American History Series – serie

Like its predecessor, the second edition of Politics as Usual, treats the decade and a half after World War II as a discrete historical era, the end of which represents a watershed in the political life of the nation. Despite the pressures created by the Cold War and the challenges posed by developing nations, American politics from 1945 to 1960 reflects a relatively stable equilibrium. Although from different political parties, Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower shared a basic caution in fiscal affairs and an acceptance of the global responsibilities thrust on the United States after the war. Meanwhile, Democrats and Republicans continued to contest elections along the familiar fault lines formed during the New Deal, and the American electorate divided its loyalties relatively evenly between the two major parties.Since 1988, when the first edition of Politics as Usual appeared, much has happened to affect our perspective on American political life during the Truman-Eisenhower years. Of greatest importance, the end of the Cold War and the subsequent opening of significant new sources from “the other side” allow us to see through a different prism the decisions and stances taken by American presidents and policymakers. In addition to considering the impact of the new—and newly informed—historical literature, Reichard gives more attention to the challenges posed by the formation of Israel, the rise of Arab nationalism in the 1940s and 1950s, the Korean War, the early stages of United States involvement in Vietnam, and CIA operations. This second edition also features a new photographic essay.

In preparing the long-awaited second edition of his well-liked text, Kent Newmyer consulted the best and most relevant of the recent scholarship on the antebellum Court, prompting him to revise important points in the story of the Court’s evolution.Nevertheless, the revised edition of the text retains the basic format and the conceptual premise of the original: the unique contributions of the Marshall and Taney courts taken together laid the foundation for the modern institution. Understanding the Supreme Court during its formative period provides useful insights into its continued (and hotly debated) involvement in shaping American society. Seminal cases that came before the Court, such as Marbury v. Madison and Dred Scott v. Sanford are examined in detail.Besides touting a thoroughly revised bibliographical essay, the second edition of The Supreme Court under Marshall and Taney includes an entirely new bank of illustrations and an index of important cases, making it perfect as supplementary reading for the U.S. history survey as well as courses in U.S. legal history and the history of the Early Republic.

This startlingly original and highly readable volume adds a new richness and depth to an element of U.S. history that is all too often taken for granted. In American Consumer Society, Regina Lee Blaszczyk examines the emergence of consumerism in the Victorian era, and, in tracing its evolution over the next 140 years, shows how the emergence of a mass market was followed by its fragmentation. Niche marketing focused on successive waves of new consumers as each made its presence known: Irish immigrants, urban African Americans, teenagers, computer geeks, and soccer moms, to name but a few.Blaszczyk demonstrates that middle-class consumerism is an intrinsic part of American identity, but exactly how consumerism reflected that identity changed over time. Initially driven to imitate those who had already achieved success, Americans eventually began to use their purchases to express themselves. This led to a fundamental change in American culture—one in which the American reverence for things was replaced by a passion for experiences. New Millennium families no longer treasured exquisite china or dress in fine clothes, but they’ll spare no expense on being able to make phone calls, retrieve emails, watch ESPN, or visit web sites at any place, any time. Victorian mothers just wouldn’t understand.Using materials and techniques from business history, art history, anthropology, sociology, material culture, and good story-telling, this lavishly illustrated and highly thoughtful narrative offers a compelling re-interpretation of American culture through the lens of consumerism, making it perfect for use not only as supplementary reading in the U.S. survey, but also for a variety of courses in Business, Culture, Economics, Marketing, and Fashion and Design history.

Scholars continue to differ over when African Americans’ struggle for civil rights began—as well as whether it has actually ended. In the long-awaited volume in our illustrious American History Series, Daniel Aldridge presents a critical and analytical study of the many different leaders and organizations, with special attention to the largely unsung ones whom most student readers never hear about, whose efforts eventually overturned the South’s legal and extralegal system of racial discrimination known as Jim Crow, radically transforming society in that blacks fully became part of the American nation. Regardless of one’s point of view, no one can dispute that African Americans’ long but successful quest for civil rights stands as one of the defining elements in United States history.Becoming American makes ideal reading for courses on the history of the Civil Rights movement as well as a superb supplement to survey courses in African American and United States history.

