Yearly Archives: 2011
A Fierce Discontent
A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement, 1870-1920 by Michael McGerr Michael McGerr’s A Fierce Discontent is a sweeping and compelling overview of the Progressive Era. In this book, McGerr takes a narrow view of the … Continue reading
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Atlantic Crossings
Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age by Daniel Rodgers In his tome Atlantic Crossings, Daniel Rodgers seeks to reconceptualize our understanding of America’s famous and often-studied “Progressive Era” by arguing that Progressive reform wasn’t particularly American. The … Continue reading
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First Year Exam – 19th Century Question Passing Answer (August 2011)
Periodizing the 19th century in American history is especially difficult for historians. Put most simply: a lot happened in the years between 1800 and 1900! Thus creating a single theme for the entire century is problematic. Should the 19th century … Continue reading
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First Year Exam – Colonial Question Passing Answer (August 2011)
The using the term “British North America” to describe the English and British colonies of the eastern Atlantic seaboard is especially fitting. As J.H. Elliot puts it, like New Spain, New England was not Old England. Yet, simultaneously it was … Continue reading
Filed under 17th Century, 18th Century, First Year Exam
Righteous Indignation
Righteous Indignation: Religion and the Populist Revolution by Joe Creech For generations historians have been attempting to cut “the Populist knot.” This vast field of historical literature has been dominated for decades by three warring interpretations of this (in)famous late … Continue reading
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Colored Property
Colored Property: State Policy & White Racial Politics in Suburban America by David M.P. Freund David Freund begins his books with brief descriptions of two riots: one in 1925 where whites attacked a black family that sought to move into … Continue reading
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Reconsidering Roosevelt on Race
Reconsidering Roosevelt on Race: How the Presidency Paved the Road to Brown by Kevin J, McMahon How are we to explain the beginnings of the collapse of legal segregation in the middle of decades of twentieth century? Previous interpretations, according … Continue reading
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Making a New Deal
Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1910-1939 by Lizabeth Cohen Somewhat ironically, the extremely difficult economic times of the 1930s saw the American labor movement realize its greatest successes. Previous decades had seen labor make brief gains that … Continue reading
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State of the Union
State of the Union: A Century of American Labor by Nelson Lichtenstein The fortune of organized labor in the United States has waxed and wane to a considerable degree; from the repression of early days of the twentieth century, by … Continue reading
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The Age of Reagan
The Age of Reagan A History, 1974-2008 by Sean Wilentz When did America become a nation dominated, politically, by conservatives? A powerful and popular narrative is that the Nixon administration marks the turning point in American political history – with … Continue reading
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