Michael Allen (historian)

Michael Allen is an American historian. He is a professor of history and American studies at the University of Washington Tacoma, book-review editor for Pacific Northwest Quarterly, and president of the Ellensburg Rodeo Hall of Fame. He served in Vietnam with the United States Marine Corps during the Vietnam War.

His work in American history ranges from the early-republic period to the present, with a particular emphasis on the trans-Mississippi West and western history as it is broadly defined. His 1994 article, "The 'New' Western History Stillborn," published in The Historian, called into question the intellectual underpinnings and originality of the popular school of thought dubbed "New Western History." In 2004, he co-authored, with historian Larry Schweikart of the University of Dayton, A Patriot's History of the United States, published by the Penguin Group. The book was marketed as a scholarly rebuttal to A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn.

Books authored

  • Western Rivermen, 1763-1861: Ohio and Mississippi Boatmen and the Myth of the Alligator Horse (1994)
  • Rodeo Cowboys in the North American Imagination (1998)
  • The Confederation Congress And the Creation of the American Trans-Appalachian Settlement Policy 1783-1787 (2006)

Books co-authored

  • with Larry Schweikart A Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus's Great Discovery to the War on Terror (2004)

Books co-edited

  • with Mary L. Hanneman Frontiers of Western History: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Western History (1999)