This 3rd edition presents a concise overview of how the war was fought as well as a consideration of the ways in which Americans regarded allies and enemies, embraced heroes, and viewed the war's purpose. Making the important distinction between popular notions and military and political realities, Gary Hess helps today's readers to better understand the complexity of the conflict. Updated to incorporate the latest scholarship, this latest edition also includes new material to underscore more fully the moral dimensions of the war, including the American decision to use the atomic bomb, the ruthless campaigns of both the Germans and Russians in Eastern Europe, American reaction to the Holocaust as well as the government's post-war tolerance and protection of Nazis deemed valuable to Cold War research and intelligence. Enhanced coverage of specific topics including the Bataan Death March, the Battle of the Bulge, and the Allied uncovering of concentration camps rounds out the narrative.

New scholarship on World War II continues to broaden our understanding. With each passing year we know more about the triumphs and the tragedies of America’s involvement in the momentous conflict. Tapping into this greater awareness of the accomplishments of both soldiers and civilians and a better recognition of the consequences of decisions made, Allan Winkler presents the third edition of his highly popular series volume.Informed by the latest historical literature and featuring many new thoughtfully chosen photographs, the third edition of Home Front U.S.A. continues to ponder the question of "the good war," the moral implications of the use of the atomic bomb, the implications of expanding wartime roles for women, African Americans, American Jews, the imprisonment of Japanese Americans at the hands of the federal government, and the experiences of the many other people who, though relegated to the fringe of mainstream society, contributed in important ways to the nation's successful prosecution of its greatest challenge.

In this engaging, succinct study of the accomplishments and difficulties of the young American republic, key historical questions are discussed with references to important scholarship. Among the topics covered are the development of political parties, the animosity between the Republicans and Federalists and the eventual disintegration of the latter group, the leadership abilities of the first presidents, and the foreign relations problems that led to the War of 1812.

A principal theme of the 1920s was "paradox," and Professor Carter explains the tensions that existed between city and country, progress and nostalgia for the past, progressive attitudes and the persistence of bigotry. Carter also provides incisive reevaluations of some archetypal figures of the era, such as Coolidge, Lindbergh, and Hemingway, and suggests new ways of considering events and developments such as jazz, popular sports, the Scopes trial, and isolationism.

EXCERPT: "So great was the ferment of reform in the pre-Civil War United States that to understand it, to grasp the motives of the reformers, the nature of their work, their successes and failures, is to understand much about the American nation as a whole. To be sure, there was more to antebellum history than reform. At the same time that the reformers were trying to change men's ideas and actions, other Americans were holding fast to traditional concepts and ways of doing things. Even as the reformers were battering the walls of unrighteousness, both they and other men were taming wild nature for human use, expanding the nation's boundaries and settled areas at the expense of Indians and Mexicans, adapting its political institutions and political parties to the needs of a restless and growing people, wrestling with the thousand and one problems inherent in the pursuit of happiness. Yet historians have believed that the myriad of reforms and reformers offer a meaning for much of the whirl of confusion and change that was America in the antebellum years. They offer as well, some historians have claimed, valuable insights into the difficulties the Americans encountered when they tried to give concrete meaning to their cherished ideals-so often voiced, so little understood-of democracy and freedom."

EXCERPT: "The half century between the War of 1812 and the Civil War was above all an age of expansiveness in America. Whether measured in terms of population, territory, urbanization, economic growth, technological development, democratization, or nationalism, American society was transformed quantitatively and qualitatively at a spectacular rate. What Americans thought about themselves, their country, and their universe was always tightly linked to the changes they confronted, and the ideas they shared and disputed were both a product of and a commentary upon the expanding political, social, and economic democracy of the period. Strictly speaking, of course, there was no "American mind" during this period, since Americans were then, as they are now, of many minds. Child and adult, man and woman, native and foreign born, Northerner and Southerner, slave and citizen-everyone who lived in America lived in a world of ideas and values shaped in part by a particular history and particular circumstances. However, as Tocqueville observed after visiting America in the 1830s, the citizens of any vigorous society are usually "rallied and held together by certain predominant ideas." Except for the chapter on the slave-holding South, we will be concerned here with the dominant ideas and values most Americans shared and identified with their new nation during the years from 1815 to 1860."

