A Note on the Younger Bolton

Extract

There have been numerous well-deserved tributes written recently about the late Professor Herbert Eugene Bolton. There can be no doubt that his work raised the standards and scope of western American historical scholarship to new heights. The development of a broadly viewed concept of the historical unity of the Americas was largely his own contribution. His long life (eighty-two years) and his persistent devotion to studies, both detailed and wide in scope, earned Bolton great prestige. At the University of California he nurtured a veritable “school” of California historians. A former student speaks of his remarkable achievements as those of “the most prolific of western historians both in his own writings and in the students whose work he guided….” Another of his one hundred doctoral fellows calls Bolton’s a career of “matchless enthusiasm and perseverance.”