source/Chicago) in 1905 to Eben Perry Sturges Miller, a physician from [Mansfield, Ohio](/source/Mansfield%2C_Ohio), and Sarah Gertrude Miller (née Eddy) from [Bellows Falls, Vermont](/source/Bellows_Falls%2C_Vermont).[3] His father appeared in the deacon's candidacy lists for [Seabury-Western Theological Seminary](/source/Seabury-Western_Theological_Seminary) in 1895 and 1898,[4] but he also received a "notice of discipline" for "abandonment or forfeiture of the Holy Orders" and "deposition" from the 1898 ministry.[5] The late 19th-century [Episcopal Church of Illinois](/source/Episcopal_Church_(United_States)) commonly issued notices of discipline for cases of "moral delinquency," "doctrinal errors," and "sickness and infirmity." Perry Miller was born seven years later.[6]

Perry Miller left home three months before his eighteenth birthday. Inspired by hearing about the adventures of [World War I](/source/World_War_I) veterans in Europe, between 1922 and 1926, Miller traveled widely, by his own account working in California lettuce fields, acting on Broadway [Greenwich Village], writing for magazines, and working aboard a freighter ship along the [Congo River](/source/Congo_River).[7]

In a 1956 preface to the *[Errand into the Wilderness](/source/Errand_into_the_Wilderness)* collection, Perry Miller disclosed that, along the shores of the Congo River, he had decided to pursue the [intellectual history](/source/Intellectual_history) of Puritanism. "At Matadi on the banks of the Congo", Miller recounted, "seeking 'adventure' " that he believed [World War I](/source/World_War_I) veterans had experienced (noting a lack of prescience that "I too should have my own War"), he came to "realize a determination." Miller acknowledged that "the adventures that Africa afforded were tawdry enough, but it became the setting for a sudden epiphany (if the word be not too strong) of the pressing necessity for expounding my America to the twentieth century." Miller compared his situation to that of [Edward Gibbon](/source/Edward_Gibbon), who sat "disconsolate amid the ruins of the Capitol at Rome" when a similar epiphany thrust upon Gibbon the " 'laborious work' of *The Decline and Fall*." Thus "it was given to me, equally disconsolate on the edge of a jungle of central Africa, to have thrust upon me the mission of expounding what I took to be the innermost propulsion of the United States, while supervising, in that barbaric tropic, the unloading of drums of case oil flowing out of the inexhaustible wilderness of America." The epiphany "demanded" that he study "the beginning of a beginning. Once I was back in the security of a graduate school, it seemed obvious that I had to commence with the Puritan migration."[8]

### Education

Perry Miller received his baccalaureate in 1928 and his Ph.D. in 1931, both from the [University of Chicago](/source/University_of_Chicago), where he was a member of the [Lambda Chi Alpha](/source/Lambda_Chi_Alpha) fraternity.[9]

## Career

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding missing information. (January 2024)

Miller began teaching at [Harvard University](/source/Harvard_University) in 1931. In 1942, Miller resigned his post at Harvard to join the [United States Army](/source/United_States_Army) and was stationed in [Great Britain](/source/Great_Britain) for the duration of [World War II](/source/World_War_II), where he worked for the [Office of Strategic Services](/source/Office_of_Strategic_Services). Miller may have been instrumental in creating the [Office of Strategic Services](/source/Office_of_Strategic_Services) and certainly he worked for the [Psychological Warfare Division](/source/Psychological_Warfare_Division) for the duration of the war.[10] He was elected to the [American Academy of Arts and Sciences](/source/American_Academy_of_Arts_and_Sciences) in 1943.[11]

After 1945, Miller returned to teaching at Harvard. He also offered courses at the [Harvard Extension School](/source/Harvard_Extension_School).[12]

