Robert Hugh Ferrell
Robert Hugh Ferrell (May 8, 1921 – August 8, 2018)[3] was an American historian and a prolific author or editor of more than 60 books on a wide range of topics, including the U.S. presidency, World War I, and U.S. foreign policy and diplomacy. One of the country's leading historians,[4] Ferrell was widely considered the preeminent authority on the administration of Harry S. Truman,[5] and also wrote books about half a dozen other 20th-century presidents. He was thought by many in the field to be the "dean of American diplomatic historians", a title he disavowed.[6]
Robert Hugh Ferrell | |
---|---|
Born | Cleveland, Ohio, US | May 8, 1921
Died | August 8, 2018 97) | (aged
Nationality | American |
Spouse | Lila Sprout Ferrell[1] |
Children | 1[1] |
Awards | John Addison Porter Prize, George Louis Beer Prize |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | Bowling Green State University, Yale University |
Thesis | The United States and the Origins of the Kellogg-Briand Pact (1951) |
Doctoral advisor | Samuel Flagg Bemis |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Historian |
Sub-discipline | U.S. foreign relations, U.S. political and military history, Harry S. Truman, World War I |
Institutions | Indiana University |
Doctoral students | Eugene P. Trani, Ross Gregory, Melvin Goodman,[2] Arnold A. Offner, John Garry Clifford |
Notable works | Peace in Their Time, Harry S. Truman: A Life, Dear Bess, Choosing Truman, Ill-Advised, The Dying President, Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman |
Early life and education
Ferrell was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1921 to Ernest and Edna Ferrell. His mother was a schoolteacher; his father was a World War I veteran whose career as a banker kept the family moving throughout Ohio during the Great Depression.[5] The family settled in Waterville, Ohio, where Ferrell's father managed the First National Bank and Ferrell and his brother Ernest Jr. went to high school. The Ferrell home was located at 29 N. 4th Street.[7][8]
A pianist, Ferrell studied music and education at Bowling Green State University in Ohio before serving in the U.S. Army Air Forces during the Second World War as a chaplain's assistant and staff sergeant.[5] His wartime experience in Europe compelled him to change his vocation to the study of history,[4] inspired also by reading the works of historian and fellow Ohioan Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr., Ida Tarbell, and Allan Nevins.[5] After the war, he received a B.S. in education from Bowling Green in 1946 and a second bachelor's degree in history in 1947.[4][9]
At Yale University, Ferrell earned a master's degree in 1948 and a Ph.D. in 1951, working under the direction of Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Samuel Flagg Bemis. A student of the Kellogg–Briand Pact, a 1928 international agreement in which signatory states promised not to use war to resolve their disputes, his dissertation The United States and the Origins of the Kellogg–Briand Pact,[10] won Yale's John Addison Porter Prize for original scholarship.[11]
Academic career
A longer version of the dissertation became his first book, Peace in Their Time: The Origins of the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which went on to win the American Historical Association's 1952 George Louis Beer Prize.[12] "This may not be the last book on the subject, but it should be," wrote historian Richard W. Leopold of Northwestern University.[3]
Ferrell was an intelligence analyst in the U.S. Air Force in Washington, D.C., during the Korean War. After leaving the Air Force, he taught at Michigan State in 1952–53.[1] He then moved to Indiana University in Bloomington, where he taught for many years, starting as an assistant professor in 1953 and rising to distinguished professor of history in 1974. He held several notable visiting professorships, including Yale in 1955–56 and the University of Cairo in 1958–59, the universities of South Carolina, Wisconsin and Nebraska in the late 1950s, and the Naval War College in 1974.[6]
In 1971, he was elected the fourth president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR).[13] He made nine appearances on C-SPAN to discuss his books and historical events,[14] and was a featured expert in the History Channel's 2005 documentary series The Presidents.[15] In a 2000 Chicago Sun-Times article, Ferrell ranked Abraham Lincoln, Truman and George Washington as the three best presidents in history.[4]
Teaching and academic legacy
Ferrell considered teaching a core part of his career, and worked to improve the quality of history teaching in general. In 1964, working with Maurice Glen Baxter and John E. Wiltz, he conducted a thorough survey of every high-school history teacher and school librarian in Indiana, writing up their findings along with detailed suggestions to help unprepared teachers in the 1964 book The Teaching of American History in High Schools.[16][17][18]
He supervised 35 Ph.D. students from 1961 to 1988.[19] Many of his students became history professors themselves. His students, both Ph.D. and otherwise, included Eugene P. Trani, former president of Virginia Commonwealth University; American Spectator founder Emmett Tyrrell;[20] William B. Pickett, a professor emeritus of history at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Indiana[5] and author of Eisenhower Decides To Run; historian and author Arnold A. Offner, past president of SHAFR; Reginald Horsman, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professor and author of Race and Manifest Destiny;[6][21] Terry H. Anderson, history professor at Texas A&M University and author of The Pursuit of Fairness: A History of Affirmative Action;[22] Ross Gregory, history professor at Western Michigan University and author of Walter Hines Page: Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s; national security and intelligence expert Melvin Goodman, author of Whistleblower at the CIA; Theodore A. Wilson, history professor at the University of Kansas and author of The First Summit: Roosevelt and Churchill at Placentia Bay, 1941;[23] and John Garry Clifford, professor of political science at the University of Connecticut.
