Merrill Jensen has often been characterized as the last of the Progressive historians. Although he looked upon that label with amusement, his works, following those of Charles Beard and Carl Becker, helped to delineate the conflicts that marked American political life between 1763 and 1789. Writing bold, iconoclastic histories. Jensen ably defended his view that the period had been marked by an internal revolution, followed by a counter-revolutionary Constitution.

Merrill Monroe Jensen was born to John M. and Julia Seymour Jensen near the town of Elk Horn, Iowa. He spent his youth on farms there and in South Dakota. After attending high school, he taught in a one-room school in Woonsocket, South Dakota, before heading west to Seattle, Washington. He enrolled at the University of Washington, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1929 and where one of his teachers, Edward McMahon, recognized Jensen's talents and encouraged him to continue his...