Miller wrote book reviews and articles in *[The Nation](/source/The_Nation)* and [*The American Scholar*](/source/The_American_Scholar_(magazine)). In his biography of [Jonathan Edwards](/source/Jonathan_Edwards_(theologian)), published in 1949, Miller argued that Edwards was actually an artist working in the only medium available to him in the 18th century American frontier, namely that of religion and theology. His posthumously published *The Life of the Mind in America,* for which he received a [Pulitzer Prize](/source/Pulitzer_Prize), was the first installment of a projected 10-volume series.[13] Miller spent a year at the [Institute for Advanced Study](/source/Institute_for_Advanced_Study) in [Princeton, New Jersey](/source/Princeton%2C_New_Jersey) on a [Guggenheim Fellowship](/source/Guggenheim_Fellowship) and also taught in Japan for a year. He was elected to the [American Philosophical Society](/source/American_Philosophical_Society) in 1956.[14]

In 1987, [Edmund S. Morgan](/source/Edmund_Morgan_(historian)) claimed that Miller, his undergraduate tutor and graduate dissertation advisor, was an [atheist](/source/Atheism), like himself.[15]

### Influence

Miller's attempts to analyze religious attitudes and ideas in [Colonial America](/source/Colonial_history_of_the_United_States) and later set a new standard for intellectual historiography.[16] Historians report that Miller's work has influenced the work of later historians on topics ranging from Puritan studies to discussions of narrative theory. In his most famous book, *The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century* (1939), Miller adopted a cultural approach to illuminate the worldview of the [Puritans](/source/Puritans), unlike previous historians who employed psychological and economic explanations of their beliefs and behavior.[17] [18]

## Death

A maid found Perry Miller alone and not breathing at Harvard University, on December 10, 1963. The coroner's report indicated that Miller had been dead for at least twenty-four hours prior to the maid's grim discovery. Miller, according to Abram Van Engen,[19] was a "committed liberal" in recovery for [alcoholism](/source/Alcoholism). His physician had limited the libations to two drinks per day. After the [assassination of John F. Kennedy](/source/Assassination_of_John_F._Kennedy), Miller " 'got drunk and stayed that way' ", perishing from acute hemorrhagic [pancreatitis](/source/Pancreatitis) in his room at [Leverett House](/source/Leverett_House) or, as Van Engen puts it, "...kicked out of his house by his wife, he lived alone in a Harvard dorm room and eventually drank himself to death." Rumors circulated, and continue to persist, that "Miller died in his dorm room surrounded by empty bottles of liquor. Multiple students described it as a suicide."[20] In contrast, *[The New York Times](/source/The_New_York_Times)*, within hours of police confirmation that the body was indeed the corpse of Perry Miller, reported that he "had died apparently from a stroke."[21] Especially within the Harvard community, "his death was mourned as a loss to the intellectual landscape in the U.S."[22]

## Congo controversy

### 1974–1979

The Congo River "epiphany" from Perry Miller's early life produced much posthumous scrutiny by scholars and media outlets. In 1974, Elizabeth Miller, Perry Miller's widow, informed Stanford Searl Jr., a Quaker disciple of her late husband's writings, that, " 'as for the Congo episode...yes, there is a kind of truth in Perry’s romantic reference in *Errand*. But Perry, who was a writer, was in part creating, after the fact, an effective anecdote as well as an explanation of why his own errand had been undertaken.' "[23][24] Five years later, in his introduction to a collection of Perry Miller's essays, Searl publicly responded to Elizabeth Miller, pointing out that "what is of significance is not how it came about---whether it was indeed *vouchsafed* or not." In fact, according to Searl, [Walter J. Ong](/source/Walter_J._Ong) had confirmed that Perry Miller frequently claimed such epiphanies because " 'it was the kind of thing he liked to remember.' " Searl then ascribed significance not to the veracity of the narrative itself, but to Perry Miller's intention of binding "the roles of actor and adventurer to the world of ideas."[25]

### 1979–present

Historians have since critiqued Perry Miller's account of the Congo episode. The autobiographical passage, whether substantiated or not, revealed twentieth-century "U.S. investments in empire";[26] checked "off every box in the colonial rulebook";[27] foregrounded "the ways in which imperialism has been simultaneously formative and disavowed in the foundational discourse of American studies";[28] and, intentionally or unintentionally, depicted "an empire in the ascendant; moreover, an empire which would govern the conditions in which he worked and which might well expect a particular self-image to be upheld by its chroniclers...this has led some to reinforce the erroneous belief that Miller was a 'safe' historian, persuaded of the righteousness of America and the justice of its actions."[29]