After his 1988 retirement, SHAFR named the annual Robert H. Ferrell Book Prize in his honor for distinguished scholarship in the field.[24] More than a dozen of his former students, all historians in their own right, compiled the book Presidents, Diplomats, and Other Mortals: Essays Honoring Robert H. Ferrell to recognize his achievements in the field.[18]
Published works
Ferrell wrote prolifically, sharing with Bemis a disapproval of what they called "one-book men" who stopped writing after finishing a Ph.D. dissertation.[3] He published 25 books before his 1988 retirement from teaching, and before his death had produced more than 60. His prose was "expressed with grace and economy, [and] a light wit," wrote historian Lawrence Kaplan.[18] After the publication of Peace in Their Time, his early works included influential history textbooks American Diplomacy in the Great Depression and American Diplomacy: A History, the latter of which was republished in expanded and revised editions three times in the ensuing decades. He continued to work closely with his mentor Bemis, co-editing the later volumes of the series American Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy which Bemis had begun in the 1920s, and also writing the entries on Frank B. Kellogg, Henry L. Stimson, and George Marshall. He helped edit Bemis' Pulitzer-winning 1949 biography, John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy, and catalyzed the publication of a 1957 paperback edition of Bemis' The Diplomacy of the American Revolution.[25][6]
Ferrell was also notable for the thoroughness and depth of his research, with a knack for finding obscure or unpublished diaries, memoirs, and letters which would then become central elements of his books, such as the papers of Coolidge-era assistant secretary of state William Castle, which greatly informed Peace in Their Time. Editing and publishing the diaries and private letters of persons of historical interest, from presidents to ordinary soldiers, became a specialty of his, with nearly two dozen such books to his name, including presidents Truman, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge (and his wife Grace) and Dwight Eisenhower, White House staffers James Hagerty, Frank Comerford Walker, Arthur F. Burns and Eben Ayers, and soldiers in the American Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Spanish–American War, and the Mexican–American War.
