Charles C. Tansill

Charles Callan Tansill (1890–1964) was an American historian and the author of fourteen history books. He was a Professor of History at American University, Fordham University, and Georgetown University. He was an isolationist prior to World War II, and he was accused of revisionism after the war.

Charles Callan Tansill
Born
Charles Callan Tansill

1890
Fredericksburg, Texas, U.S.
Died1964
Washington, D.C.
Alma materThe Catholic University of America
OccupationHistorian
Spouse(s)Helen Tansill
Children2 sons, 3 daughters

Early life

Charles C. Tansill was born in 1890 in Fredericksburg, Texas.[1][2] He received a bachelor's degree, followed by a master's degree and a PhD in History from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C..[2] He received another PhD from Johns Hopkins University in 1918.[2]

Career

Tansill was Assistant Professor of History at the Catholic University of America and American University.[2] He was full Professor of American History at American University from 1921 to 1937.[2] He became Professor of History at Fordham University in 1939, up until 1944.[2] He was Professor of History at Georgetown University from 1944 to 1957.[2] Over the course of his academic career, he wrote fourteen history books.[2]

Tansill worked as a historian for the United States Senate.[2] In 1927, he edited Documents Illustrative of the Formation of the Union of the American States, published by the Library of Congress.[3]

Tansill published America Goes to War, a history book about World War I, in 1938.[2] The book was well received by his peers.[2] For example, Thomas A. Bailey, a Professor of History at Stanford University wrote in a review published in The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, "This lucidly written and thoroughly documented book is the most important that has yet appeared on American neutrality in 1914–1917."[4] He finished his review by calling it, "a provocative and authoritative book, which should be on the "must list" of every student of the period."[4] However, in a review for The Yale Law Journal, Frederick L. Schuman, a Professor of Political Science at Williams College suggested Tansill failed to be objective in his isolationist stance.[5] He argued, "In chapter headings, text, selection of facts, and emphasis, Dr Tansill reveals his pro-German and anti-British bias and his convicton that German victory was preferable to American intervention."[5]

In the 1930s, Tansill was a staunch isolationist, arguing that the United States should not participate in World War II.[1] At the same time, he was an advisor to the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.[2] In 1952, Tansill published Back Door to War, a book about the war.[1][6] According to A. S. Winston, Tansill, "blamed Franklin Roosevelt for forcing a peace-minded Hitler into war and used the standard Rudolph Hess line that Hitler wanted only a free hand to deal with Bolshevism in the East."[1] Tansill went on to argue that it was Roosevelt who persuaded Neville Chamberlain to assure Poland that Britain would defend them if Germany attacked their country, which happened in 1939 during the German invasion of Poland.[2] Winston goes on to suggest, "The book became a foundation for revisionist history of World War II."[1]


In an article he published in American Opinion, the journal of the John Birch Society, in 1963, a year before his death, Tansill suggested it would have made sense to impeach President John F. Kennedy after the latter suggested to the United Nations that the United States should disarm.[2]

Personal life

With his wife Helen, Tansill had two sons, Dr. William R. Tansill and Charles B. Tansil, and three daughters, Mary Ann Sharkey, Grace Lee Morton, and Helen Parker Purcell.[2] They resided in Washington, D.C..

Death and legacy

Tansill died of a heart attack in 1964.[2] He was seventy-three years old.[2] Since 2007, the PDF of his book Back Door to War may be downloaded on the website of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Auburn, Alabama.[7]

References
  1. Winston, Andrew S. (Spring 1998). "Science in the service of the far right: Henry E. Garrett, the IAAEE, and the Liberty Lobby - International Association for the Advancement of Ethnology - Experts in the Service of Social Reform: SPSSI, Psychology, and Society, 1936-1996". Journal of Social Issues. 54: 179–210. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4560.1998.tb01212.x.
  2. "CHARLES TANSILL, HISTORIAN, IS DEAD". The New York Times. November 14, 1964. Retrieved 23 August 2015.
  3. "Ratification of the Constitution by Gordon Loyd". TeachingAmericanHistory.org. Retrieved 23 August 2015.
  4. Bailey, Thomas A. (March 1939). "Reviewed Work: America Goes to War by Charles C. Tansill". The Mississippi Valley Historical Review. 25 (4): 589–590. doi:10.2307/1892542. JSTOR 1892542.
  5. Schuman, Frederick L. (May 1939). "Reviewed Work: America Goes to War by Charles C. Tansill". The Yale Law Journal. 48 (7): 1298–1299. doi:10.2307/792444. JSTOR 792444.
  6. Dallek, Robert. "Pearl Harbor and the "back door to war" theory". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 23 August 2015.
  7. "Back Door to War: The Roosevelt Foreign Policy 1933-1941". Mises Institute. April 12, 2007. Retrieved 23 August 2015.
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