James Westfall Thompson

James Westfall Thompson (1869–1941) was an American historian of medieval and early modern Europe. He taught for many years at the University of Chicago and later at the University of California, Berkeley. His first major book, The Wars of Religion in France, 1559 to 1576 (1909), stressed the economic and diplomatic forces behind the conflict. He went on to write Feudal Germany, an Economic and Social History of the Middle Ages and, late in life, a large History of Historical Writing. He was elected president of the American Historical Association in the year of his death.