American Studies specialist Paul Lauter has written and lectured on formulating pedagogical approaches to Perry Miller's "epiphany" in the Congo. According to Lauter, his students "...were suspicious of [Amy] [Kaplan](/source/Amy_Kaplan)'s revelations of the implications of Miller's starting point for American Studies...'Isn't she really saying he's a racist?' one student memorably protested. I tried to deflect attention from Miller's psychology and toward the implications of the narrative for the early shape of American Studies...the discussion led us to apply Jameson's rubric---'always historicize'...examining Miller in this way enabled us to understand how what we designated as 'American Studies' was not fixed by history into a particular profile but like other phenomenon was historically rooted in the starting points particular scholars in particular circumstances at particular times might recognize as different."[30]

## Legacy

At Harvard, he directed numerous [Ph.D.](/source/Ph.D.) dissertations. His most notable student was fellow Pulitzer winner [Edmund Morgan](/source/Edmund_Morgan_(historian)), although [Bernard Bailyn](/source/Bernard_Bailyn) cited him as an influence, albeit a fractious one.[31]

[Margaret Atwood](/source/Margaret_Atwood) dedicated *[The Handmaid's Tale](/source/The_Handmaid's_Tale)* to Perry Miller. Atwood had studied with Miller while attending Radcliffe before women were admitted to Harvard.[32][33]

## Books

- 1933. *Orthodoxy in Massachusetts, 1630-1650*[34]

- 1939. *The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century*[35]

- 1949. *Jonathan Edwards*[36]

- 1950. *The Transcendentalists: An Anthology*[37]

- 1953. *The New England Mind: From Colony to Province*[38]

- 1953. *Roger Williams: His Contribution to the American Tradition*[39]

- 1954. *Religion and Freedom of Thought*

- 1954. *American Thought: Civil War to World War I*[40]

- 1956. *[Errand into the Wilderness](/source/Errand_into_the_Wilderness)*[41]

- 1956. *The American Puritans* (editor) [42]

- 1957. *The American Transcendentalists: Their Prose and Poetry*[43]

- 1957. *The Raven and the Whale: Poe, Melville and the New York Literary Scene*[44]

- 1958. *Consciousness in Concord: The Text of Thoreau's Hitherto "Lost Journal"*

- 1961. *The Legal Mind in America: From Independence to the Civil War*

- 1965. *Life of the Mind in America: From the Revolution to the Civil War* [45]

- 1967. *Nature's Nation*[46]

## Notes

1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** [Murray G. Murphey](/source/Murray_G._Murphey), "Perry Miller and American Studies," *[American Studies](/source/American_Studies_(journal))* Summer 2001, Vol. 42 Issue 2, pp 5–18

1. **[^](#cite_ref-2)** David Levin, *Exemplary Elders* (Athens GA, 1990) p. 36

1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** Marquis, Albert Nelson (1926). *Who's Who in Chicago: Volume 404*. Chicago, IL: A.N. Marquis & Company. p. 606.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-4)** *Journal of the Proceedings of the Protestant Episcopal Church Diocese of Western Michigan Twenty-First Annual Convention*. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Stanton Printing Company. 1898. p. 97.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-5)** *Journal of Proceedings of the Twenty-Six Annual Convention of the Diocese of Western Michigan*. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Powers-Tyson Printing Company. 1900. p. 80.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-6)** *Journal of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Illinois*. Chicago, IL: Printed for the Convention. 1861. p. 52.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-7)** ["Happy Puritan | News | The Harvard Crimson"](https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1955/3/4/happy-puritan-pfrom-the-lettuce-fields/). *www.thecrimson.com*. Retrieved August 2, 2023.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-8)** Miller, Perry (1996). *Errand into the Wilderness* (11. print ed.). Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. pp. vii–viii. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [9780674261556](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9780674261556).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-9)** ["Perry Miller"](https://www.gf.org/fellows/perry-miller/). *John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation..*.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-10)** Middlekauff, "Perry Miller," pp 168–9

