History of the Americas Books

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Book SynopsisRed, White and Radical explores how and why America has become so conservative since World War II. In the process, it offers lessons that professional leaders, regardless of their political stance, should heed if they want their organisational change plans to succeed. Over the past 70 years, a motley crew of suburban activists, libertarian businessmen and political opportunists have radically changed America and its national values. The rise of American conservatism is the greatest modern example of cultural change in the Western world. How did they do it and what can we learn from this? Red, White and Radical is a manual for organisational change. It tells nine stories from American cultural, political and business history that illuminate how conservatives have pioneered change. From these stories, it extracts a change management lesson for professional leaders and explains how to apply that lesson in the workplace.These nine lessons are organised iTrade Review"Here is that rare management book - original, engaging, and thought-provoking. Combining travelogue, history, and psychology, among other ingredients, Warrick Harniess provides a cleverly distilled analysis of how a particular kind of conservatism has triumphed in the USA. Even more significantly, he explains what this means for change management in organisations." - Michael Keaney, Senior Lecturer, Metropolia Business School, Finland"This book is much more than a recipe for organizational change. Warrick Harniess dissects the last 50 years of American politics like a surgeon, offering the reader invaluable lessons and a practical roadmap to successfully lead complex organizational transformations. His back to the future narrative will soon be used by many corporations focused on recovering from this pandemic era. Red, White and Radical is already one of the best management books of the decade." - Marcos Gorgojo, Director of Faculty, Headspring, by Financial Times & IE Business School"Understanding culture matters if we want effectively to influence it. This book uses contemporary vignettes to tell a story of the tensions between culture and conservatism in the US. It is timely. We are probably living through a technologically propelled revolution. Traditional societal organisational models and modus operandi have broken down and geo-political boundaries shattered. Relationships between the State, the organisation and the individual have been caught up in the backwash, without a tested map to follow. This innovative narrative stimulates thought and possible new approaches based upon historic evidence. I enjoyed the read and it has made me reflect in a way, and on issues, that hitherto I hadn’t." - Professor Chris Birch, University of Greenwich, UK"Red, White and Radical is a highly original take on American history, politics, culture and the findings of social psychology to illuminate how instigators of corporate change can increase their effectiveness. Utterly engrossing and required reading for business academics and executives alike." - David Molian, Visiting Fellow, Cranfield School of Management and Thought Leader, Criticaleye"Warrick is a natural storyteller. Red, White and Radical is a fast-paced, informative and entertaining read which takes us on a journey through recent American history, interweaving political, cultural and business themes whilst drawing well-informed conclusions for successfully leading transformational change programmes. An engrossing and entertaining manual for change leaders and anyone interested in making sense of today’s American politics." - Angus Blackwood, Managing Director at The Hawk Media Partnership"There is no mundane, step-based, linear change process in this book. The dazzling shifts in thinking and incessant imagination underpinning deep research into American cultural history rewards the reader with a set of change tactics that can underpin the type of radical organisational transformation necessary in the digital era." - Dr. Richard Claydon, CEO roundPegz, and Lecturer in Leadership, Macquarie Business Schools Global MBA, Australia"Red, White and Radical works very well as an examination of the complexities of human behaviour and the challenges of organisational change. Harniess draws fascinating case study parallels with the rise of political conservatism and the resultant challenges and successes of organisational change initiatives. The book offers change agents and organisation leaders a new perspective that I am unaware has been presented before." - Roma Bhowmick, Business Strategy and Organisational Change Consultant"Red, White and Radical is a highly original, intelligent and stylish book about modern American conservatism and organisational change, which quickly reveals itself to be the greatest story of sustained culture change in recent times. In fact, I believe nobody can properly understand change management without reading this book, and have therefore made it essential reading for my Change Management class." - Dr Nuno da Camara, MBA Director & Principal Teaching Fellow in Organisational Behaviour and Human Resources, University of Southampton, Southampton, UKTable of ContentsAbout the Author, Introduction, Part I: People Change, Case Story 1: Marlboro, What Can We Learn from Case Story 1? Case Story 2: Suburbia, What Can We Learn from Case Story 2? Case Story 3: Personas, What Can We Learn from Case Story 3? Part II: Communicating Change, Case Story 4: Freedom, What Can We Learn from Case Story 4? Case Story 5: Entertainment, What Can We Learn from Case Story 5? Case Story 6: Channels, What Can We Learn from Case Story 6? Part III: Leading Change, Case Story 7: Misfits, What Can We Learn from Case Story 7? Case Story 8: Networks, What Can We Learn from Case Story 8? Case Story 9: Trump, What Can We Learn from Case Story 9? Epilogue, Index

