Aspects of American History

ISBN-13: 9780415423410 / Angielski / Twarda / 2009 / 264 str.

Simon Henderson

Opis

This new book examines major themes, personalities and issues across American history, using topic focused essays. Each chapter focuses on key events and time periods within a broad framework looking at liberty and equality, the role of government and national identity. The volume engages with its central themes through a broad ranging examination of aspects of the American past, including discussions of political history, foreign policy, presidential leadership and the construction of national memory. In each essay, Simon Henderson:

• introduces fresh angles to traditional topics
• consolidates recent research in themed essays
• analyses views of different historians
• offers an interpretive rather than narrative approach
• gives concise treatment to complex issues.

Including an introduction which places key themes in context, this book enables readers to make comparisons and trace major thematic developments across American history.

Recenzje

‘[The author] covers a remarkable amount of ground … by avoiding detailed narrative and focussing on the historiographical issues which he summarises and synthesises clearly and concisely … there is enough narrative and explanation to make each chapter accessible … and the collection is given coherence and integrity by the linking themes of race, citizenship and American identity.’ – SATH History Teaching

Spis treści

1. Nation in Embryo – The Development of Colonial America  2. Reasons for Revolt – The Birth of the United States  3. The Constitution – Makings and Meanings  4. Flawed Heroes – Washington, Jefferson and Slavery  5. Ignoring Washington’s Warning – Antebellum Party Systems  6. Slavery and the Causes of the American Civil War  7. Southern and Confederate Nationalism  8. Lincoln and Liberty  9. Reconstruction – The Unfulfilled Promise  10. Civil War Memory and American National Identity  11. Introducing Jim Crow – The Codification of Segregation in the South  12. Prejudice and Paternalism – Assimilation and Native American Identity  13. American Identity and the American West  14. Immigration and Assimilation – Melting Pot or Salad Bowl?  15. Gender, Race and the Vote, 1865–1920  16. The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement – Southern Black Protest 1900–1945  17. Kennedy, Johnson and Civil Rights  18. Martin, Malcolm and Black America  19. American National Mission and Global Conflict in the Twentieth Century  20. American Identity and the War on Terror.  Bibliographical Essay

O autorze

Simon Henderson