David E. Shi - Böcker

"A true poem," Walt Whitman proclaimed in 1852, "is the daily newspaper"--and American culture was never the same again. Like a blast of cold air in a stuffy drawing room, Whitman's campaign to give artistic representation to gritty reality shocked the genteel artistic elite of the 1850s; but the brassy poet's efforts helped generate a revolution in American life and thought. Four decades later, Willa Cather could declare that the "public demands realism, and they will have it."In Facing Facts, David Shi provides the most comprehensive history to date of the rise of realism in American culture. He vividly captures the character and sweep of this all-encompassing movement--ranging from Winslow Homer to the rise of the Ash Can school, from Whitman to Henry James to Theodore Dreiser. He begins with a look at the idealist atmosphere of the antebellum years, when otherwordly themes were considered the only fit subject for art (Hawthorne wrote that "the grosser life is a dream, and the spiritual life is a reality"). Whitman's assault on these standards coincided with sweeping changes in American society: the bloody Civil War, the aggressive advance of a modern scientific spirit, the popularity of photography, the expansion of cities, capitalism, and the middle class--all worked to shake the foundations of genteel idealism and sentimental romanticism. Both artists and the public developed an ever-expanding appetite for hard facts, and for art that accurately depicted them. As Shi proceeds through the nineteenth century, he traces the realist revolution in each major area of arts and letters, combining an astute analysis of the movement's essential themes with incisive portraits of its leading practitioners. Here we see Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., shaken to stern realism by the horrors of the Civil War; the influence of Walt Whitman on painter Thomas Eakins and architect Louis Sullivan, a leader of the Chicago school; the local-color verisimilitude of Louisa May Alcott and Sarah Orne Jewett; and the impact of urban squalor on intrepid young writers such as Stephen Crane. In the process of surveying nineteenth-century cultural history, Shi provides fascinating insights into the specific concerns of the realist movement--in particular, the nation's growing obsession with gender roles. Realism, he writes, was in many respects an effort to revive masculine virtues in the face of declining virility.During the twentieth century, a new modernist sensibility challenged the now-orthodox tenets of realism: "Is it not time," one critic asked, "that we renounce the heresy that it is the function of art to record a fact?" Shi examines why so many Americans answered yes to this question, under influences ranging from psychoanalysis to the First World War. Nuanced, detailed, and comprehensive, Facing Facts provides the definitive account of the realist phenomenon, revealing why it played so great a role in American cultural history, and why it retains its perennial fascination.

America: A Narrative History puts narrative front and centre with David Shi’s rich storytelling style, colourful biographical sketches and vivid first-person quotations. The new editions further reflect the state of our history and society by continuing to incorporate diverse voices into the narrative with new coverage of the Latino/a experience as well as enhanced coverage of gender, African American, Native American, immigration and LGBTQ history. With dynamic digital tools, including the InQuizitive adaptive learning tool, and new digital activities focused on primary and secondary sources, America: A Narrative History gives students regular opportunities to engage with the story and build critical history skills.

America: A Narrative History puts narrative front and centre with David Shi’s rich storytelling style, colourful biographical sketches and vivid first-person quotations. The new editions further reflect the state of our history and society by continuing to incorporate diverse voices into the narrative with new coverage of the Latino/a experience as well as enhanced coverage of gender, African American, Native American, immigration and LGBTQ history. With dynamic digital tools, including the InQuizitive adaptive learning tool, and new digital activities focused on primary and secondary sources, America: A Narrative History gives students regular opportunities to engage with the story and build critical history skills.

America: A Narrative History puts narrative front and centre with David Shi’s rich storytelling style, colourful biographical sketches and vivid first-person quotations. The new editions further reflect the state of our history and society by continuing to incorporate diverse voices into the narrative with new coverage of the Latino/a experience as well as enhanced coverage of gender, African American, Native American, immigration and LGBTQ history. With dynamic digital tools, including the InQuizitive adaptive learning tool, and new digital activities focused on primary and secondary sources, America: A Narrative History gives students regular opportunities to engage with the story and build critical history skills.

America: A Narrative History puts narrative front and centre with David Shi’s rich storytelling style, colourful biographical sketches and vivid first-person quotations. The new editions further reflect the state of our history and society by continuing to incorporate diverse voices into the narrative with new coverage of the Latino/a experience as well as enhanced coverage of gender, African American, Native American, immigration and LGBTQ history. With dynamic digital tools, including the InQuizitive adaptive learning tool, and new digital activities focused on primary and secondary sources, America: A Narrative History gives students regular opportunities to engage with the story and build critical history skills.

Our current less-is-more impulse may have contemporary trappings, says David E. Shi, but the underlying ideal has been around for centuries. From Puritans and Quakers to Boy Scouts and hippies, our quest for the simple life is an enduring, complex tradition in American culture. Looking across more than three centuries of want and prosperity, war and peace, Shi introduces a rich cast of practitioners and proponents of the simple life, among them Thomas Jefferson, Henry David Thoreau, Jane Addams, Scott and Helen Nearing, and Jimmy Carter.In the diversity of their aspirations and failings, Shi finds that nothing is simple about our mercurial devotion to the ideal of plain living and high thinking. "Difficult choices are the price of simplicity," he writes in the book's revised epilogue. We may hedge a bit in the practice of simple living, and now and then we are driven by motives no deeper than nostalgia. Shi stresses, however, that the diverse efforts to avoid anxious social striving and compulsive materialism have been essential to the nation's spiritual health.

The beloved and best-selling America: A Narrative History family of books has been used by millions of students because of its enthralling storytelling that brings history to life. Award-winning teachers and scholars Daina Ramey Berry (University of California, Santa Barbara), Joseph Crespino (Emory University), and Amy Murrell Taylor (University of Kentucky) join lead author David Shi (Furman University) to enhance the balanced narrative with a focus on the diverse experiences of women in American history. Seamlessly integrated into the reading experience, new tools help students to read at the college level and engage with the building blocks of history: primary sources.

