John Fiske, essayist, philosopher, and lecturer, was the most popular historian of the late nineteenth century. In an age before specialization in the historical profession, the reading public regarded Fiske as an advocate of "scientific history," able to synthesize and communicate a large body of knowledge. Fiske is not widely read today, and little of his work was respected by contemporary scholars. But, as a symbol of the values, as well as the ambiguities, of his culture, the writings of John Fiske are significant for modern historians.

John Fiske was born Edmund Fisk Green in Hartford, Connecticut. His father, Edmund Brewster Green, was a lawyer, politician, and newspaper editor who died when Fiske was only ten years old. The boy was then raised by his maternal grandparents in Middletown, Connecticut, and, although Fiske's mother, Mary Fisk Bound Green, remarried, he chose to stay in Middletown and to take...