Not content to be a passive chronicler of history, Ferrell would often, when he felt a topic merited it, engage in spirited critique of other historians' interpretations of past events.[18] In the influential 1955 article "Pearl Harbor and the Revisionists," he argued against the conspiracy theory that Franklin Roosevelt had deliberately allowed Japan to commit the surprise attack that drew the U.S. into World War II.[26] His book Harry S. Truman and the Cold War Revisionists argued against post-1960s New Left historians' critiques of the Truman era.[3][27] Reactions to the book were divided: Writing for Michigan State University's H-Net, Curt Cardwell felt that Ferrell misunderstood the arguments of the younger generation he criticized and was "condescending,"[28] while Alonzo L. Hamby's review in Journal of Cold War Studies called the book "restrained and gentlemanly" and noted that Ferrell viewed prominent revisionist William Appleman Williams as a friend.[29] In a 1995 article in American Heritage, he accused Merle Miller, author of the bestselling book Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry. S. Truman, of fabricating many of the quotes attributed to Truman.[30][31] In 1998's The Dying President, Ferrell examined Franklin D. Roosevelt's medical records and concluded that Roosevelt had deliberately chosen to keep the cardiovascular disease which would soon kill him secret from the public. The book was praised by historian John Lukacs as “painstaking and exceptionally researched … sparklingly well-written, bearing the marks of a master historian” and one of the most important books on Roosevelt by any historian.[32]
Harry S. Truman
Ferrell wrote voluminously on Truman, devoting more than a dozen books to his life and presidency. Ferrell's work rehabilitated the reputation of the Truman presidency, which had been previously considered a failure by scholars, by providing evidence of how decisions such as Truman's choice to champion the Marshall Plan led to the successful establishment of an American-led post-war world order.[4] Although it was overshadowed by the popular success of David McCullough's Pulitzer-winning Truman biography, Ferrell's 1994 Harry S. Truman: A Life was considered a masterwork by scholars in his field. Historian Lawrence Kaplan called it "the height of his achievement," with far more detailed analysis than McCullough's book.[18]
Ferrell's discovery of a cache of hundreds of letters from Truman to his wife, previously thought to have been burned, led to his 1983 book Dear Bess: The Letters From Harry to Bess Truman, 1910–1959,[4] a New York Times bestseller.[33]
Coincidentally, Ferrell and Truman were born on the same day, May 8.[4]
World War I
World War I was a special interest of Ferrell's—in particular the 1918 Meuse-Argonne Offensive, the largest and bloodiest U.S. operation of the war, in which Ferrell's father and then-Capt. Harry Truman both served. His books on the conflict include America's Deadliest Battle, Collapse at Meuse-Argonne, and a profile of the American Expeditionary Forces' only African-American division, Unjustly Dishonored, as well as several edited memoirs of soldiers who served in it. One of his final books, 2008's The Question of MacArthur's Reputation, painstakingly reconstructed the events of the Meuse-Argonne, a victory which helped launch the career of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, to prove that MacArthur had lied about his role in the battle to embellish his prestige and take undeserved credit.[34]
Awards
In addition to the John Addison Porter Prize and George Louis Beer Prize for his early work on the Kellogg-Briand Pact, Ferrell received the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations' Norman and Laura Graebner Award in 1998, which recognizes distinguished lifetime achievement by a senior historian of United States foreign relations.[35] In 2002, Ferrell was given the Society for Military History's Distinguished Book Award for editing a trio of memoirs by soldier William S. Triplet, A Youth in the Meuse-Argonne, A Colonel in the Armored Divisions, and In the Philippines and Okinawa.[36]
Personal life and death
His wife, Lila, died in 2002.[5] They had a daughter, Carolyn.[1][37]: vii [38]: xi He was an inveterate collector of books, owning more than 10,000 volumes.[3]