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Book SynopsisNew Perspectives on Russian-American Relations includes eighteen articles on Russian-American relations from an international roster of leading historians. Covering topics such as trade, diplomacy, art, war, public opinion, race, culture, and more, the essays show how the two nations related to one another across time from their first interactions as nations in the eighteenth century to now. Instead of being dominated by the narrative of the Cold War, New Perspectives on Russian-American Relations models the exciting new scholarship that covers more than the political and diplomatic worlds of the later twentieth century and provides scholars with a wide array of the newest research in the field.Table of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroduction – William Benton Whisenhunt and Norman E. Saul1: Russia, the United States, and Great Britain on the Pacific Northwest at the End of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries – Alexander Iu, Petrov2: The Russian Federalist Papers: Aleksei Evstaf’ev, the War of 1812, and Russian-American Relations -- Susan Smith-Peter3. The End of the Winans Brothers Railroad Enterprise in Russia --Vladimir V. Noskov4. In Service to the Tsar: American Surgeons in the Crimean War, 1853-1856 -- William Benton Whisenhunt5. Abolition of Serfdom in Russia and American Newspaper and Journal Opinion – Ivan Kurilla6. Intrigue, Scandal, and International Diplomacy: A Reexamination of The Perkins Claim—Lee Farrow7. The Establishment of Russian Studies at the University of Chicago—Pavel Tribunskiy8. The Tsar's power explained to America: Notes from a 1905 homily. -- Monica Cognolato9. A Sick Dostoevsky and Rich, Healthy Shopkeepers: Maxim Gorky’s Critique of America via Dostoevsky -- Erich Lippman10. Rediscovering the "Living Human Documents" of a Goodwill Initiative: Letters from Russian Soldiers Cared for at the City Hospital of the American Colony in Petrograd, 1914– 1918 -- Lyubov Ginzburg11. Rethinking Russia in the United States during the First World War:Mr. Sigma’s American Voyage -- Victoria I. Zhuravleva12. The American YMCA and Russian Politics: Critics and Supporters of Socialism, 1900-1940 -- Matthew Lee Miller13. Cyril Briggs and The Crusader: Black Engagement with Soviet Russia -- Kathleen S. Macfie14. Margaret Bourke-White and Soviet Russia -- Ada Ackerman15. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the USSR, 1933-1945. An Interpretation -- Vladimir V. Sogrin16. The Program that Shattered the Iron Curtain: The Lacy-Zarubin (Eisenhower-Khrushchev) Agreement of January 1958 -- Norman E. Saul17. "Academic Détente": Soviet Americanists as Exchange Scholars during the Brezhnev Era -- Sergei I. Zhuk18. The US, Russia, and Ukraine: End of an Era or Same Old Story? -- Paul D’AnieriContributorsIndex

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Book SynopsisThrough close analysis of primary source textual documents produced by the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) between 1947 and 1968, this unique text reveals the undocumented influence of the FSI on K-12 language instruction and assessment in the United States.By investigating the historical development of the FSI and its attitudes and practices around language learning and bilingualism, this text provides in-depth insight into the changing value of bilingualism in the US, and highlights how the FSIâs practices around language instruction and assessment continue to influence language instruction in American public schools. By mapping the development and integration of language proficiency assessments which strongly resemble those used by the FSI, historical analysis uncovers key political and economic motivations for increased promotion of language instruction in the US education system.Providing insights into issues of language instruction and assessment in public education that persist today, this book will be particularly useful to researchers and students interested in how policy formation has shaped language instruction and assessment in US public schools. Table of ContentsPart I: Historical Background and the Role of the Foreign Service Institute in the United States 1. Development of the FSI and its Governmental Language Proficiency Assessment Framework 2. 1700s to mid-1940s Part II: Document Analysis and Historical Milestones 1945-1968 3. 1945-1952 4. 1953-1960 5. 1961–1968 Part III: Bilingualism Becomes Increasingly More Important 6. 1970s-2000s 7. US National Security and Global Economic Competitivity

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Book SynopsisThe Ancient Central Andes presents a general overview of the prehistoric peoples and cultures of the Central Andes, the region now encompassing most of Peru and significant parts of Ecuador, Bolivia, northern Chile, and northwestern Argentina.The book contextualizes past and modern scholarship and provides a balanced view of current research. Two opening chapters present the intellectual, political, and practical background and history of research in the Central Andes and the spatial, temporal, and formal dimensions of the study of its past. Chapters then proceed in chronological order from remote antiquity to the Spanish Conquest. A number of important themes run through the book, including: the tension between those scholars who wish to study Peruvian antiquity on a comparative basis and those who take historicist approaches; the concept of Lo Andino, commonly used by many specialists that assumes long-term, unchanging patterns of culture some of which are claimed Trade Review"The first edition of The Ancient Central Andes was the best text on the region when it came out in 2014. This new edition maintains that preeminence. Jeffrey Quilter has brought the narrative up to date with the most exciting and significant recent discoveries—this is the text for a course on the ancient Andes and a valuable addition to every archaeologist's bookshelf." Daniel H. Sandweiss, Professor of Anthropology and Climate Studies, University of Maine, USATable of Contents1. Backgrounds; 2. Space, time, and form in the Central Andes; 3. The Early and Middle Preceramic Periods; 4. The Late Preceramic Period; 5. The Initial Period; 6. The Early Horizon; 7. The Early Intermediate Period; 8. The Middle Horizon; 9. The Late Intermediate Period; 10. The Late Horizon; 11. The Conquest and Colonial Periods

