This paper examines how Carl L. Becker was one of the most eminent American historians of the early 20th century. It looks
at how his long and distinguished career and his impressive list of scholarly monographs alone qualify him as an important figure in the
development of
historical understanding and how his contributions to historical methodology were equally weighty. It shows how Becker was a progressive historian and how his historical analyses tended to focus on how historical process lead to later development and how these later developments could indeed be seen in the earlier historical precedents. He saw history as defined solely by the store of knowledge that we have about a historical event.