He died of heart disease in Chelsea, Michigan at age 97.[4]
Ferrell's papers, writings and correspondence, comprising 200,000 items, are archived at Indiana University's Lilly Library.[39]
Bibliography
As primary author
- Peace in Their Time: The Origins of the Kellogg-Briand Pact (1952)[Subject matter: The Kellogg-Briand Pact][40]
- "Pearl Harbor and the Revisionists" in The Historian (Spring 1955)[26]
- "The Mukden Incident: September 18–19, 1931" in Journal of Modern History (March 1955) [41]
- American Diplomacy in the Great Depression: Hoover-Stimson Foreign Policy, 1929–1933 (1957)[42]
- American Diplomacy: A History (1959, with updated editions in 1969, 1975, and 1987)[43]
- The American Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy (edited volumes 11-19, 1958–1980);[44] wrote Vol. 11, Frank B. Kellogg and Henry L. Stimson (1963)[Subject matter: Frank B. Kellogg, Henry L. Stimson][45] and Vol. 15, George C. Marshall[46]
- Maurice Glen Baxter, Robert H. Ferrell, and John E. Wiltz, The Teaching of American History in High Schools (1964)[16]
- Richard B. Morris, William Greenleaf and Robert H. Ferrell, America: A History of the People (1971)[47]
- Samuel F. Wells, Jr., Robert H. Ferrell, and David F. Trask, The Ordeal of World Power: American Diplomacy Since 1900 (1975)[48]
- Harry S. Truman and the Modern American Presidency (1983)[49]
- Truman: A Centenary Remembrance, 1884–1972 (1984)[50]
- Woodrow Wilson and World War I, 1917–1921 (New American Nation Series, 1985)[51]
- "Truman's Place in History" in Reviews in American History (March 1990)[52]
- Harry S. Truman: His Life On the Family Farms (1991)[53]
- Ill-Advised: Presidential Health and Public Trust (1992)[54]
- Choosing Truman: The Democratic Convention of 1944 (1994)[Subject matter: 1944 Democratic National Convention][55]
- Harry S. Truman: A Life (1994)[56]
- Francis H. Heller and Robert H. Ferrell, "Plain Faking?" in American Heritage (May–June 1995)[30]
- The Strange Deaths of President Harding (1996)[57]
- Atlas of American History (1996, with Richard Natkiel)[58]
- The Dying President: Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1944–1945 (1998)[59]
- The Presidency of Calvin Coolidge (1998)[60]
- Truman and Pendergast (1999)[61]
- Harry S. Truman (American Presidents Reference Series, 2002)[62]
- Collapse at Meuse-Argonne: The Failure of the Missouri-Kansas Division (2004)[63]
- "A Tale of Two Archives" in Topic: The Washington & Jefferson College Review, vol. 54, "A Festschrift for Professor Walter S. Sanderlin" (2004)[64]
- Five Days in October: The Lost Battalion of World War I (2005)[Subject matter: Lost Battalion (World War I)][65]
- Good Fortune in Politics: The Case of Calvin Coolidge (Ashbrook Colloquium, 2005)[66]
- Harry S. Truman and the Cold War Revisionists (2006)[27]
- Presidential Leadership: From Woodrow Wilson to Harry S. Truman (2006)[67]
- "Immigration and the Red Scare" in Who Belongs in America?: Presidents, Rhetoric, and Immigration (2006)[68]
- America's Deadliest Battle: Meuse-Argonne, 1918 (2007)[1]
- The Question of MacArthur's Reputation: Côte de Châtillon, October 14–16, 1918 (2008)[69]
- Grace Coolidge: The People's Lady in Silent Cal's White House (2008)[70]
- Unjustly Dishonored: An African American Division in World War I (2011)[38]
As editor
- Conference of Scholars on the European Recovery Program, March 20–21, 1964, at the Harry S. Truman Library (Transcript of discussion led by Robert H. Ferrell, 1964)[71]
- Calvin Coolidge, The Talkative President: The Off-the-Record Press Conferences of Calvin Coolidge (1964)[72]
- Foundations of American Diplomacy, 1775–1872 (1968)[73]
- America As a World Power: 1872–1945 (1971)[74]
- America In a Divided World, 1945–1972 (1975)[75]
- Harry S. Truman, Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman (1980)[76]
- Dwight D. Eisenhower, The Eisenhower Diaries (1981)[77]
- Harry S. Truman, Dear Bess: The Letters From Harry to Bess Truman, 1910–1959 (1983)[78]
- James Hagerty, The Diary of James C. Hagerty: Eisenhower in Mid-Course, 1954–1955 (1983)[79]
- Joseph Douglas Lawrence, Fighting Soldier: The AEF in 1918 (1985)[80]
- Curtis V. Hard, Banners In the Air: The Eighth Ohio Volunteers and the Spanish–American War (1988)[81]
- Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh Dana, Monterrey Is Ours!: The Mexican War Letters of Lieutenant Dana, 1845-1847 (1990)[82]