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Book SynopsisShe Took Justice: The Black Woman, Law, and Power â 1619 to 1969 proves that The Black Woman liberated herself. Readers go on a journey from the invasion of Africa into the Colonial period and the Civil Rights Movement. The Black Woman reveals power, from Queen Nzingha to Shirley Chisholm.In She Took Justice, we see centuries of courage in the face of racial prejudice and gender oppression. We gain insight into American history through The Black Woman's fight against race laws, especially criminal injustice. She became an organizer, leader, activist, lawyer, and judge â a fighter in her own advancement.These engaging true stories show that, for most of American history, the law was an enemy to The Black Woman. Using perseverance, tenacity, intelligence, and faith, she turned the law into a weapon to combat discrimination, a prestigious occupation, and a platform from which she could lift others as she rose. This is a book for every reader.Trade ReviewVividly written and profoundly researched, Gloria Browne-Marshall has gifted us with the lives of bold brilliant women of African descent who fought for freedom, equality, dignity. This timely and riveting book is urgently needed, now!—Blanche Wiesen Cook, author, Eleanor Roosevelt, Vols I, II, IIIGloria Browne-Marshall has written a powerful primer for everyone in America who needs to know that Black women have never needed to be saved. —Khalil Gibran Muhammad, author, The Condemnation of Blackness. Professor of History, Race and Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy SchoolBrowne-Marshall lifts the voices of these Black women so that the world may see the depths to which they have succumbed and the ground they have covered in their quest to liberate and advocate for social justice. —Brenda M. Greene, Professor of English and Founder/Executive Director of the Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College (CUNY)Scholar-Activist Gloria Browne-Marshall has done it again. She took Justice is a tour-de-force. These Black women, despite the racial and gender vagaries of their time, pursued justice at all cost, including the endangerment of their own lives. —Shaun L. Gabbidon, Distinguished Professor of Criminal Justice, Penn State University-Harrisburg She Took Justice gives the world a new story told beautifully. It is a miraculous ride. This book provides substantial evidence that the Black Woman's power existed well beyond the confines of law or the traditional telling of American history.—Pamela Meanes, Past President of the National Bar Association and law partner Thompson Coburn, LLCTable of ContentsAcknowledgments; Timeline of Selected Cases and Events; Prelude; 1. We Were Queens; 2. Her Bondage; 3. Trials and Tribulations; 4. Female Fugitives; 5. Slaves in Court; 6. Segregated Freedom; 7. Lynched, Raped, and Violated; 8. Her Mind Matters; 9. Politics of Freedom; 10. A Force for Good; 11. She Is an Activist; 12. Sankofa; Table of Cases; Bibliography; Index

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Book SynopsisThe War of American Independence, 17631783: Falling Dominoes addresses the military, maritime and naval, economic, key personalities, key societal groups, political, imperial rivalry, and diplomatic dynamics and events from the post-Seven Years' War era in Great Britain's North American colonies through the end of the War of American Independence.Beginning in 1763 and moving through the war chronologically, the authors argue that British political and strategic leaders failed to develop an effective strategy to quell the discontent and subsequent revolt in the North American colonies and thus failed to restore allegiance to the Crown. This book describes and analyzes events and the outcomes of central players' decisionsthe British North American colonies, Great Britain, France, Spain, and the Dutch Republicand the resultant actions. It examines events through the thematic lens of strategy, political and military leadership, public attitudes, economics, international Table of ContentsPart 1: Blowing the Matches 1. "In A Fit of Absence of Mind" 2. The Shot Heard ‘Round the World 3. High Water Mark Part 2: Stalemate in the Middle 4. Divide and Conquer 5. Shift to the Middle 6. A Harsh Winter Part 3: Southern Gambit 7. "A Want of Discrimination" 8. Campaign in the Backcountry 9. The North Carolina and Virginia Invasions Part 4: "A Measure of Utmost Importance" 10. Sea Power and the American War 11. A Global War 12. War Termination

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Book SynopsisWater in North American Environmental History offers 25 cases studies that explore the range of uses and perceptions of water throughout Canadian, Mexican, and United States history.Water has served a myriad of purposes historically as human sustenance, agricultural irrigation, sanitation, fire protection, military defense, power generation, transportation, and much more. Water and its uses provide an excellent entrée into the study of humans and the environment, not only because water is a vital resource for life, but also because water as a medium is so intimately woven into the everyday experiences of humans and into society's economic, political, and social fabric. A North American perspective is not representative of the world's water use, but it is an area with a linked history and many overlapping human and environmental features and concerns. With a continental perspective, the book explores many disparate topics without being confined to the histTrade Review2022 John Lyman Book Award honorable mention in the category of "Naval and Maritime Science and Technology":"Teachers offering classes on environmental history, especially of either water or North America, will want to consider adding this book to their syllabi. Alternatively, the book could help hurried and harried instructors who need to give a class lecture or two on topics that appear here. College and university libraries should add it to their collections."J.R. McNeill, Georgetown University, USA in Environment and HistoryTable of ContentsPart I Indigenous Peoples Before Contact 1. The Hohokam: The "Canal Builders" of the American Southwest 2. The Aztecs and the Founding of Tenochtitlan 3. The Inuit, Sea Ice, and Snow Part II Colonialization and Early-Industrial Growth 4. Acequias and Spanish Water Law 5. The Origins of Commercial Fishing in Newfoundland 6. From Waterwheels to Steam Engines Part III Expansionism and Western Settlement 7. The California Gold Rush: Placer and Hydraulic Mining 8. Capricious Border: The Rio Grande River Part IV Commerce, Industry, and Urban Growth 9. Philadelphia’s Waterworks: Pioneering Clean Water for Cities 10. Water Rerouted: The Erie Canal 11. Building the Toronto Waterfront 12. The Lure of Falling Water: Niagara Falls Part V The Mid-Twentieth Century 13. The Houston Ship Channel’s Environmental Footprint 14. "Levees-Only" in Louisiana and The Great Mississippi Flood 15. Salmon, Hydropower, and the Fraser River Part VI The Post-War Years 16. Racism and Civil Rights in American/Canadian Swimming Pools 17. Detergent Phosphates in the Great Lakes 18. The Fluoride Controversy 19. Hurricane Hazel: In Canada Part VII The New Ecology 20. Mexico’s Ixtoc 1 Oil Spill 21. The Ogallala Aquifer in Decline 22. Water Management and Privatization in Modern Mexico Part VIII Social Crises/Environmental Injustices 23. The Flint Water Crisis 24. Maquiladoras and Water Pollution 25. To Frack or Not to Frack in Mexico 26. Postscript: Climate and Water

