Family and youth in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; studies in history at University of Wisconsin: radical politics of the 1930s, pacifism, graduate studies with Professor William Hesseltine, influence of historian Charles Beard; teaching during World War II at the University of Arkansas and University of Maryland, colleagues Richard Hofstadter and C. Wright Mills; professor of history at Berkeley, 1946-1983: departmental governance, faculty hiring and promotions, affirmative action efforts, loyalty oath controversy; issues of civil rights and civil liberties at UC: reflections on Free Speech Movement and anti-war protests of 1960s-1970s; research, writing, and teaching on slavery, the American Civil War, and Reconstruction; reflections on historiography and changing interpretations of the past.