- Truman in the White House: The Diary of Eben A. Ayers (1991)[83]
- Grace Coolidge, Grace Coolidge: An Autobiography (1992)[84]
- Flavel C. Barber, Holding the Line: The Third Tennessee Infantry, 1861–1864 (1994)[85]
- The Twentieth Century: An Almanac (1995)[86]
- Harry S. Truman and the Bomb: A Documentary History (1996)[87]
- Frank C. Walker, FDR's Quiet Confidant: The Autobiography of Frank C. Walker (1997)[88]
- Rudolph H. Hartmann, The Kansas City Investigation: Pendergast's Downfall, 1938–1939 (1999)[89]
- William S. Triplet, A Youth in the Meuse-Argonne: A Memoir, 1917–1918 (2000)[90]
- William S. Triplet, A Colonel in the Armored Divisions: A Memoir, 1941–1945 (2001)[91]
- William S. Triplet, In the Philippines and Okinawa: A Memoir, 1945–1948 (2001)[92]
- The Autobiography of Harry S. Truman (2002) [93]
- Elmer W. Sherwood, A Soldier in World War I: The Diary of Elmer W. Sherwood (2004)[94]
- Hugh S. Thompson, Trench Knives and Mustard Gas: With the 42nd Rainbow Division in France (C. A. Brannen Series, No. 6) (2004)[95]
- William M. Wright, Meuse-Argonne Diary: A Division Commander in World War I (2004)[96]
- Horace Leonard Baker, Argonne Days in World War I (2007)[97]
- Pierpont L. Stackpole, In the Company of Generals: The World War I Diary of Pierpont L. Stackpole (2009)[98]
- Arthur F. Burns, Inside the Nixon Administration: The Secret Diary of Arthur Burns, 1969–1974 (2010)[99]
- Conrad S. Babcock, Reminiscences of Conrad S. Babcock: The Old U.S. Army and the New, 1898–1918 (2012)[37]
References
- Ferrell, Robert H. (2007). America's Deadliest Battle: Meuse-Argonne, 1918. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-1499-8. LCCN 2006029077.
- Melvin A. Goodman (24 April 2017). Whistleblower at the CIA: An Insider's Account of the Politics of Intelligence. City Lights Books. pp. 140–. ISBN 978-0-87286-731-4.
- Grant, James (2018-08-17). "Robert H. Ferrell, a Historian of Breadth and Clarity". The Wall Street Journal. New York City. Retrieved 2018-08-21.
- Schudel, Matt (2018-08-23). "Robert H. Ferrell, presidential historian and Truman biographer, dies at 97". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2018-08-26.
- Sandomir, Richard (2018-08-22). "Robert H. Ferrell, Authority on Truman, Is Dead at 97". The New York Times. Retrieved 2018-08-23.
- Clifford, J. Garry (2007). "The Young Bob Ferrell". In Clifford, J. Garry; Wilson, Theodore A. (eds.). Presidents, Diplomats, and Other Mortals: Essays Honoring Robert H. Ferrell. Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri Press. pp. 307–315. ISBN 978-0-8262-1747-9.
- Phyllis Witzler; John Rose; Verna Rose (28 August 2017). Waterville. Arcadia Publishing Incorporated. pp. 92–. ISBN 978-1-4396-6204-5.
- Lawrence S. Kaplan; Scott L. Bills; E. Timothy Smith (1997). The Romance of History: Essays in Honor of Lawrence S. Kaplan. Kent State University Press. pp. 13–. ISBN 978-0-87338-563-3.
- Ferrell, Robert H. "Robert H. Ferrell oral history" (November 3, 1994) [oral history]. Robert H. Ferrell mss.. Indiana University: Lilly Library Manuscript Collections.
- "Dissertations by year, 1950–1959". Yale University Department of History. Retrieved 22 August 2018.
- Historical Register of Yale University, 1937–1951. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1952. p. 80.
- "George Louis Beer Prize Recipients". American Historical Association. Retrieved December 24, 2017.
- "Past Presidents". Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
- "Robert H. Ferrell". C-SPAN. Retrieved 19 September 2018.
- The Presidents : The Lives and Legacies of the 43 Leaders of the United States (Television). New York City: A&E Television Networks. 2005. ISBN 9780767077606. OCLC 60583878. Retrieved 2018-09-05.
- Baxter, Maurice Glen; Ferrell, Robert H.; Wiltz, John E. (1964). The Teaching of American History in High Schools. Indiana University Press. ISBN 9780598574671.
- Wolf, Hazel C. (1965). "Book Reviews: The Teaching of American History in High Schools". Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. 58 (4): 436–439. JSTOR 40190203.
- Kaplan, Lawrence (2007). "Robert H. Ferrell: An Appreciation". In Clifford, J. Garry; Wilson, Theodore A. (eds.). Presidents, Diplomats, and Other Mortals: Essays Honoring Robert H. Ferrell. Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri Press. pp. 307–315. ISBN 978-0-8262-1747-9.