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Book SynopsisThe Routledge Companion to Cultural History in the Western World is a comprehensive examination of recent discussions and findings in the exciting field of cultural history.A synthesis of how the new cultural history has transformed the study of history, the volume is divided into three parts medieval, early modern and modern that emphasize the way people made sense of the world around them. Contributions cover such themes as material cultures of living, mobility and transport, cultural exchange and transfer, power and conflict, emotion and communication, and the history of the senses. The focus is on the Western world, but the notion of the West is a flexible one. In bringing together 36 authors from 15 countries, the book takes a wide geographical coverage, devoting continuous attention to global connections and the emerging trend of globalization. It builds a panorama of the transformation of Western identities, and the critical ramifications of that evolution fTrade Review'This is a remarkable volume covering a vast range of themes, periods and locations. It will be essential for advancing scholarship and supporting the next generation of academic work in the field.' Professor Hugo Frey, Professor of Visual and Cultural History, University of Chichester, UKTable of ContentsGeneral Introduction Part 1: Shaping Western Identities, 1250–1500 Introduction 1. Culture of Politics in the Middle Ages: Rituals to create and confirm political order 2. Cultures of Conflict 3. Material Cultures of Living: Spatiality and Everyday Life 4. Travel, Mobility, and Culture in Europe 5. Cultural Encounters and Transfer 6. Practices of Communication: Literacy, Gestures and Words 7. Making Sense of One’s Life and the World 8. Conceiving of Medieval Identities 9. Body, Sexuality and Health 10. Contextualizing Medieval Emotions Part 2: Europe meets the Globe: Western Identities in Question, 1500–1750 Introduction 11. God’s Green Garden: Interactions between humans and the environment 12. Material Cultures of Living: European Attitudes to Novelties 13. Reverence, Shame and Guilt in Early Modern European Cultures 14. Making Sense of the World: The Creation and Transfer of Knowledge 15. The Self: Representations and Practices 16. The Experience of Time 17. Written Communication: Publication, Textual Materiality and Appropriations 18. Mobility, Global Interaction and Cultural Transfers in the Age of Cultural Encounters 19. Faces of Power and Conflict Part 3: The Western World and the Global Challenge, from 1750 to the present Introduction 20. Enlightenment, Revolution and Melancholy 21. Individualism and Emotion in Modern Western Culture 22. Health and Illness, the Self and the Body 23. Family, Home and Variations in Domestic Life 24. Natural Disasters and Modernity 25. Cultures of Mobility 26. The Cultural Life of the Senses in Modernity 27. Media and Mediatization 28. Indigenous and Postcolonial Cultures 29. Violence and Trauma: Experiencing the Two World Wars 30. The Cold War Cultures and Beyond 31. The Culture of Commerce and the Global Economy 32. Epilogue: Cultural History in Retrospect

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Book SynopsisThis book provides a concise and accessible history of the relationship between the individual and capitalism in the United States. The text is devoted to tracking the historical development of important themes, whilst addressing key episodes in the progress of American capitalism within these, such as the Great Depression and New Deal. The book will introduce students to the key philosophical principles that have been the most influential in the history of free enterprise in the United States as well as exploring the ways in which these ideas have been popularly understood by Americans from the late eighteenth century to the present. Liberalism and Neoliberalism, entrepreneurialism, slavery and racial capitalism, and business and gender are all assessed. The material in this volume is complimented by a set of primary source documents that bring the subject to life. It will be of interest to students of American history, business and labor history.Table of Contents0.Introduction. 1.Philosophies. 2.Systems. 3.Organizations. 4.Mythologies. 5.Collectives. 6.Assessment

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Book SynopsisThis book offers an overview and analysis of the presidency of Ronald Reagan and the history of conservatism in the United States from the 1960s to the 2020s.Focusing on major events of the 1980s, this book addresses the neo-liberal turn in economics and governance; culture war conflict over religion, abortion, Supreme Court vacancies, civil rights, drugs, and AIDS; and the final decade of the Cold War. It pays close attention to Reaganâs domestic and foreign policies, including US-Soviet relations and the Reagan Doctrine, and analyzes the gap between his conservative rhetoric and his often pragmatic, even bipartisan, approach to governing. Each chapter highlights the criticisms of Reaganâs policies from moderates and conservatives alike, offering a distinctive exploration of the 1980s as a period of intraparty conflict among Republicans. The book also places Reagan in a broader context through the tumult of the long 1960s, the domestic and foreign policy crises of the 1970s, and the rise of the âmythical Reaganâ who shaped Republican and Democratic politics into the present day. The Reagan Revolution is an accessible resource for undergraduate, postgraduate, and non-specialist readers who have an interest in modern US history and politics.