1. **[^](#cite_ref-11)** ["Perry Gilbert Eddy Miller"](https://www.amacad.org/person/perry-gilbert-eddy-miller). *American Academy of Arts & Sciences*. Retrieved January 12, 2023.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-gates_12-0)** Shinagel, Michael (2010), *The Gates Unbarred: A History of University Extension at Harvard, 1910–2009*, Harvard University Press, p. 52, [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0674051355](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0674051355)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-13)** Kelly Boyd, *Encyclopedia of historians and historical writing: Volume 2* (1999) p. 818

1. **[^](#cite_ref-14)** ["APS Member History"](https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Perry+Miller&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced). *search.amphilsoc.org*. Retrieved January 12, 2023.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-15)** Courtwright, David T. (1987). ["Fifty Years of American History: An Interview with Edmund S. Morgan"](https://www.jstor.org/stable/1939669). *The William and Mary Quarterly*. **44** (2): 336–369. [doi](/source/Doi_(identifier)):[10.2307/1939669](https://doi.org/10.2307%2F1939669). [ISSN](/source/ISSN_(identifier)) [0043-5597](https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0043-5597). [JSTOR](/source/JSTOR_(identifier)) [1939669](https://www.jstor.org/stable/1939669).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-16)** Stanford J. Searl Jr., "Perry Miller As Artist: Piety and Imagination in the New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century," *Early American Literature,* Dec 1977, Vol. 12 Issue 3, pp 221-33

1. **[^](#cite_ref-17)** [Robert Middlekauff](/source/Robert_Middlekauff), "Perry Miller," in [Marcus Cunliffe](/source/Marcus_Cunliffe) and [Robin W. Winks](/source/Robin_W._Winks), eds., *Pastmasters* pp 167-90

1. **[^](#cite_ref-18)** [Jordan Alexander Stein](/source/Jordan_Alexander_Stein) and Justine S. Murison, "Introduction: Religion and Method," *Early American Literature* 45.1 (2010): 1-29, [https://doi.org/10.1353/eal.0.0087](https://doi.org/10.1353/eal.0.0087), citation at 5–7

1. **[^](#cite_ref-19)** ["Bio"](https://www.abramvanengen.com/about-1). *Abram Van Engen*.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-20)** Van Engen, Abram C. (2020). *City on a hill: a history of American exceptionalism*. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 251–253. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [9780300252316](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9780300252316).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-21)** ["TimesMachine: Tuesday December 10, 1963 - NYTimes.com"](https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1963/12/10/issue.html). *The New York Times*.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-22)** Alan Heimert, "Perry Miller: An Appreciation," *Harvard Review,* II, no. 2 (Winter-Spring 1964), 30–48

1. **[^](#cite_ref-23)** Graziano, Michael (2021). *Errand into the Wilderness of Mirrors: Religion and the History of the CIA*. University of Chicago Press. p. 9. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-226-76754-3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-226-76754-3).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-24)** Maizlish, Rivka (November 14, 2013). ["Rethinking the Origin of American Studies (with help from Perry Miller) | Society for US Intellectual History"](https://s-usih.org/2013/11/rethinking-the-origin-of-american-studies-with-help-from-perry-miller/).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-25)** Searl, Jr., Stanford J. (1979). *The Responsibility of Mind in a Civilization of Machines: Essays by Perry Miller*. University of Massachusetts Press. p. 2. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-87023-281-7](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-87023-281-7).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-26)** Vleck, Jenifer Van (November 1, 2013). [*Empire of the Air: Aviation and the American Ascendancy*](https://books.google.com/books?id=yV10AQAAQBAJ). Harvard University Press. p. 134. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-674-72732-8](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-674-72732-8).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-27)** Goyal, Yogita (February 15, 2017). *The Cambridge Companion to Transnational American Literature*. Cambridge University Press. p. 53. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-1-107-08520-6](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1-107-08520-6).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-28)** Kaplan, Amy; Pease, Donald E. (1993). *Cultures of United States Imperialism*. Duke University Press. pp. 5–12. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-8223-1413-4](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-8223-1413-4).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-29)** Guyatt, Nicholas (2002). ""An Instrument of National Policy": Perry Miller and the Cold War". *Journal of American Studies*. **36** (1): 107–149. [doi](/source/Doi_(identifier)):[10.1017/S002187580100665X](https://doi.org/10.1017%2FS002187580100665X). [ISSN](/source/ISSN_(identifier)) [0021-8758](https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0021-8758). [S2CID](/source/S2CID_(identifier)) [145703312](https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:145703312).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-30)** Duclos-Orsello, Elizabeth A.; Entin, Joseph B.; Hill, Rebecca (August 17, 2021). *Teaching American Studies: The State of the Classroom as State of the Field*. University Press of Kansas. pp. 35–36. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-7006-3237-4](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-7006-3237-4).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-31)** Perry Miller, *Errand into the wilderness* (1956) Page ix

