Karen Halttunen – författare

Although it offers an appropriately complex treatment of the American past, Boyer/Clark/Halttunen/Kett/Salisbury/Sitkoff/Woloch/Rieser's THE ENDURING VISION: A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, 10th EDITION, requires no prerequisite knowledge from students. The approach is not only comprehensive, but readable, lively and illuminating. It is attentive to the lived historical experiences of women, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans and Native Americans -- that is, of men and women of all ethnic groups, regions and social classes who make up the American mosaic. This text seeks to encourage students’ spatial thinking about historical developments by offering a map program rich in information, easy to read and visually appealing. Visual culture -- paintings, photographs, cartoons and other illustrations -- is investigated throughout all chapters in the volume.

Although it offers an appropriately complex treatment of the American past, Boyer/Clark/Halttunen/Kett/Salisbury/Sitkoff/Woloch/Rieser's THE ENDURING VISION: A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, 10th EDITION, requires no prerequisite knowledge from students. The approach is not only comprehensive, but readable, lively and illuminating. It is attentive to the lived historical experiences of women, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans and Native Americans -- that is, of men and women of all ethnic groups, regions and social classes who make up the American mosaic. This text seeks to encourage students’ spatial thinking about historical developments by offering a map program rich in information, easy to read and visually appealing. Visual culture -- paintings, photographs, cartoons and other illustrations -- is investigated throughout all chapters in the volume.

Although it offers an appropriately complex treatment of the American past, Boyer/Clark/Halttunen/Kett/Salisbury/Sitkoff/Woloch/Rieser's THE ENDURING VISION: A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, 10th EDITION, requires no prerequisite knowledge from students. The approach is not only comprehensive, but readable, lively and illuminating. It is attentive to the lived historical experiences of women, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans and Native Americans -- that is, of men and women of all ethnic groups, regions and social classes who make up the American mosaic. This text seeks to encourage students’ spatial thinking about historical developments by offering a map program rich in information, easy to read and visually appealing. Visual culture -- paintings, photographs, cartoons and other illustrations -- is investigated throughout all chapters in the volume.

A Companion to American Cultural History offers a historiographic overview of the scholarship, with special attention to the major studies and debates that have shaped the field, and an assessment of where it is currently headed. 30 essays explore the history of American culture at all analytic levelsWritten by scholarly experts well-versed in the questions and controversies that have activated interest in this burgeoning fieldPart of the authoritative Blackwell Companions to American History seriesProvides both a chronological and thematic approach: topics range from British America in the Eighteenth Century to the modern day globalization of American Culture; thematic approaches include gender and sexuality and popular culture

Confronting murder in the newspaper, on screen, and in sensational trials, we often feel the killer is fundamentally incomprehensible and morally alien. But this was not always the popular response to murder. In Murder Most Foul, Karen Halttunen explores the changing view of murder from early New England sermons read at the public execution of murderers, through the nineteenth century, when secular and sensational accounts replaced the sacred treatment of the crime, to today's true crime literature and tabloid reports.The early narratives were shaped by a strong belief in original sin and spiritual redemption, by the idea that all murders were natural manifestations of the innate depravity of humankind. In a dramatic departure from that view, the Gothic imagination--with its central conventions of the fundamental horror and mystery of the crime--seized upon the murderer as a moral monster, separated from the normal majority by an impassable gulf. Halttunen shows how this perception helped shape the modern response to criminal transgression, mandating criminal incarceration, and informing a social-scientific model of criminal deviance.The Gothic expression of horror and inhumanity is the predominant response to radical evil today; it has provided a set of conventions surrounding tales of murder that appear to be natural and instinctive, when in fact they are rooted in the nineteenth century. Halttunen's penetrating insight into her extraordinary treasure trove of creepy popular crime literature reveals how our stories have failed to make sense of the killer and how that failure has constrained our understanding and treatment of criminality today.

American history is filled with moments of grave moral doubt and institutional crisis, with conflicts over fundamental values, with ethical dilemmas and paradoxes. This volume surveys the moral landscape of the American past from slavery to the Vietnam War. Bringing together fourteen of the most original historians practicing today, the book illuminates a critical dimension of American history, even as it shows how historical study contributes to present-day debates about values and the moral life.These essays examine a wide range of questions that have engaged past generations of Americans and persist into the present—questions about the composition of a moral community and the case for civil disobedience, about the appropriate responses to injustices and inequalities, and about the ethical implications of artistic expression, school curricula, sexual behaviors, and popular media. Focusing on the impact of moral problems on everyday experience, the authors consider these questions in light of reform movements and religious practices; changing social institutions such as marriage, public schools, labor unions, and penitentiaries; and enduring moral forces from the Bible to the U.S. Constitution. Together their essays give historical context to a wide variety of American practices and beliefs and, in doing so, provide a new framework for understanding cultural life.

American history is filled with moments of grave moral doubt and institutional crisis, with conflicts over fundamental values, with ethical dilemmas and paradoxes. This volume surveys the moral landscape of the American past from slavery to the Vietnam War. Bringing together fourteen of the most original historians practicing today, the book illuminates a critical dimension of American history, even as it shows how historical study contributes to present-day debates about values and the moral life.These essays examine a wide range of questions that have engaged past generations of Americans and persist into the present—questions about the composition of a moral community and the case for civil disobedience, about the appropriate responses to injustices and inequalities, and about the ethical implications of artistic expression, school curricula, sexual behaviors, and popular media. Focusing on the impact of moral problems on everyday experience, the authors consider these questions in light of reform movements and religious practices; changing social institutions such as marriage, public schools, labor unions, and penitentiaries; and enduring moral forces from the Bible to the U.S. Constitution. Together their essays give historical context to a wide variety of American practices and beliefs and, in doing so, provide a new framework for understanding cultural life.

A Companion to American Cultural History offers a historiographic overview of the scholarship, with special attention to the major studies and debates that have shaped the field, and an assessment of where it is currently headed. 30 essays explore the history of American culture at all analytic levelsWritten by scholarly experts well-versed in the questions and controversies that have activated interest in this burgeoning fieldPart of the authoritative Blackwell Companions to American History seriesProvides both a chronological and thematic approach: topics range from British America in the Eighteenth Century to the modern day globalization of American Culture; thematic approaches include gender and sexuality and popular culture

THE ENDURING VISION: A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, VOLUME 2: SINCE 1865, 8E, International Edition’s engaging narrative integrates political, social, and cultural history within a chronological framework. Known for its focus on the environment and the land, the text is also praised for its innovative coverage of cultural history, public health and medicine, and the West--including Native American history. The eighth edition incorporates new scholarship throughout, includes a variety of new photos, and brings the discussion fully up to date with coverage of the 2012 presidential campaign. Based on the popularity of the “Going to the Source” feature, which was introduced in the previous edition, additional “Going to the Source” selections are offered online in the eighth edition. Available in the following split options: THE ENDURING VISION, Eighth Edition Complete, International Edition, Volume 1: To 1877, International Edition, and Volume 2: Since 1865, International Edition.

THE ENDURING VISION's engaging narrative integrates political, social, and cultural history within a chronological framework. Known for its focus on the environment and the land, the text is also praised for its innovative coverage of cultural history, public health and medicine, and the West -- including Native American history. The ninth edition incorporates new scholarship throughout, includes a variety of new photos, and brings the discussion fully up to date with coverage of the 2016 presidential campaign.