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Book SynopsisThis volume explores the panic that is a central affective register of our current international order. Fears of Somali pirates, Gypsy kidnappers, African warlords, Ebola, Mexican meth, pimps, coyotes, gangs, climate refugees and more, structure the dark side of a metropolitan unconscious. These are terrors over things that (might) cross borders, threatening the sanctity of territoriality and capital. Inspired by scholarship challenging panics around human and sex trafficking, the contributors to this volume develop the umbrella category of the global moral panic. Embracing the challenge of grasping a phenomenon not previously regarded as cohering, they consider panics provoked by travel, passage, transgression; panics over bodies that move. Like panics over trafficking, the episodes narrated here ride and feed a field of common sense regarding crime, rights, and state power. Their logics of victims and villains nourish notions of the centrality of punishment, drawing from anTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsList of Figures and CaptionsList of ContributorsIntroduction, Micol SeigelPart I. The Coloniality of PanicChapter 1: Privateers and Public Ends: Piracy as Global Moral Panic- Jatin DuaChapter 2: Moral Panic versus Moral Blindness: Responses to Children’s Militarization in Uganda and the US- Michelle Moyd, Frances M. Clarke, and Rebecca Jo PlantChapter 3: Ebola: Keywords- Adia BentonChapter 4: A Panicky Atmosphere: On the Coloniality of Climate Change- Alex ChambersChapter 5: The Panic over Human Smuggling: From the Nineteenth Century Coolie Trade to Today’s Migrants- Elliott YoungPart II. Too Mobile: Panic at the BordersChapter 6: Rescuing the Blonde Angel: The Global Captivity Narrative and the Panic of 2013- Susan LepselterChapter 7: The Everywhere Drug War: Narcoterror and the Global Flows of the Methamphetamine Imaginary- Travis Linnemann and Kyra MartinezChapter 8: Black Bodies, Wrong Places: Rolezinho, Moral Panic, and Racialized Male Subjects in Brazil- Osmundo PinhoChapter 9: Circulating Sin: Sailors and Benevolence in Early Nineteenth-Century New York- Dana LoganChapter 10: Transnational Securityscapes: Central American (Immigrant) Youth and the ‘Military Option’- Elana Zilberg,Part III. Resisting Rescue: Sex/WorkChapter 11: Stop the Woman, Save the State: Policing, Order, and the Black Woman’s Body- Rudo MudiwaChapter 12: Modern-Day Slavery: The Analogy Problem in Human Trafficking Reform- Julietta HuaChapter 13: Saving Love: Compassion, Desire, Violence, and Deceit in Late Capitalism- Courtney MitchelChapter 14: And Still We Rise’: Moral Panics, Dark Sousveillance, and Politics Otherwise in the New New Orleans- Laura McTighe

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Providing an accessible and comprehensive overview, The Story of the Salem Witch Trials explores the events between June 10 and September 22, 1692, when nineteen people were hanged, one was pressed to death and over 150 were jailed for practicing witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts.

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Book SynopsisThis book deals with the reception of Italian elitism in the United States, identifying its key protagonists, phases, and themes. It starts from the reconstruction of the scientific and political debates aroused in the United States by the works of Mosca, Pareto, and Michels, and moves on to define their theoretical influence in the American scientific and academic contexts. The analysis takes into consideration the period from the first contact between elitists and American academia in the early 1920s to the publication of The Power Elite by Mills, in 1956, which marks the emancipation of American elitism. After introducing the fundamental principles of elite theory, the first part of the study reconstructs the debate that it aroused beyond the Atlantic. The second part examines the original American reworking of the elitist lesson, concentrating on the works of the authors most strongly influenced by it: Joseph A. Schumpeter, Harold D. Lasswell, and Charles W. Mills. The Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. The Italian School of Elitism 2. Politics in Transformation 3. The Two Faces of Elitism 4. From the People to the Elites 5. We, the Elite. Conclusion

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Book SynopsisThis book is a comprehensive overview of the history of modern American thought and examines a wide range of modern thought and thinkers from 1860, when Charles Darwinâs Origin of Species was published in the United States, to the end of the twentieth century.The focus of this volume is on the destabilizing effects of modern challenges to notions of fixed order and absolute truths, and the contradictory consequences for philosophical, political, social, and aesthetic thought. The intellectual response to the unprecedented changes of this era produced visions of both liberation from the hierarchies of the past and new forms of control and constraint. One of the central contradictions in modern thought was between biological and cultural ideas of social, psychological, and moral order. This is the first work to provide an interpretive vision of the entire period under consideration. Topics covered include evolutionary thought, philosophical Pragmatism, ideas of race and Trade ReviewIt will not surprise anyone acquainted with Dan Wickberg that he has written a magisterial history of the rise of modern ways of thinking in the United States. The book tracks Americans’ quest, since the mid-nineteenth century, for frameworks to make sense of a newly unsettled and fluid world. But at its core are the deep contradictions marking modernity: the fresh possibilities inherent in indeterminacy on the one hand, and the conceiving of new modes of coercion and unfreedom on the other. Deftly noting intellectual conflicts and cross-currents yet still able to identify the “lenses, categories, and sensibilities” that have remade modern thought, the book sparkles. From his very first chapter specifying what was novel and generative (and what was not) about Darwin’s Origin of Species, to his last—on the dissolving border between the realms of culture and politics in the late twentieth century, unleashing the “culture wars” and much else—Wickberg offers a lucid, compelling, and even gripping retelling of modern American intellectual history.Sarah E. Igo, Vanderbilt University, author of The Known Citizen: A History of Privacy in Modern AmericaTable of ContentsPART I: AMERICAN MODERNISMS: 1865-19191. DARWINISM AND THE EVOLUTIONARY SENSIBILITY2. PRAGMATISM AND ANTIFOUNDATIONAL THOUGHT3. THE RESEARCH UNIVERSITY, THE IDEA OF CULTURE, AND THE SOCIAL SCIENCES4. PROGRESSIVISMS5. RETHINKING WOMAN AND MANPART II: THE CONTRADICTIONS OF THE DEMOCRATIC IMAGINATION: 1920-19626. CULTURAL RELATIVISMS AND MODERN HIERARCHIES7. SCIENCE AS CULTURE: THE MORAL ORDER OF MODERNITY8. FROM PROTESTANT HEGEMONY TO RELIGIOUS PLURALISM9. PLURALISM AND COSMOPOLITANISM10. SELF AND SOCIAL ORDER IN THE COLD WAR WORLDPART III: RETHINKING MODERNISM: 1963-200011. CULTURAL REVOLUTIONS AND RUPTURES12. THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF EVERYTHING13. THE RETURN OF NATURE14. GENDER AND SEXUALITY15. CULTURE WARS