1. **[^](#cite_ref-32)** PEARY, GERALD (March 4, 1990). ["'The Handmaid's Tale' : If Puritans Ruled . . . Atwood's Story on Screen"](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-03-04-ca-2834-story.html). *Los Angeles Times*. [ISSN](/source/ISSN_(identifier)) [0458-3035](https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0458-3035). Retrieved March 25, 2016.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-33)** ["Book Review"](https://www.nytimes.com/books/00/03/26/specials/mccarthy-atwood.html). *www.nytimes.com*. Retrieved March 25, 2016.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-34)** Perry Miller (January 1, 1933). [*Orthodoxy in massachusetts 1630 1950*](https://archive.org/details/orthodoxyinmassa009923mbp). Beacon Press.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-35)** ["The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century - 1954, Page iii by Perry Miller,a"](https://www.questia.com/read/58415096).{{[cite web](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Cite_web)}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service ([link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:CS1_maint:_deprecated_archival_service))

1. **[^](#cite_ref-36)** Miller, Perry (January 1, 2005). [*Jonathan Edwards*](https://books.google.com/books?id=OSYHkH9K170C). U of Nebraska Press. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [0803283075](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0803283075).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-37)** Miller, Perry (January 1, 1950). [*The Transcendentalists: An Anthology*](https://books.google.com/books?id=vhPUUOh5NgYC). Harvard University Press. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [9780674903333](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9780674903333). {{[cite book](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Cite_book)}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility ([help](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:CS1_errors#invalid_isbn_date))

1. **[^](#cite_ref-38)** Perry Miller (January 1, 1953). [*The New England Mind From Colony To Province*](https://archive.org/details/newenglandmindfr009904mbp). Beacon Press.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-39)** Miller, Perry (January 1, 1970). [*Roger Williams: his contribution to the American tradition*](https://books.google.com/books?id=NuF4AAAAMAAJ). Atheneum.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-40)** Miller, Perry (January 1, 1954). [*American thought: Civil War to World War I*](https://books.google.com/books?id=HJ0OAQAAMAAJ). Rinehart. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [9780030091759](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9780030091759). {{[cite book](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Cite_book)}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility ([help](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:CS1_errors#invalid_isbn_date))

1. **[^](#cite_ref-41)** ["Errand into the Wilderness — Perry Miller - Harvard University Press"](http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674261556). *www.hup.harvard.edu*. Retrieved March 25, 2016.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-42)** ["The American Puritans: Their Prose and Poetry - 1956, Page iii"](https://web.archive.org/web/20080229075337/http://www.questia.com/read/1330113). Archived from [the original](https://www.questia.com/read/1330113) on February 29, 2008. Retrieved September 8, 2017.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-43)** Miller, Perry (January 1, 1957). [*The American transcendentalists, their prose and poetry*](https://archive.org/details/americantranscen00mill). Doubleday.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-44)** ["Perry Miller: The Raven and the Whale"](https://prezi.com/9p4zr8xrqpyq/perry-miller-the-raven-and-the-whale/). *prezi.com*. Retrieved March 25, 2016.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-45)** Miller, Perry (January 1, 1965). [*The life of the mind in America: from the Revolution to the Civil War : books one through three*](http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=acls;cc=acls;view=toc;idno=heb00005.0001.001).