A brief, interpretive analysis of the highly ambitious American reform movements from the 1890s to 1917 that shows progressivism to have been a vital and significant phenomenon although there was no unified progressive movement. Link and McCormick succeed in making the events comprehensible while at the same time conveying a strong sense of the complexity and contradictions of the era.

Historians have long argued about the nature of the changes that occurred in American foreign policy at the turn of the century, and whether those changes represented an abrupt break from the past or the culmination of long-term trends. Beisner addresses these issues by recasting the questions involved, and synthesizes the most useful contributions of both traditional and revisionist historians. From the Old Diplomacy to the New reinterprets the entire period as one in which American foreign policy underwent a fundamental paradigm shift that affected the goals and methods of diplomacy. A commitment to systematic policy and a determination to promote American interests in a dangerous world characterized the "new diplomacy."

This book explores the interrelated themes of modernization and slavery, issues that created reform movements in the North, defensive sectionalism in the South, social disruption, and a general failure of political leadership. During this period the Union underwent the increasing strains of uneven social and economic development. Modernization and slavery provide the backdrop for the action and reaction of northern and southern players who sought but ultimately failed to allow an accommodation that would let competing social and economic institutions coexist.

Demonstrating the intellectual excitement that is the practice of history at its best, Paul Conkin's The New Deal is still one of the best known titles in the very popular American History Series, edited by John Hope Franklin and A. S. Eisenstadt.The New Deal is still the best succinct and coherent description of a chaotic period. It is an account of the major domestic policies adopted during the Roosevelt administration. It is also a rich portrait of Roosevelt the man and consummate politician, and the satellite figures around him. This highly interpretive text, with its spirited and often subtle assessments of New Deal personalities and programs, will continue to bring the period to life for new generations of students. Includes extensive photo essay.

America's origins are inextricably linked to warfare. In Struggle for a Continent, John Ferling tells the complex story of conquest and survival not only in the encounters between European settlers and the native peoples of North America, but also the North American wars among the great powers of Europe to win hegemony in America. While Professor Ferling's unflinching narrative recounts the heroism, anguish, terror, treachery, and barbarism of early American warfare, it also carefully addresses questions such as: the difference between the nature of warfare in America and that in Europe; who in the colonies soldiered in these wars; the changing role of the militia; and how warfare affected civilians. The author assesses the capabilities of America's amateur soldiers and Europe's professionals and examines the nature of Indian warfare. Finally Professor Ferling links the warfare of the colonial era to the American Revolution itself.

In this distinctive study of the impact of immigration and ethnicity on twentieth-century America, Barkan thoughtfully examines the changing composition of our immigrant populations, highlighting the ways in which certain facets of the struggle to adapt to American society have persisted from the 1920s until the 1990s. Going beyond the immigrant experience, Barkan considers the ways in which second- and third-generation Americans stress integration, even as they cling to important components of their ethnicity, not only adapting to American culture but shaping it. Featuring a moving photographic essay and coming alive with first-person accounts, And Still They Come is certain to provide important food for thought as Americans once more consider the narrowing gateways to the nation.

Such is the continuing volume of work on the Civil War that we are regularly in need of an authoritative and accessible brief synthesis to keep us up to date with this endlessly fascinating subject. Brooks Simpson meets that need for the 1990s in America's Civil War, a wonderful feat of compression in which he addresses all the great issues of the war in 200 pages of clear and readable prose. Rightly, he puts the military history of the conflict at the center of the picture, but he excels in relating the drama of the war itself to the politics of both Union and Confederacy, to the stresses and strains-and opportunities-of the home front, and to the great issues of emancipation and reconstruction. This book is a fine achievement, and it will be invaluable not only to students but to many other readers-and even Civil War specialists will benefit from its fresh insights.–Peter J. Parish, Cambridge University