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Book SynopsisOriginally published in 1967, this book is a concise and ideal study of one of the most important periods of American history and is ideal for A Level students and as an introduction for undergraduates. It discusses the social, economic and political context for Lincoln's meteoric rise and the legacy of his many achievements including the abolition of slavery. Table of Contents1. Unity 2. Slavery 3. The Territories 4. The Rise of Lincoln 5. The Great Debates 6. The Presidency 7. The Coming of War – Fort Sumter 8. Spring and Summer 1861 – Bull Run 9. Late Summer 1861 – Frémont in Missouri 10. The End of 1861 – The ‘Trent’ Affair 11. New Year, 1862 – No more Oysters in the Potomac 12. Spring, 1862 – Movement to the Mississippi 13. March to April, 1862 – The ‘Merrimac’ and the ‘Monitor’ 14. McClellan on the Peninsula 15. August, 1862 – Second Battle of Bull Run 16. September, 1862 – Antietam 17. The Emancipation of the Southern Slaves 18. December 1862 – Fredericksburg 19. Early 1863 – Chancellorsville 20. July , 1863 – Gettysburg 21. 1863 – The Western Theatre 22. Autumn in Tennessee 23. Justice or Mercy? 24. Unhappy New Year, 1864 25. May, 1864 – Grant in the Wilderness 26. June – Cold Harbor 27. Autumn, 1864 – Grant at Petersburg 28. Summer, 1864 – Sherman’s March Through Georgia 29. The Alabama and Mobile - Two Triumphs for the Navy 30. Sheridan in the Shenandoah – A Triumph for the Cavalry 31. Elections 32. 1865 – The End of Slavery 33. 1865 – The End of the War 34. 1865 – The End of the President 35. Those That Were Left 36. The Stricken South

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Book SynopsisThe Transfer of Power Between Presidential Administrations examines the problems that can occur when a new president enters office, with a focus on historical case studies. The transition between presidentsespecially when changing partiesis a wildcard in U.S. foreign policy that often confuses or concerns nations engaged with the United States. Though there are systems in place to ensure information gets passed from one administration to another, ideas and their execution can change dramatically when a new president takes office. Using case studies of six different incoming administrations during the Cold War and 21st century, this book will explore how the successes and failures in presidential transitions have had long-term effects on U.S. foreign policy, grand strategy, and international position. Looking at transitions involving multiple presidents, this book offers a fresh perspective on how foreign policy is formulated and carried out. The Table of Contents0.Introduction. 1.Roosevelt to Truman: The Beginning of the Superpower Era. 2.Truman to Eisenhower: Harry Dislikes Ike and his Foreign Policy Rhetoric. 3.Eisenhower to Kennedy: Quagmire of Vietnam. 4.Kennedy to Johnson: The Tragic Transition. 5.Johnson to Nixon: The Treacherous Transition. 6.Carter to Reagan: The Definitive End of Détente. 7.The Transition in the 21st Century. Afterword: The Big Lie

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Book SynopsisThis book traces the emergence and early development of segregationist practices and policies in Spanish and Portuguese America - showing that the practice of resettling diverse indigenous groups in segregated Indian towns (or aldeamentos in the case of Brazil) influenced the material reorganization of colonial space, shaped processes of racialization, and contributed to the politicization of reproductive sex. The book advances this argument through close readings of published and archival sources from the 16th and early-17th centuries, and is informed by two main conceptual concerns. First, it considers how segregation was envisioned, codified, and enforced in a historical context of consolidating racial differences and changing demographics associated with the racial mixture. Second, it theorizes the interrelations between notions of race and reproductive sexuality. It shows that segregationist efforts were justified by paternalistic discourses that aimed to conserveTable of Contents1. Vasco de Quiroga’s Utopian Communities. 2. The Codification of Segregation in a Context of Mestizaje. 3. Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala’s Endorsement of Segregation. 4. Aldeamento and the Politicization of Racially-Qualified Life.