The beloved and best-selling America: A Narrative History family of books has been used by millions of students because of its enthralling storytelling that brings history to life. Award-winning teachers and scholars Daina Ramey Berry (University of California, Santa Barbara), Joseph Crespino (Emory University), and Amy Murrell Taylor (University of Kentucky) join lead author David Shi (Furman University) to enhance the balanced narrative with a focus on the diverse experiences of women in American history. Seamlessly integrated into the reading experience, new tools help students to read at the college level and engage with the building blocks of history: primary sources.

The beloved and best-selling America: A Narrative History family of books has been used by millions of students because of its enthralling storytelling that brings history to life. Award-winning teachers and scholars Daina Ramey Berry (University of California, Santa Barbara), Joseph Crespino (Emory University), and Amy Murrell Taylor (University of Kentucky) join lead author David Shi (Furman University) to enhance the balanced narrative with a focus on the diverse experiences of women in American history. Seamlessly integrated into the reading experience, new tools help students to read at the college level and engage with the building blocks of history: primary sources.

The beloved and best-selling America: A Narrative History family of books has been used by millions of students because of its enthralling storytelling that brings history to life. Award-winning teachers and scholars Daina Ramey Berry (University of California, Santa Barbara), Joseph Crespino (Emory University), and Amy Murrell Taylor (University of Kentucky) join lead author David Shi (Furman University) to enhance the balanced narrative with a focus on the diverse experiences of women in American history. Seamlessly integrated into the reading experience, new tools help students to read at the college level and engage with the building blocks of history: primary sources.

The beloved and best-selling America: A Narrative History family of books has been used by millions of students because of its enthralling storytelling that brings history to life. Award-winning teachers and scholars Daina Ramey Berry (University of California, Santa Barbara), Joseph Crespino (Emory University), and Amy Murrell Taylor (University of Kentucky) join lead author David Shi (Furman University) to enhance the balanced narrative with a focus on the diverse experiences of women in American history. Seamlessly integrated into the reading experience, new tools help students to read at the college level and engage with the building blocks of history: primary sources.

The beloved and best-selling America: A Narrative History family of books has been used by millions of students because of its enthralling storytelling that brings history to life. Award-winning teachers and scholars Daina Ramey Berry (University of California, Santa Barbara), Joseph Crespino (Emory University), and Amy Murrell Taylor (University of Kentucky) join lead author David Shi (Furman University) to enhance the balanced narrative with a focus on the diverse experiences of women in American history. Seamlessly integrated into the reading experience, new tools help students to read at the college level and engage with the building blocks of history: primary sources.

The beloved and best-selling America: A Narrative History family of books has been used by millions of students because of its enthralling storytelling that brings history to life. Award-winning teachers and scholars Daina Ramey Berry (University of California, Santa Barbara), Joseph Crespino (Emory University), and Amy Murrell Taylor (University of Kentucky) join lead author David Shi (Furman University) to enhance the balanced narrative with a focus on the diverse experiences of women in American history. Seamlessly integrated into the reading experience, new tools help students to read at the college level and engage with the building blocks of history: primary sources.

The beloved and best-selling America: A Narrative History family of books has been used by millions of students because of its enthralling storytelling that brings history to life. Award-winning teachers and scholars Daina Ramey Berry (University of California, Santa Barbara), Joseph Crespino (Emory University), and Amy Murrell Taylor (University of Kentucky) join lead author David Shi (Furman University) to enhance the balanced narrative with a focus on the diverse experiences of women in American history. Seamlessly integrated into the reading experience, new tools help students to read at the college level and engage with the building blocks of history: primary sources.

The beloved and best-selling America: A Narrative History family of books has been used by millions of students because of its enthralling storytelling that brings history to life. Award-winning teachers and scholars Daina Ramey Berry (University of California, Santa Barbara), Joseph Crespino (Emory University), and Amy Murrell Taylor (University of Kentucky) join lead author David Shi (Furman University) to enhance the balanced narrative with a focus on the diverse experiences of women in American history. Seamlessly integrated into the reading experience, new tools help students to read at the college level and engage with the building blocks of history: primary sources.

For the Record: A Documentary History of America tells the stories of American history through in-depth primary sources, both textual and visual, that give students more opportunities to explore diverse voices from the past. A wide variety of longer archival sources—including government documents, newspapers, speeches, letters, and contemporary literature—are surrounded by carefully considered pedagogical features that help students understand big-picture context and dig deeply into the readings. The new edition incorporates feedback from a range of instructors to ensure wide appeal and strong classroom performance as well as a new focus on the diverse experiences of women in American history.

For the Record: A Documentary History of America tells the stories of American history through in-depth primary sources, both textual and visual, that give students more opportunities to explore diverse voices from the past. A wide variety of longer archival sources—including government documents, newspapers, speeches, letters, and contemporary literature—are surrounded by carefully considered pedagogical features that help students understand big-picture context and dig deeply into the readings. The new edition incorporates feedback from a range of instructors to ensure wide appeal and strong classroom performance as well as a new focus on the diverse experiences of women in American history.

The beloved and best-selling America: A Narrative History family of books has been used by millions of students because of its enthralling storytelling that brings history to life. Award-winning teachers and scholars Daina Ramey Berry (University of California, Santa Barbara), Joseph Crespino (Emory University), and Amy Murrell Taylor (University of Kentucky) join lead author David Shi (Furman University) to enhance the balanced narrative with a focus on the diverse experiences of women in American history. Seamlessly integrated into the reading experience, new tools help students to read at the college level and engage with the building blocks of history: primary sources.