- Clifford, J. Garry; Wilson, Theodore A., eds. (2007). "Robert H. Ferrell's Ph.D. Students". Presidents, Diplomats, and Other Mortals: Essays Honoring Robert H. Ferrell. Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri Press. pp. 327–329. ISBN 978-0-8262-1747-9.
- Tyrrell, R. Emmett Jr. (2018-08-21). "Death of a historian, Robert H. Ferrell". The Washington Times. Retrieved 2018-08-23.
- Reginald Horsman (1981). Race and Manifest Destiny. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-94805-1.
- Anderson, Terry H. (2004). The pursuit of fairness: a history of affirmative action. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195182453. Preview.
- "Theodore A. Wilson". University of Kansas. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
- "Robert H. Ferrell Book Prize". Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. Retrieved 22 August 2018.
- Samuel Flagg Bemis (1957). The Diplomacy of the American Revolution. Indiana University Press. ISBN 9780253200068.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (Spring 1955). "Pearl Harbor and the Revisionists". The Historian. 17 (2): 215–233. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6563.1955.tb00177.x. JSTOR 24442314.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (1 May 2006). Harry S. Truman and the Cold War Revisionists. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0-8262-6520-3.
- Cardwell, Curt (October 2007). "Review of Ferrell, Robert H., Harry S. Truman and the Cold War Revisionists". H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews. Retrieved 27 May 2018.
- Hamby, Alonzo L. (Fall 2015). "Book Review: Harry S. Truman and the Cold War Revisionists by Robert H. Ferrell". Journal of Cold War Studies. 17 (4): 203–204. doi:10.1162/JCWS_r_00607. S2CID 57562585. Retrieved September 19, 2018.
- Ferrell, Robert H.; Heller, Francis H. (May–June 1995). "Plain Faking?". American Heritage. 46 (3). Retrieved November 8, 2011.
- Michael T. Benson (1997). Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 37–. ISBN 978-0-275-95807-7.
- Lukacs, John (1998-07-26). "His Secret Life". Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles. Retrieved 2018-09-08.
- "Best Sellers: Nonfiction". The New York Times. 1983-09-25. Retrieved 2018-09-11.
- Messenger, Robert (2008-11-04). "The Search For a Hero". The Wall Street Journal. New York City. Retrieved 2018-09-07.
- "The Norman and Laura Graebner Award". Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. Retrieved 2018-09-21.
- "Distinguished Book Awards". Society for Military History. Retrieved 2018-09-21.
- Conrad S. Babcock (2012). Ferrell, Robert H. (ed.). Reminiscences of Conrad S. Babcock: The Old U.S. Army and the New, 1898–1918. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 9780826219817. LCCN 2012454782.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (20 May 2011). Unjustly Dishonored: An African American Division in World War I. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0-8262-1916-9. LCCN 2012462746.
- "Ferrell mss". Lilly Library Manuscript Collections. Indiana University. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (1952). Peace in Their Time: The Origins of the Kellogg-Briand Pact. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0393004915.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (March 1955). "The Mukden Incident: September 18–19, 1931". Journal of Modern History. University of Chicago Press. 27 (1): 66–72. doi:10.1086/237763. JSTOR 1877701. S2CID 144691966.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (1957). American Diplomacy in the Great Depression: Hoover-Stimson Foreign Policy, 1929–1933. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780208007490.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (1959). American Diplomacy: A History. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-09309-4. LCCN 59006082.
- Samuel Flagg Bemis; Robert H. Ferrell, eds. (1958–80). The American Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy. Pageant Book Co. OCLC 13893460.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (1963). The American Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy: Frank B. Kellogg. Cooper Square. ISBN 9780815400691.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (1966). The American Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy: Frank B. Kellogg. Cooper Square. ISBN 9780815400707.
- Richard B. Morris; William Greenleaf; Robert H. Ferrell (1971). America: A History of the People. Rand McNally. LCCN 70142735.