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Now in its second edition, Rethinking the Gay and Lesbian Movement provides an accessible overview of an important and transformational struggle for social change, highlighting key individuals and events, influential groups and organizations, major successes and failures, and the movement's lasting effects and unfinished work.Focusing on four decades of social, cultural, and political change in the second half of the twentieth century, Marc Stein examines the changing agendas, beliefs, strategies, and vocabularies of a movement that encompassed diverse actions, campaigns, ideologies, and organizations. From the homophile activism of the 1950s and 1960s through the rise of gay liberation and lesbian feminism in the 1970s to the multicultural and AIDS activist movements of the 1980s, this book provides a strong foundation for understanding gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer politics today. This new edition reflects the substantial changes in the field since t

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Book SynopsisAn engrossing and impossibly wide-ranging project . . . In The Free World, every seat is a good one. Carlos Lozada, The Washington PostThe Free World sparkles. Fully original, beautifully written . . . One hopes Menand has a sequel in mind. The bar is set very high. David Oshinsky, The New York Times Book Review Editors'' ChoiceOne of The New York Times''s 100 best books of 2021 One of The Washington Post''s 50 best nonfiction books of 2021 A Mother Jones best book of 2021In his follow-up to the Pulitzer Prizewinning The Metaphysical Club, Louis Menand offers a new intellectual and cultural history of the postwar yearsThe Cold War was not just a contest of power. It was also about ideas, in the broadest senseeconomic and political, artistic and personal. In The Free World, the acclaimed Pulitzer Prizewinning scholar and critic Louis Menand tells the story of

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Book SynopsisThis is a book for everyone who has developed an unexpected nostalgia for political ''norms'' during the Trump years . . . Other books on the Trump White House expertly detail the mayhem inside; this book builds on those works to detail its consequences. Carlos Lozada (one of twelve books to read to understand what''s going on)Perhaps the most penetrating book to have been written about Trump in office. Lawrence Douglas, The Times Literary SupplementThe definitive account of how Donald Trump has wielded the powers of the American presidencyThe extraordinary authority of the U.S. presidency has no parallel in the democratic world. Today that authority resides in the hands of one man, Donald J. Trump. But rarely if ever has the nature of a president clashed more profoundly with the nature of the office. Unmaking the Presidency tells the story of the confrontation between a person and the institution he almost wholly emb

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Book SynopsisAs an increasingly polarized America fights over the legacy of racism, Susan Neiman, author of the contemporary philosophical classic Evil in Modern Thought, asks what we can learn from the Germans about confronting the evils of the pastIn the wake of white nationalist attacks, the ongoing debate over reparations, and the controversy surrounding Confederate monuments and the contested memories they evoke, Susan Neiman's Learning from the Germans delivers an urgently needed perspective on how a country can come to terms with its historical wrongdoings. Neiman is a white woman who came of age in the civil rightsera South and a Jewish woman who has spent much of her adult life in Berlin. Working from this unique perspective, she combines philosophical reflection, personal stories, and interviews with both Americans and Germans who are grappling with the evils of their own national histories.Through discussions with Germans, including Jan Philipp Ree

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Book SynopsisAn intimate portrait of a legendary generation of artists, writers, activists, and dreamers who created a utopia on the shores of Cape Cod during the first half of the twentieth century.Their names are iconic: Eugene O'Neill, Willem de Kooning, Josef and Anni Albers, Emma Goldman, Mary McCarthy, Edward Hopper, Walter Gropiusthe list goes on and on. Scorning the devastation that industrialization had wrought on the nation's workforce and culture in the early decades of the twentieth century, they gathered in the streets of Greenwich Village and on the beach - fronts of Cape Cod. They began as progressives but soon turned to socialism, then communism. They founded theaters, periodicals, and art schools. They formed editorial boards that met in beach shacks and performed radical new plays in a shanty on the docks, where they could see the ocean through cracks in the floor. They welcomed the tremendous wave of talent fleeing Europe in the 1930s. At the end of their era, i

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Book SynopsisThe Metaphysical Club is the winner of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for History.A national bestseller and hugely ambitious, unmistakably brilliant (Janet Maslin, New York Times) book about the creation of modern American thought.The Metaphysical Club was an informal group that met in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1872, to talk about ideas. Its members included Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., future associate justice of the United States Supreme Court; William James, the father of modern American psychology; and Charles Sanders Peirce, logician, scientist, and the founder of semiotics. The Club was probably in existence for about nine months. No records were kept. The one thing we know that came out of it was an idea -- an idea about ideas. This book is the story of that idea.Holmes, James, and Peirce all believed that ideas are not things out there waiting to be discovered but are tools people invent -- like knives and forks and microchips --

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Book SynopsisIs there anything new to say about Thomas Jefferson and slavery? The answer is a resounding yes. This book - based on new information coming from archaeological work at Monticello and on hitherto overlooked or disregarded evidence in Jefferson's papers - opens up a huge, poorly understood dimension of Jefferson's world.