1. **[^](#cite_ref-46)** Miller, Perry (January 1, 1967). [*Nature's nation*](https://books.google.com/books?id=JUh1AAAAMAAJ). Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [9780674605503](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9780674605503).

## References

- Butts, Francis T. "The Myth of Perry Miller," *American Historical Review,* June 1982, Vol. 87 Issue 3, pp 665–94; Seeks to rehabilitate Miller's interpretation of Puritanism

- Fuller, Randall. "Errand into the Wilderness: Perry Miller as American Scholar," *American Literary History,* Spring 2006, Vol. 18 Issue 1, pp 102–128

- Guyatt, Nicholas. "'An Instrument of National Policy': Perry Miller and the Cold War," *Journal of American Studies,* April 2002, Vol. 36 Issue 1, pp 107–49

- Hollinger, David A. "Perry Miller and Philosophical History," *History and Theory,* Vol. 7, issue 2, 1968, 189–202

- Heimert, Alan. "Perry Miller: An Appreciation," *Harvard Review,* II, no. 2 (Winter-Spring 1964), 30–48

- [Middlekauff, Robert](/source/Robert_Middlekauff). "Perry Miller," in Marcus Cunliffe and Robin W. Winks, eds., *Pastmasters* (1969) pp 167–90

- Reinitz, Richard. "Perry Miller and Recent American Historiography," *Bulletin of the British Association of American Studies,* 8 (June 1964), 27–35

- Searl Jr., Stanford J. "Perry Miller As Artist: Piety and Imagination in the New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century," Early American Literature, Dec 1977, Vol. 12 Issue 3, pp 221–33

- Tucker, Bruce. "Early American Intellectual History after Perry Miller," *Canadian Review of American Studies,* 1982, Vol. 13 Issue 2, pp 145–157

