Editing Henry Steele Commager (section)

{{Short description|American historian (1902–1998)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=August 2020}}
{{Infobox academic
| name = Henry Steele Commager
| image = Henry Steele Commager.jpg
| alt = 
| birth_name = Henry Irving Commager
| birth_date = {{birth date|1902|10|25}}
| birth_place = [[Pittsburgh]], Pennsylvania, U.S.
| death_date = {{death date and age|1998|3|2|1902|10|25}}
| death_place = [[Amherst, Massachusetts]], U.S.
| spouse = {{ubl | {{marriage|Evan Carroll|1928|1968|end=died}} | {{marriage|Mary Powlesland|1979}}}}
| awards = <!--notable national level awards only-->
| thesis_title = Struensee and the Reform Movement in Denmark{{sfn|Jumonville|1999|p=281}}<ref name="Chronology">{{cite web |title=Commager Chronology |url=https://www.amherst.edu/mm/13118 |location=Amherst, Massachusetts |publisher=Amherst College |access-date=August 23, 2020}}</ref>
| thesis_year = 1928
| school_tradition = 
| doctoral_advisor = 
| academic_advisors = 
| influences = {{ubl | [[Andrew C. McLaughlin]] | [[Vernon Louis Parrington]]}}
| era = 
| discipline = History
| sub_discipline = {{cslist | [[American history|American]] | [[cultural history|cultural]] | [[intellectual history|intellectual]] | [[Danish history|Danish]]}}
| workplaces = {{ubl | [[New York University]] | [[Columbia University]] | [[Amherst College]]}}
| doctoral_students = {{ubl| [[Harold Hyman]] | [[William E. Leuchtenburg]] | [[Leonard W. Levy]]}}
| notable_students = <!--only those with WP articles-->
| main_interests = 
| notable_works = {{ubl | ''Documents of American History'' (1938–1988) | ''The American Mind'' (1950) | ''Empire of Reason'' (1977)}}
| notable_ideas = 
| influenced = [[R.&nbsp;B. Bernstein]]<ref name="Bernstein 1999">{{cite web |last=Bernstein |first=R.&nbsp;B. |author-link=Richard B. Bernstein |year=1999 |title=Scholarship and Engagement: Henry Steele Commager as Historian and Public Intellectual |url=https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=3457 |publisher=H-Net |access-date=August 23, 2020}}</ref>
| signature = 
| signature_alt = 
| education = [[University of Chicago]] ([[BPhil]], [[Master of Arts|MA]], [[PhD]])
}}
'''Henry Steele Commager''' (October 25, 1902 – March 2, 1998) was an American historian. As one of the most active and prolific liberal intellectuals of his time, with 40 books and 700 essays and reviews, he helped define [[modern liberalism in the United States]].{{sfn|Jumonville|1999}}

In the 1940s and 1950s, Commager was noted for his campaigns against [[McCarthyism]] and other abuses of government power. With his [[Columbia University]] colleague [[Allan Nevins]], Commager helped to organize academic support for [[Adlai Stevenson II|Adlai E. Stevenson]] in 1952 and 1956, and [[John F. Kennedy]] in 1960. He [[Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War|opposed the Vietnam War]] and was an outspoken critic of presidents [[Lyndon B. Johnson]], [[Richard Nixon]], and [[Ronald Reagan]] and what he viewed as their abuses of presidential power.

His principal scholarly works were his 1936 biography of [[Theodore Parker]]; his [[intellectual history]] ''The American Mind: An Interpretation of American Thought and Character Since the 1880s'' (1950), which focuses on the evolution of liberalism in the American political mind from the 1880s to the 1940s, and his intellectual history ''Empire of Reason: How Europe Imagined and America Realized the Enlightenment'' (1977). In addition, he edited a widely used compilation, ''Documents of American History''; ten editions were published between 1938 and 1988, the last coedited with Commager's former student, Milton Cantor.