History-American
New Books from Oxford U Press, Spring 2000

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The White Image in the Black Mind
African-American Ideas about White People, 1830-1925
MIA BAY

How did African-American slaves view their white masters? As gods, monsters, or another race entirely? Did nineteenth-century black Americans ever come to regard white Americans as innately superior? If not, why not? Mia Bay traces African-American perceptions of whites between 1830 and 1925 to depict America's shifting attitudes about race in a period that saw slavery, emancipation, Reconstruction, and urban migration.
Much has been written about how the whites of this time viewed blacks, and about how blacks viewed themselves, but the ways in which blacks saw whites have remained a historical and intellectual mystery. Reversing the focus of such fundamental studies as George Fredrickson's The Black Image in the White Mind, Bay investigates this mystery. In doing so, she elucidates a wide range of thinking about whites by blacks, intellectual and unlettered, male and female, and free and enslaved.

Fully traces the varied African-American perceptions of whites over a period that saw slavery, emancipation, Reconstruction, and urban migration.

A learned and compelling response to George Fredrickson's seminal Black Image in the White Mind
296 pp.; 6-1/8 x 9-1/4; 0-19-510045-X January 2000 $45.00 (06) cloth
January 2000 $19.95 (01) Tentative paper

More
The Politics of Economic Growth in Postwar America
ROBERT M. COLLINS

The first major economic history of postwar America to appear in forty years

James Carville famously reminded Bill Clinton throughout 1992 that "it's the economy, stupid." Yet, for the last forty years, historians of modern America have ignored the economy to focus on cultural, social, and political themes, from the birth of modern feminism to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Now a scholar has stepped forward to place the economy back in its rightful place, at the center of his historical narrative.
In More, Robert M. Collins reexamines the history of the United States from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Bill Clinton, focusing on the federal government's determined pursuit of economic growth. After tracing the emergence of growth as a priority during FDR's presidency, Collins explores the record of successive administrations, highlighting both their success in fostering growth, and its partisan uses. Collins reveals that the obsession with growth appears not only as a matter of policy, but as an expression of Cold War ideology--both a means to pay for the arms build-up and proof of the superiority of the United States' market economy. But under Johnson, this enthusiasm sparked a crisis: spending on Vietnam unleashed runaway inflation, while the nation struggled with the moral consequences of its prosperity, reflected in books such as John Kenneth Galbraith's The Affluent Society and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. More continues up to the end of the 1990s, as Collins explains the real impact of Reagan's policies and astutely assesses Clinton's "disciplined growthmanship," which combined deficit reduction and a relaxed but watchful monetary policy by the Federal Reserve.
Writing with eloquence and analytical clarity, Robert M. Collins offers a startlingly new framework for understanding the history of postwar America.

The first major economic history of postwar America to appear in forty years
304 pp.; 6-1/8 x 9-1/4; 0-19-504646-3 April 2000 $35.00 (02) Tentative

The Boisterous Sea of Liberty
A Documentary History of America From Discovery Through the Civil War
Edited by DAVID BRION DAVIS and STEVEN MINTZ

The living voices of the past provide a rich, immediate portrait of the forces that shaped America

Drawing on a gold mine of primary documents--including letters, diary entries, personal narratives, political speeches, broadsides, trial transcripts, and contemporary newspaper articles--The Boisterous Sea of Liberty brings the past to life in a way few histories ever do.
Here is a panoramic look at early American history as captured in the words of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe and many other historical figures, both famous and obscure. In these pieces, the living voices of the past speak to us from opposing viewpoints--from the vantage point of loyalists as well as patriots, slaves as well as masters. The documents collected here provide a fuller understanding of such historical issues as Columbus's dealings with Native Americans, the Stamp Act Crisis, the Declaration of Independence, the Whiskey Rebellion, the Missouri Crisis, the Mexican War, and Harpers Ferry, to name but a few.
Compiled by Pulitzer Prize winning historian David Brion Davis and Steven Mintz, and accompanied by extensive illustrations of original documents, The Boisterous Sea of Liberty brings the reader back in time, to meet the men and women who lived through the momentous events that shaped our nation.