Often Gilded-Age politics has been described as devoid of content or accomplishment, a mere spectacle to divert voters from thinking about the real issues of the day. But by focusing too closely on dramatic scandals and on the foibles of prominent politicians, many historians have tended to obscure other aspects of late nineteenth-century politics that proved to be of great and long-term significance.With the latest scholarship in mind, Professor Cherny provides a deft and highly readable analysis that is certain to help readers better understand the characteristics and important products of Gilded-Age politics. Topics covered include: voting behavior; the relation between the popular will and the formation of public policy; the cause and effect of the deadlock in national politics that lasted from the mid-1870s to the 1890s; the sources of political innovation at state and local levels; and the notable changes wrought during the 1890s that ushered in important new forms of American politics.

In America and the Great War, 1914-1920, the accomplished writing team of D. Clayton James and Anne Sharp Wells provides a succinct account of the principal military, political, and social developments in United States History as the nation responded to, and was changed by, a world in crisis.A forthright examination of America's unprecedented military commitment and actions abroad, America and the Great War includes insights into the personalities of key Allied officers and civilian leaders as well as the evolution of the new American "citizen soldier." Full coverage is given to President Wilson's beleaguered second term, the experience of Americans-including women, minorities, and recent arrivals-on the home front, and the lasting changes left in the Great War's wake.

This is a soul-stirring era," remarked the Reverend William Mitchell in 1835, "and will be so recorded in the annals of time." Countless antebellum reformers agreed. The United States was awash in efforts to change itself, a "sisterhood of reforms" emerging to characterize the efforts of hundreds of thousands of Americans. In all of this, women played an important role.In her latest publication, Professor Ginzberg offers a view of women and antebellum reform through two lenses: one focused on the ideas about women, religion, class, and race that shaped reform movements; and another that observes actual women as they participated in the work of social change. For women, a commitment to reform offered a broader sense of their place in the world-and of their responsibility to set it aright. By considering the efforts of these women-distributing bibles, tracts, and charity, fighting intemperance, opposing slavery, or demanding their rights as women-the reader gains a richer understanding of the antebellum era itself.

In his latest publication, William L. O'Neill presents a concise critical history of the New Left, the thinking, people, and events that helped shape the 1960s in America, and its principal heir, the Academic Left. The first two chapters of this lively, interpretive narrative relate the history of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), an organization that despite such well-publicized actions as the first mass protest in Washington against the Vietnam War and the student strike that shut down Columbia University, was unable to expand beyond its student base or survive a factional split. Next covered is the theatrical Left, notably those at the head of the Yippie movement who skillfully manipulated the mainstream media to garner enormous publicity for their stunts and staged events but whose movement, like the SDS, failed to survive the decade.Chapter Four follows the major figures in the story-Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden, the Weathermen, Timothy Leary and others, and sifts through various theories to conclude why and how the New Left burned out so quickly. Finally, Chapter Five addresses the legacy of the New Left in the rise of the Academic Left, which, while riddled with ironies, remains entrenched in academe today.

An adept distillation of the scholarship that has been produced since the 1950s-thoughtfully reorganized and updated to include a consideration of new works that have appeared since 1987-this new edition of Michael Perman's highly popular book examines the ways in which historians have interpreted what was perhaps the largest program of domestic reform undertaken in the history of the United States.In addition to accessing the impact of what might best be described as a maturation of the Revisionist history of Emancipation and Reconstruction, Perman introduces previously neglected areas of interest that have assumed new significance, such as the nature of the southern labor system after slavery and the role of African Americans in Reconstruction politics.The result is a lucid portrait of the post-Civil War years, one reluctant to employ such simplistic and judgemental terms as success or failure in assessing the complex problems of rebuilding the nation.

