History : Americas (North, Central, South, West Indies)

In this study of Gilded Age literature and culture, Ben Railton proposes that in the years after Reconstruction, America’s identity was often contested through distinct and competing conceptions of the nation’s history. Contesting the Past, Reconstructing the Nation argues that the United States moved toward unifying and univocal historical narratives in the years between the Centennial and Columbian Expositions, that ongoing social conflict provided sites for complications of those narratives, and that works of historical literature offer some of the most revealing glimpses into the nature of those competing visions. Gilded Age scholarship often connects the period to the 20th-century American future, but this book shows that it is just as crucial to see how the era relates to the American past. Railton closely analyzes the 1876 and 1893 Expositions, finding that many of the period’s central trends, from technology to imperialism, were intimately connected to particular visions of the nation’s history. Concerned with key social questions such as race, Native Americans, women, and the South, Contesting the Past, Reconstructing the Nation provides close readings of a number of texts for the ways they highlight these issues. This book examines established classics (Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Bostonians); newer additions to the canon (The Conjure Woman, Life Among the Piutes, The Story of Avis); largely forgotten best-sellers (Uncle Remus, The Grandissimes); unrecovered gems (Ploughed Under, Where the Battle Was Fought); and autobiographical works by Douglass and Truth, poems by Harper and Piatt, and short stories by Woolsonand Cooke. These readings, while illuminating the authors themselves, contribute to ongoing conversations over historical literature’s definition and value, and a greater understanding of not only American society in the Gilded Age, but also debates on our shared but contested history that remain very much alive more...

Price: $36.00

1. Before the 1959 Revolution: Cuban National Identity and the Great Powers 2. The Cuban Revolution and the Cold War, 1951-1991 3. The Cuban Revolution After the Cold War, 1991-2006 4. After Fidel, Under Raul more...

Price: $15.00

This volume provides a comprehensive analysis of both the historical and the contemporary dimensions of the politics and government of the “First State.” Once a sparsely populated, agrarian, and relatively insignificant polity, Delaware has become a densely and diversely populated financial and legal center often called the “corporation capital of the world.” Delaware’s prime location has been central to its development and transition from a goods-producing economy to a fast-growing, service-based economy. Despite its diminutive size, Delaware is, in many ways, the nation’s preferred corporate home. more...

Price: $35.00

Tourism, in Mexico, became official business by 1929. This book presents tourism as the leading and influential facet of the post-revolutionary modernization programme, and examines how it fostered nationalism and unity, and emerged as a form of foreign policy. The book chronicles how the industry emerged and shaped Mexican culture and politics. more...

Price: $65.00

In a compilation of essays, Early Republic: People and Perspectives explores the varied experiences of many different groups of Americans across racial, gender, religious, and regional lines in the early years of the country. more...

Price: $105.00