Liberalism increasingly shaped American intellectual life in the 1930s and 1940s, thanks in large part to two major two-volume studies that were widely read by academics, advanced students, intellectuals and the general public: Charles A. Beard and Mary Beard, The Rise of American civilization (2 vol.
For the general public Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. (1917-2007) was the most widely read historian, social critic, and public intellectual.