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Book SynopsisNATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOKAN NPR BEST BOOKSelected by New York Times'' critic Dwight Garner as a Favorite BookA Washington Post Best Political BookA New Republic Best BookA riveting examination of a nation in crisis, from one of the finest political journalists of our generation. American democracy is beset by a sense of crisis. Seismic shifts during a single generation have created a country of winners and losers, allowing unprecedented freedom while rending the social contract, driving the political system to the verge of breakdown, and setting citizens adrift to find new paths forward. In The Unwinding, George Packer, author of The Assassins'' Gate: America in Iraq, tells the story of the United States over the past three decades in an utterly original way, with his characteristically sharp eye for detail and gift for weaving together complex narratives.The Unwinding journeys through the lives of several Americans, including Dean Price, the son of tobacco farmers, who becomes an evangelist for a new economy in the rural South; Tammy Thomas, a factory worker in the Rust Belt trying to survive the collapse of her city; Jeff Connaughton, a Washington insider oscillating between political idealism and the lure of organized money; and Peter Thiel, a Silicon Valley billionaire who questions the Internet''s significance and arrives at a radical vision of the future. Packer interweaves these intimate stories with biographical sketches of the era''s leading public figures, from Newt Gingrich to Jay-Z, and collages made from newspaper headlines, advertising slogans, and song lyrics that capture the flow of events and their undercurrents.The Unwinding portrays a superpower in danger of coming apart at the seams, its elites no longer elite, its institutions no longer working, its ordinary people left to improvise their own schemes for success and salvation. Packer''s novelistic and kaleidoscopic history of the new America is his most ambitious work to date.

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Book SynopsisThe Mandan Indians, iconic plains people whose teeming, busy towns on the upper Missouri River were for centuries at the centre of the North American universe. Why don't we know more? Who were they, really? This book retrieves their history by piecing together important discoveries in archaeology, anthropology, geology, climatology, and more.

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Book SynopsisExplores the many lives of Carl Van Vechten, the most influential cultural impresario of the early twentieth century: a patron and dealmaker of the Harlem Renaissance, a photographer who captured the era's icons, and a novelist who created some of the Jazz Age's most salacious stories.

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Book SynopsisWilliam Hogeland''s Autumn of the Black Snake presents forgotten story of how the U.S. Army was created to fight a crucial Indian war.When the Revolutionary War ended in 1783, the newly independent United States savored its victory and hoped for a great future. And yet the republic soon found itself losing an escalating military conflict on its borderlands. In 1791, years of skirmishes, raids, and quagmire climaxed in the grisly defeat of American militiamen by a brilliantly organized confederation of Shawnee, Miami, and Delaware Indians. With nearly one thousand U.S. casualties, this was the worst defeat the nation would ever suffer at native hands. Americans were shocked, perhaps none more so than their commander in chief, George Washington, who saw in the debacle an urgent lesson: the United States needed an army. Autumn of the Black Snake tells the overlooked story of how Washington achieved his aim. In evocative and absorbing prose, William

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Book SynopsisGripping . . . Vibrant . . . A wonderfully absorbing and stimulating book. Sarah Bakewell, NBCC Awardwinning author of How to Live and Humanly Possible[A] rollicking account . . . The book's compulsive readability is a tribute to Moore's skill at cracking open the pre-revolutionary period. Charles Arrowsmith, The Washington PostA spirited group biography that explores the origins of the most iconic words in American history, and the remarkable transatlantic context from which they emerged.The most famous phrase in American history once looked quite different. The preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness was how Thomas Jefferson put it in the first draft of the Declaration, before the first ampersand was scratched out, along with the preservation of. In a statement as pithyand contestedas this, a small deletion matters. And indeed, that final, iconizing revision was the last in a long chain of revisions str

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Book SynopsisAN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERA memoir of coming of age in a conservative Southern family in postwar America.To grow up in the 1950s was to enter a world of polarized national alliances, nuclear threat, and destabilized social hierarchies. Two world wars and the depression that connected them had unleashed a torrent of expectations and dissatisfactionsnot only in global affairs but in American society and Americans' lives.A privileged white girl in conservative, segregated Virginia was expected to adopt a willful blindness to the inequities of race and the constraints of gender. For Drew Gilpin, the acceptance of both female subordination and racial hierarchy proved intolerable and galvanizing. Urged to become well adjusted and to fill the role of a poised young lady that her upbringing imposed, she found resistance was necessary for her survival. During the 1960s, through her love of learning and her active engagement in the civil

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Book SynopsisONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW''S 100 NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2022From the historian Dan Bouk, a lesson in reading between the lines of the U.S. census to uncover the stories behind the data.The census isn't just a data-collection process; it's a ritual, and a tool, of American democracy. Behind every neat grid of numbers is a collage of messy, human storiesyou just have to know how to read them.In Democracy's Data, the data historian Dan Bouk examines the 1940 U.S. census, uncovering what those numbers both condense and cleverly abstract: a universe of meaning and uncertainty, of cultural negotiation and political struggle. He introduces us to the men and women employed as census takers, bringing us with them as they go door to door, recording the lives of their neighbors. He takes us into the makeshift halls of the Census Bureau, where hundreds of civil servants, not to mention machines, labored with pencil and paper to divide an

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Book SynopsisAcclaimed National Book Award-winning author George Packer diagnoses America's descent into a failed state, and envisions a path toward overcoming our injustices, paralyses, and divides.Democracy seems to be teetering on the edge, and renowned author George Packer shines a spotlight on the fractures that led to today''s prevalent feeling of American despair. Last Best Hope is a sharply observed exploration of the narratives that have shaped America: the individualistic Free America, the elitist Smart America, the nationalistic Real America, and Just America, fraught with inter-group oppression.With the turbulence of 2020 as the backdrop, from the devastating pandemic to economic crises and contentious elections, the book presents an insightful dissection of America''s social ethos. Each narrative is explored under his discerning lens, making a case for how they have collectively failed to sustain the country''s democracy.To point a more hopeful

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