- Wells, Jr., Samuel F.; Ferrell, Robert H.; Trask, David F. (1975). The Ordeal of World Power: American Diplomacy Since 1900. Little, Brown. LCCN 75000187.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (1983). Harry S. Truman and the Modern American Presidency. Little, Brown. LCCN 82014889.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (1984). Truman: A Centenary Remembrance, 1884–1972. Viking Press. LCCN 83040222.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (1985). Woodrow Wilson and World War I, 1917–1921. Harper & Row. LCCN 84048160.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (March 1990). "Truman's Place in History". Reviews in American History. 18 (1): 1–9. doi:10.2307/2702718. JSTOR 2702718.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (1991). Harry S. Truman: His Life On the Family Farms. High Plains Pub. Co. ISBN 978-0962333347. LCCN 90084548.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (1992). Ill-Advised: Presidential Health and Public Trust. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0-8262-1065-4. LCCN 92018527.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (1994). Choosing Truman: The Democratic Convention of 1944. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0-8262-7298-0.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (1994). Harry S. Truman: A Life. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0-8262-6045-1.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (1996). The Strange Deaths of President Harding. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0-8262-1202-3.
- Robert H. Ferrell; Richard Natkiel (April 1996). Atlas of American History. Facts on File. ISBN 978-0-8160-3702-5. LCCN 84675628.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (1998). The Dying President: Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1944–1945. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0-8262-1171-2. LCCN 97045797.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (1998). The Presidency of Calvin Coolidge. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-0892-8. LCCN 97051128.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (1999). Truman and Pendergast. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0-8262-6050-5. LCCN 99012736.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (2003). Harry S. Truman. American Presidents Reference Series. CQ Press. ISBN 978-1568027661. LCCN 2003020520.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (2004). Collapse at Meuse-Argonne: The Failure of the Missouri-Kansas Division. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0-8262-6239-4. LCCN 2004004300.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (2004). Thomas Mainwaring (ed.). "A Tale of Two Archives". Topic: The Washington & Jefferson College Review. Washington & Jefferson College. 53 (A Festschrift for Professor Walter S. Sanderlin). ISSN 0049-4127.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (2005). Five Days in October: The Lost Battalion of World War I. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0-8262-6479-4. LCCN 2005001231.
- Robert H. Ferrell (2005-01-28). Good Fortune in Politics: The Case of Calvin Coolidge (Ashbrook Colloquium) (Audio). Ashland, Ohio: Ashbrook Center at Ashland University. Retrieved 2018-09-14.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (2006). Presidential Leadership: From Woodrow Wilson to Harry S. Truman. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0-8262-6490-9. LCCN 2005023511.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (11 July 2006). "Immigration and the Red Scare". In Beasley, Vanessa B. (ed.). Who Belongs in America?: Presidents, Rhetoric, and Immigration. Texas A&M University Press. pp. 134–148. ISBN 978-1-58544-505-9.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (2008). The Question of MacArthur's Reputation: Côte de Châtillon, October 14-16, 1918. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0-8262-6651-4.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (2008). Grace Coolidge: The People's Lady in Silent Cal's White House. ISBN 9780700615636. LCCN 2007045737.
- Ferrell, Robert H., ed. (1964). Conference of Scholars on the European Recovery Program, March 20-21, 1964, at the Harry S. Truman Library. Harry S. Truman Library Institute for National and International Affairs. LCCN 82232436.
- Calvin Coolidge (1964). Ferrell, Robert H.; Quint, Howard H. (eds.). The Talkative President: The Off-the-Record Press Conferences of Calvin Coolidge. Garland Pub. ISBN 978-0824097059. LCCN 78066526.
- Ferrell, Robert H., ed. (1968). Foundations of American Diplomacy, 1775–1872. University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 9780872491229. LCCN 72001652.
- Ferrell, Robert H., ed. (1971). America As a World Power: 1872–1945. University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-87249-244-8. LCCN 73154053.
- Ferrell, Robert H., ed. (1975). America In a Divided World, 1945–1972. Harper & Row. LCCN 74007602.
- Truman, Harry S. (1980). Ferrell, Robert H. (ed.). Off the Record: The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman. Harper & Row. ISBN 978-0-8262-1119-4.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower (1981). Ferrell, Robert H. (ed.). The Eisenhower Diaries. Norton. LCCN 80027866.
- Truman, Harry S. (1983). Ferrell, Robert H. (ed.). Dear Bess: The Letters From Harry to Bess Truman, 1910–1959. Norton. ISBN 978-0-8262-1203-0.
