Synopses & Reviews
Review
"History written in the grand tradition, characterized by sweeping narrative and punctuated by occasional anecdotes, is no longer in vogue among today's professional historians. Yet this has not stopped writers like Page Smith and James MacGregor Burns from producing multivolume histories of the United States. These efforts are directed at a general audience rather than at the specialists, who prefer the detail found in monographs. This second volume in Burns's The American Experiment is a fine example of the narrative form. In discussing the period 1863—1932, the author incorporates recent historiographical findings in a lively prose that conveys the excitement of the nation's blossoming into
an economic and political power. Burns devotes space not only to the 'great men' of history, but also to farmers, immigrants, and other simple Americans, most of whom we have long forgotten. Indeed the author, a political scientist, has become something of a social historian for this project. This is a concise yet surprisingly complete, account of an important chapter in American history." Reviewed by Daniel Weiss, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)