Description
Book SynopsisPresents a fresh, comprehensive overview of New Jersey's history from the prehistoric era to the present. The findings of archaeologists, political, social, and economic historians provide a new look at how the Garden State has evolved.
Trade Review"Maxine Lurie and Richard Veit do more than just connect the chronological dots of our sprawling history from the first Lenape inhabitants 12,000 years ago to today’s hectic lifestyles. They’ve culled the talents of 11 scholars and combined their insights and expertise into a resource intended for both students and a general audience. The editors introduce and contextualize a yeasty mix of characters—loyalists, revolutionaries, Federalists, Republicans (soon to be Democrats), Whigs, abolitionists, plutocrats, inventors, reformers, bosses (think Frank Hague) — into nicely organized chapters ranging from the pre-colonial up to suburbanization and cities in distress. This being New Jersey, though, the volume is not without inflections of whimsy."
* Star-Ledger *
"These essays tell us about what was unique, significant, and not always well-known about New Jersey’s colorful, diverse past, and they relate its history to the contours of American history more generally."
-- Paul G. E. Clemens * author of Rutgers since 1945: A History of the State University of New Jersey *
"There's so much history in this state, it's hard to pack it into one book. But that's just what Maxine N. Lurie and Richard Veit attempted in
New Jersey: A History of the Garden State, the first overview of the state in 35 years."
* Asbury Park Press *
"These ten essays, strung on a historical time line from precolonial times to the present, give most of the contributing historians a chance to highlight their particular geographic and period expertise, with hints of a relationship with large, persistent themes like industrial innovation, political corruption, or racial or gender inequality. Recommended." * Choice *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: New Perspectives on New Jersey History / Marc Mappen
Setting the Stage : Archaeology and the Delaware Indians, a 12,000 Year Odyssey / Richard Veit
Colonial Period : The Complex and Contradictory Beginnings of a Mid-Atlantic Province / Maxine N. Lurie
Revolution and Confederation Period : New Jersey at the Cross Roads / John Fea
New Jersey in the Early Republic / Graham Russell Gao Hodges
New Jersey in the Jacksonian Era, 1820-1850 / Michael Birkner
Civil War and Reconstruction : State and Nation Divided / Larry Greene
The Garden State Becomes an Industrial Power : New Jersey in the Late Nineteenth Century / Paul Israel
The Progressive Era / Brian Greenberg
Depression and War / G. Kurt Piehler
Suburbanization and Decline of the Cities : Toward an Uncertain Future / Howard Gillette, Jr