- James Campbell Hagerty (1983). Ferrell, Robert H. (ed.). The Diary of James C. Hagerty: Eisenhower in Mid-Course, 1954–1955. Indiana University Press. ISBN 9780253116253.
- Joseph Douglas Lawrence (1985). Ferrell, Robert H. (ed.). Fighting Soldier: The AEF in 1918. Colorado Associated University Press. ISBN 978-0-87081-158-6.
- Hard, Curtis V. (1988). Ferrell, Robert H. (ed.). Banners In the Air: The Eighth Ohio Volunteers and the Spanish–American War. Kent State University Press. ISBN 978-0873383677. LCCN 88012033.
- Dana, Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh (1990). Ferrell, Robert H. (ed.). Monterrey Is Ours!: The Mexican War Letters of Lieutenant Dana, 1845-1847. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0813117034. LCCN 89029351.
- Eben A. Ayers (1991). Ferrell, Robert H. (ed.). Truman in the White House: The Diary of Eben A. Ayers. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0-8262-0790-6.
- Grace Coolidge (1992). Wikander, Lawrence E.; Ferrell, Robert H. (eds.). Grace Coolidge: An Autobiography. High Plains Pub. Co. ISBN 978-1881019015. LCCN 92072825.
- Flavel C. Barber (1994). Ferrell, Robert H. (ed.). Holding the Line: The Third Tennessee Infantry, 1861–1864. Kent State University Press. ISBN 978-0873385046. LCCN 94008653.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (1985). Ferrell, Robert H.; Bowman, John S. (eds.). The Twentieth Century: An Almanac. World Almanac Publications. ISBN 978-0-345-32630-0. LCCN 83051725.
- Ferrell, Robert H., ed. (1996). Harry S. Truman and the Bomb: A Documentary History. High Plains Pub. Co. ISBN 978-1881019121. LCCN 96075053.
- Walker, Frank Comerford (1997). Ferrell, Robert H. (ed.). FDR's Quiet Confidant: The Autobiography of Frank C. Walker. University Press of Colorado. ISBN 978-0870813979. LCCN 96054006.
- Hartmann, Rudolph H. (1999). Ferrell, Robert H. (ed.). The Kansas City Investigation: Pendergast's Downfall, 1938–1939. University of Missouri Press. LCCN 99018273.
- Triplet, William S. (2000). Ferrell, Robert H. (ed.). A Youth in the Meuse-Argonne: A Memoir, 1917–1918. University of Missouri Press. LCCN 00029921.
- Triplet, William S. (2001). Ferrell, Robert H. (ed.). A Colonel in the Armored Divisions: A Memoir, 1941–1945. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0826213129. LCCN 00050781.
- Triplet, William S. (2001). Ferrell, Robert H. (ed.). In the Philippines and Okinawa: A Memoir, 1945–1948. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0826213358. LCCN 2001027551.
- Truman, Harry S. (2002). Ferrell, Robert H. (ed.). The Autobiography of Harry S. Truman. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0-8262-1445-4.
- Elmer W. Sherwood (2004). Ferrell, Robert H. (ed.). A Soldier in World War I: The Diary of Elmer W. Sherwood. Indiana Historical Society Press. ISBN 978-0-87195-173-1. LCCN 2003069168.
- Hugh S. Thompson (14 May 2004). Ferrell, Robert H. (ed.). Trench Knives and Mustard Gas: With the 42nd Rainbow Division in France. Texas A&M University Press. ISBN 978-1-58544-290-4. LCCN 2003019696.
- William M. Wright (2004). Ferrell, Robert H. (ed.). Meuse-Argonne Diary: A Division Commander in World War I. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0826215277. LCCN 2004001710.
- Horace Leonard Baker (2007). Ferrell, Robert H. (ed.). Argonne Days in World War I. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0-8262-6575-3.
- Pierpont L. Stackpole (2009). Ferrell, Robert H. (ed.). In the Company of Generals: The World War I Diary of Pierpont L. Stackpole. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 9780826218704. LCCN 2009028219.
- Arthur F. Burns (2010). Ferrell, Robert H. (ed.). Inside the Nixon Administration: The Secret Diary of Arthur Burns, 1969–1974. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 9780700617302. LCCN 2010021333.