pt. 1. Narrative explanation: Fortunes of telling -- Causation and the American Civil War -- Unfinished arch: William James and the idea of history -- pt. 2. Political novel and the idea of history: Uncle Tom's cabin and the portent of millennium -- Radical religion and the American political novel -- Politics and the American literary imagination -- pt. 3. Veracious and the voracious imaginations: Rediscovery of the documentary -- Analogical history: The crucible -- Hazards of the border country: some contemporary historical novels -- Antihistorical novel -- pt. 4. Psychological biography: William James and the twice-born sick soul -- Ego psychology and the historian -- Personality and cultural history in the novel -- Clio, Psyche, and the literary artist.
