The American History Writing And National Identity Before The Twentieth Century

History shapes the national consciousness and builds the national identity. In the processof the rising of the America, History waked the national consciousness of the Americans andcreated the cultural identity. At present, the research of the American history often links withthe American expansionism in the internal academic community, and pay little attention to theeffect of history on the American national identity. This text tries to analyze the impact of theAmerican history on the national identity, and then understanding the interaction between thehistory and the national identity.Body is divided into three parts. PartⅠ: describe the origin of the American history, theearly historians constructed the virtue and the hero Republic in the center of the AmericanRevolution and some virtue heroes. PartⅡ: George Bancroft first wrote the whole Americanhistory, and models the American national identity on the basic of democracy and freedom.Part Ⅲ: on the influence of the scientific research methods, some professional historianswrote to show the new features of the national identity. Racism historian established theposition of the mainstream culture of WASP. Then, Turner mainly interpreted the feature ofthe frontier. In addition, he used the environmental characteristics to ease the American socialconflicts.In short, weather the early historians, or the professional historians, their goal is to buildthe unique feather of the America, and then, irritate patriotism, agglomerate national identity.