Even some of his critical works take a biographical approach to their subjects, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Theodore Dreiser. In Making History, the first comprehensive survey of Warren's biographical narratives, Jonathan S. Cullick tracks a clear development toward autobiography in Warren's career. For Warren, understanding history requires connecting with the people who lived it, and those two genres, through major shifts in narrative voice and point of view, not only personalize history but restore the narrator's identity in context to the past.
Genre becomes vital in the attempt to reconcile American past and present.
Making History considers all of Warren's major biographical narratives and their evolvement from detached reporting to doubtful self-examination. Jonathan S. Cullick is associate director of the University of Minnesota's writing program.