The author most likely refers to "historians such as Beard and Becker" in the first paragraph in order to A. isolate the two historians whose work is most representative of the viewpoints of Progressive historians B. emphasize the need to find connections between recent historical writing and the work of earlier historians C. make a case for the importance of the views of the Progressive historians concerning eighteenth-century American life D. suggest that Progressive historians were the first to discover the particular internal conflicts in eighteenth-century American life mentioned in the passage E. point out historians whose views of history anticipated some of the views of the recent historians mentioned in the passage