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More copies of this ISBNThis title in other editionseBook editionsThroes of Democracy: The American Civil War Era 1829-1877by Walter A Mcdougall
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments: "And then there came a day of fire!" From its shocking curtain-raiser—the conflagration that consumed Lower Manhattan in 1835—to the climactic centennial year of 1876, when Americans staged a corrupt, deadlocked presidential campaign (fought out in Florida), Walter A. McDougall's Throes of Democracy: The American Civil War Era, 1829-1877 throws off sparks like a flywheel. This eagerly awaited sequel to Freedom Just Around the Corner: A New American History, 1585-1828 carries the saga of the American people's continuous self-reinvention from the inauguration of President Andrew Jackson through the eras of Manifest Destiny, Civil War, and Reconstruction, America's first failed crusade to put "freedom on the march" through regime change and nation building. But Throes of Democracy is much more than a political history. Here, for the first time, is the American epic as lived by Germans and Irish, Catholics and Jews, as well as people of British Protestant and African American stock; an epic defined as much by folks in Wisconsin, Kansas, and Texas as by those in Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia; an epic in which Mormon prophet Joseph Smith, showman P. T. Barnum, and circus clown Dan Rice figure as prominently as Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, and Henry Ward Beecher; an epic in which railroad management and land speculation prove as gripping as Indian wars. Walter A. McDougall's zesty, irreverent narrative says something new, shrewd, ironic, or funny about almost everything as it reveals our national penchant for pretense—a predilection that explains both the periodic throes of democracy and the perennial resilience of the United States. Review:"The subtitle's overextended claim that the Civil War era started in 1829 sets the tone for this hulking second volume (after Freedom Just Around the Corner) of Pulitzer-winner McDougall's projected multivolume history of the U.S. The author tries both to deflate national pride and celebrate national progress in the era in which the nation spread across the continent, shattered in a war and came back together. He does so in an opinionated, breezy narrative that focuses on individuals — lesser known as well as famous, writers and thinkers as well as political and military leaders. But McDougall's history is basically a traditional one about party conflicts, the westward course of empire, war, the Transcendentalists, frontier tensions, railroads, slavery, religious tensions and robber barons. You'd never know that a huge body of history on the real lives of 19th-century Americans had been produced in recent decades. Not many women appear, or Indians, slaves and freedmen, or working people, many of whom helped make the young democracy vital and tumultuous. McDougall's strength lies in deflating cherished reputations, like de Tocqueville's, and restoring others', like pastor and intellectual Orestes Brownson's. A pleasing romp through a critical period in the nation's history, it sticks to the tried and true. 19 maps." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.) Book News Annotation:The second, after Freedom Just Around the Corner, in the projected
multivolume history of the United States by McDougall (history, U. of
Pennsylvania), this volume presents a sweeping historical narrative
of what McDougall defines as the "Civil War Era" (1829-1877) that
largely eschews the social and people's histories of recent years and
sticks to traditional topics of political rivalries, economic
conflict, war, westward expansion, and intellectual history.
McDougall's own perspective is perhaps revealed by the fact that he
concludes the book with a chapter on Orestes Brownson, the New
England intellectual who broke with the Transcendentalists and his
own radical background as a labor organizer and embraced Roman
Catholicism (this led the New York Times to suggest that McDougall
was approaching the topic from the perspective of a conservative in
the mold of Edmund Burke).
Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) About the Author A professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, Walter A. McDougall is the author of many books, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Heavens and the Earth and Let the Sea Make a Noise. . . . He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage children. What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
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