v t e Pulitzer Prize for History 1917–1919 With Americans of Past and Present Days by Jean Jules Jusserand (1917) A History of the Civil War, 1861–1865 by James Ford Rhodes (1918) 1920–1939 The War with Mexico by Justin H. Smith (1920) The Victory at Sea by William Sims and Burton J. Hendrick (1921) The Founding of New England by James Truslow Adams (1922) The Supreme Court in United States History by Charles Warren (1923) The American Revolution by Charles Howard McIlwain (1924) History of the American Frontier by Frederic L. Paxson (1925) A History of the United States by Edward Channing (1926) Pinckney's Treaty by Samuel Flagg Bemis (1927) Main Currents in American Thought by Vernon Louis Parrington (1928) The Organization and Administration of the Union Army, 1861–1865 by Fred Albert Shannon (1929) The War of Independence by Claude H. Van Tyne (1930) The Coming of the War, 1914 by Bernadotte E. Schmitt (1931) My Experiences in the World War by John J. Pershing (1932) The Significance of Sections in American History by Frederick J. Turner (1933) The People's Choice by Herbert Agar (1934) The Colonial Period of American History by Charles McLean Andrews (1935) A Constitutional History of the United States by Andrew C. McLaughlin (1936) The Flowering of New England, 1815–1865 by Van Wyck Brooks (1937) The Road to Reunion, 1865–1900 by Paul Herman Buck (1938) A History of American Magazines by Frank Luther Mott (1939) 1940–1959 Abraham Lincoln: The War Years by Carl Sandburg (1940) The Atlantic Migration, 1607–1860 by Marcus Lee Hansen (1941) Reveille in Washington, 1860–1865 by Margaret Leech (1942) Paul Revere and the World He Lived In by Esther Forbes (1943) The Growth of American Thought by Merle Curti (1944) Unfinished Business by Stephen Bonsal (1945) The Age of Jackson by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. (1946) Scientists Against Time by James Phinney Baxter III (1947) Across the Wide Missouri by Bernard DeVoto (1948) The Disruption of American Democracy by Roy Franklin Nichols (1949) Art and Life in America by Oliver W. Larkin (1950) The Old Northwest by R. Carlyle Buley (1951) The Uprooted by Oscar Handlin (1952) The Era of Good Feelings by George Dangerfield (1953) A Stillness at Appomattox by Bruce Catton (1954) Great River by Paul Horgan (1955) The Age of Reform by Richard Hofstadter (1956) Russia Leaves the War by George F. Kennan (1957) Banks and Politics in America by Bray Hammond (1958) The Republican Era, 1869–1901 by Leonard D. White and Jean Schneider (1959) 1960–1979 In the Days of McKinley by Margaret Leech (1960) Between War and Peace by Herbert Feis (1961) The Triumphant Empire by Lawrence H. Gipson (1962) Washington: Village and Capital, 1800–1878 by Constance McLaughlin Green (1963) Puritan Village by Sumner Chilton Powell (1964) The Greenback Era by Irwin Unger (1965) The Life of the Mind in America by Perry Miller (1966) Exploration and Empire by William H. Goetzmann (1967) The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution by Bernard Bailyn (1968) Origins of the Fifth Amendment by Leonard Levy (1969) Present at the Creation by Dean Acheson (1970) Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom by James MacGregor Burns (1971) Neither Black nor White by Carl N. Degler (1972) People of Paradox by Michael Kammen (1973) The Americans by Daniel J. Boorstin (1974) Jefferson and His Time by Dumas Malone (1975) Lamy of Santa Fe by Paul Horgan (1976) The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861 by David M. Potter (completed and edited by Don E. Fehrenbacher; 1977) The Visible Hand by Alfred D. Chandler Jr. (1978) The Dred Scott Case by Don E. Fehrenbacher (1979) 1980–1999 Been in the Storm So Long by Leon Litwack (1980) American Education by Lawrence A. Cremin (1981) Mary Chesnut's Civil War by C. Vann Woodward (1982) The Transformation of Virginia, 1740–1790 by Rhys Isaac (1983) Prophets of Regulation by Thomas K. McCraw (1985) ...The Heavens and the Earth by Walter A. McDougall (1986) Voyagers to the West by Bernard Bailyn (1987) The Launching of Modern American Science, 1846–1876 by Robert V. Bruce (1988) Battle Cry of Freedom by James M. McPherson (1989) Parting the Waters by Taylor Branch (1989) In Our Image by Stanley Karnow (1990) A Midwife's Tale by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (1991) The Fate of Liberty by Mark E. Neely Jr. (1992) The Radicalism of the American Revolution by Gordon S. Wood (1993) No Ordinary Time by Doris Kearns Goodwin (1995) William Cooper's Town by Alan Taylor (1996) Original Meanings by Jack N. Rakove (1997) Summer for the Gods by Edward J. Larson (1998) Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 by Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace (1999) 2000–2021 Freedom from Fear by David M. Kennedy (2000) Founding Brothers by Joseph Ellis (2001) The Metaphysical Club by Louis Menand (2002) An Army at Dawn by Rick Atkinson (2003) A Nation Under Our Feet by Steven Hahn (2004) Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer (2005) Polio: An American Story by David Oshinsky (2006) The Race Beat by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff (2007) What Hath God Wrought by Daniel Walker Howe (2008) The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed (2009) Lords of Finance by Liaquat Ahamed (2010) The Fiery Trial by Eric Foner (2011) Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable (2012) Embers of War by Fredrik Logevall (2013) The Internal Enemy by Alan Taylor (2014) Encounters at the Heart of the World by Elizabeth A. Fenn (2015) Custer's Trials by T. J. Stiles (2016) Blood in the Water by Heather Ann Thompson (2017) The Gulf by Jack E. Davis (2018) Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight (2019) Sweet Taste of Liberty by W. Caleb McDaniel (2020) Franchise by Marcia Chatelain (2021) Covered with Night by Nicole Eustace / Cuba: An American History by Ada Ferrer (2022) Freedom's Dominion by Jefferson Cowie (2023) No Right to an Honest Living by Jacqueline Jones (2024) Native Nations by Kathleen DuVal / Combee by Edda L. Fields-Black (2025) These Truths by Jill Lepore (2026)

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Perry Miller](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Miller) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Miller?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.