The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
VOLUME XVI. Early National Literature, Part II; Later National Literature, Part I.
§ 8. Pitkin
Somewhat later came Timothy Pitkin’s (1766–1847) Political and Civil History of the United States (2 vols., 1828). The author was a man of great industry and painstaking care. He had a fancy for statistical knowledge, and wrote also a valuable Statistical View of the Commerce of the United States (1817). His political history has the merits and the demerits to be expected in a statistician. Although it is marked by accuracy and a just sense of industrial development, its style is disjointed and difficult. Pitkin strove for fairness, but he saw the history of the country as a man of New England would see it. His own section bulked large in his treatment, and he did not get the point of view of the rest of the Union.