Sport in Industrial America, 1850-1920 presents the second edition of Stephen A. Riess’s well-loved synthesis of the development of sport during one of the most transformational times in the nation’s history. New edition maintains the book’s acclaimed level of research, analysis, and readabilityExplores topics including urbanization, ethnicity, class, sport in educational institutions, women in sport, and sport’s role in manifesting city, regional, and national pride.Includes an entirely new chapter on the globalization of American sportIncludes a new bank of photographs and images.Features a newly revised and updated Bibliographical Essay

Working Hard for the American Dream examines the various economic, social, and political developments that shaped labor history in the United States from World War I until the present day. Presents an overview of labor history that also considers women workers, ethnic America, and post-World War II workersIncorporates the most recent scholarship in labor historyTakes the story of labor up to the present day in a readable and accessible manner

Working Hard for the American Dream examines the various economic, social, and political developments that shaped labor history in the United States from World War I until the present day. Presents an overview of labor history that also considers women workers, ethnic America, and post-World War II workersIncorporates the most recent scholarship in labor historyTakes the story of labor up to the present day in a readable and accessible manner

The Progressives offers comprehensive coverage of the origins, evolution, and notable events that came to define the pivotal period of American history known as the Progressive Era. Offers a rich, in-depth analysis of who the progressives were and the process through which they identified and attacked social, economic, and political injusticesFeatures an up-to-date synthesis of the literature of the field including comprehensive treatment of the role of women in the Progressive MovementConsiders the movement's enduring impact – and how its vision for a better society became transfixed in the American social consciousness and helped to create the modern welfare statePart of the well-respected American History seriesIntegrates themes of class, race, ethnicity, and gender throughout, offering a concise and engaging account of a fascinating era in U.S. history that forever changed the relationship between a democratic government and its citizens

The Progressives offers comprehensive coverage of the origins, evolution, and notable events that came to define the pivotal period of American history known as the Progressive Era. Offers a rich, in-depth analysis of who the progressives were and the process through which they identified and attacked social, economic, and political injusticesFeatures an up-to-date synthesis of the literature of the field including comprehensive treatment of the role of women in the Progressive MovementConsiders the movement's enduring impact – and how its vision for a better society became transfixed in the American social consciousness and helped to create the modern welfare statePart of the well-respected American History seriesIntegrates themes of class, race, ethnicity, and gender throughout, offering a concise and engaging account of a fascinating era in U.S. history that forever changed the relationship between a democratic government and its citizens

"Times Are Altered with Us": American Indians from Contact to the New Republic offers a concise and engaging introduction to the turbulent 300-year-period of the history of Native Americans and their interactions with Europeans—and then Americans—from 1492 to 1800. Considers the interactions of American Indians at many points of "First Contact" across North America, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific and Atlantic CoastsExplores the early years of contact, trade, reciprocity, and colonization, from initial engagement of different Indian and European peoples—Spanish, French, Dutch, English, and Russian—up to the start of tenuous and stormy relations with the new American governmentCharts the rapid decline in American Indian populations due to factors including epidemic Old World diseases, genocide and warfare by explorers and colonists, tribal warfare, and the detrimental effects of resource ruination and displacement from traditional landsFeatures a completely up-to-date synthesis of the literature of the fieldIncorporates useful student features, including maps, illustrations, and a comprehensive and evaluative Bibliographical EssayWritten in an engaging style by an expert in Native American history and designed for use in both the U.S. history survey as well as dedicated courses in Native American studies

"Times Are Altered with Us": American Indians from Contact to the New Republic offers a concise and engaging introduction to the turbulent 300-year-period of the history of Native Americans and their interactions with Europeans—and then Americans—from 1492 to 1800. Considers the interactions of American Indians at many points of "First Contact" across North America, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific and Atlantic CoastsExplores the early years of contact, trade, reciprocity, and colonization, from initial engagement of different Indian and European peoples—Spanish, French, Dutch, English, and Russian—up to the start of tenuous and stormy relations with the new American governmentCharts the rapid decline in American Indian populations due to factors including epidemic Old World diseases, genocide and warfare by explorers and colonists, tribal warfare, and the detrimental effects of resource ruination and displacement from traditional landsFeatures a completely up-to-date synthesis of the literature of the fieldIncorporates useful student features, including maps, illustrations, and a comprehensive and evaluative Bibliographical EssayWritten in an engaging style by an expert in Native American history and designed for use in both the U.S. history survey as well as dedicated courses in Native American studies