Popular history is a broad and somewhat ill-defined genre of historiography that takes a popular approach, aims at a wide readership, and usually emphasizes narrative, personality and vivid detail over scholarly analysis. The term is used in contradistinction to professional academic or scholarly history writing which is usually more specialized and technical and, thus, less accessible to the general reader.
Some popular historians are without academic affiliation while others are academics, or former academics, that have (according to one writer) “become somehow abstracted from the academic arena, becoming cultural commentators”[1].
Popular historians may become nationally renowned or best-selling authors and may or may not serve the interests of particular political viewpoints in their roles as “public historians”. Many authors of “official histories” and “authorized biographies” would qualify as popular historians serving the interests of particular institutions or public figures.
Recent examples of American popular historians with academic affiliations include Stephen Ambrose, Doris Kearns Goodwin and Pauline Maier. Non-academics include Bruce Catton, Shelby Foote and Barbara Tuchman.
Recent examples of British popular historians include Niall Ferguson, Christopher Hibbert and Simon Schama and – from a previous generation – E.P. Thompson, A.J.P. Taylor, and Christopher Hill.