"A revealing, fascinating view of early America told through the words of the historical figures."--Albuquerque Tribune

"Intriguing."--Richmond Times-Dispatch

"The Boisterous Sea of Liberty is an invaluable resource, not o mention an eye-opener to those who believe all history is written in stone."--Denver Post

"With their new book, The Boisterous Sea of Liberty, David Brion Davis and Steven Mintz remove history from its Ivory Tower and return it to the general public....The book seems alive, full of the voices and sounds of proclamations long defunct."--New Haven Advocate
608 pp.; 50 halftones & line illus; 7 x 10; 0-19-511670-4 2000 $18.95 (03) paper
1998 $30.00 (02) cloth

Setting the World Ablaze
Washington, Adams, and Jefferson and the American Revolution
JOHN E. FERLING

A major reconsideration of the American Revolution and of the three men who did most to create the United States

Setting the World Ablaze is the story of the three men who, perhaps more than any others, helped bring the United States into being: George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. Braiding three strands into one rich narrative, John Ferling brings these American icons down from their pedestals to show them as men of flesh and blood, and gives us a new understanding of the passion and uncertainty of the struggle to form a new nation.
A leading historian of the Revolutionary era, Ferling draws on an unsurpassed command of the primary sources and a talent for swiftly moving narrative to give us intimate views of each of these men. More than any scholar before him, Ferling shows us both the overarching historical picture of the era and a gripping sense of how these men encounterd the challenges that faced them. At close quarters, we see Washington, containing a profound anger at British injustice within an austere demeanor; Adams, far from home, struggling with severe illness and French duplicity in his crucial negotiations in Paris; and Jefferson, distracted and indecisive, confronting uncertainties about his future in politics. John Adams, in particular, emerges from the narrative as the most underappreciated hero of the Revolution, while Jefferson is revealed as the most overrated of the Founders, although the most eloquent.
Setting the World Ablaze shows in dramatic detail how these conservative men--successful members of the colonial elite--were transformed into radical revolutionaries, and in doing so, it illuminates not just the special genius of these three leaders, but the remarkable transformation of His Majesty's colonies into the United States.
284 pp.; 6-1/8 x 9-1/4; 0-19-513409-5 July 2000 $30.00 (02) Tentative

Runaway Slaves
Rebels on the Plantation
JOHN HOPE FRANKLIN and LOREN SCHWENINGER

"An important new book....Compellingly documents the perseverance of thousands of African Americans who fought to be free."--Amy J. Kinsel, Seattle Times/Post Intellegencer

This new, bold, precedent-setting study conclusively demonstrates that, contrary to popular belief, significant numbers of slaves did quite frequently rebel against their masters and struggled to attain their freedom. By surveying a wealth of documents, such as planters' records, petitions to county courts and state legislatures, and local newspapers, the book shows readers how slaves resisted; when, where, and how they escaped; where they fled to; how long they remained in hiding; and how they survived away from the plantation. Of equal importance, it also examines the reactions of the white slaveholding class, revealing how they marshaled considerable effort to prevent runaways, meted out severe punishments, and established patrols to hunt down escaped slaves.
Reflecting a lifetime of thought by one of our leading authorities on African-American history, Runaway Slaves illuminates as never before the true nature of that "most peculiar institution" of the South.

"No one has yet explored the fugitives' world and its meaning for the slave experience more deeply and with greater sophistication than [the authors]....[This book] greatly enhances our understanding of the system of slavery...."--Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Using documentation from broadsheets to diaries, the authors provide incredible details of who the runaways were, their motivations and destinations, and how their efforts failed or succeeded. Franklin and Schweninger provide very personal accounts, giving names and personalities to an aspect of U.S. slavery that is seldom portrayed and refuting the mythology of the contented slave."--Booklist

A groundbreaking examination of slave resistance on the plantations of the antebellum South
480 pp.; 15 halftones; 6-1/8 x 9-1/4; 0-19-508451-9 June 2000 $16.95 (03) Tentative paper
1999 $35.00 (02) cloth

Monopolies in America
Empire Builders and Their Enemies from Jay Gould to Bill Gates
CHARLES R. GEISST

The history of the struggle between the federal government and expanding big business

In this incisive and comprehensive history, business historian Charles Geisst traces the rise of monopolies from the railroad era to today's computer software empires.
The history of monopolies has been dominated by strong and charismatic personalities. Geisst tells the stories behind the individuals--from John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie to Harold Green and Bill Gates--who forged these business empires with genius, luck, and an often ruthless disregard for fair competition. He also analyzes the viewpoints of their equally colorful critics, from Louis Brandeis to Ralph Nader. These figures enliven the narrative, offering insight into how large businesses accumulate power. Viewed as either godsends or pariahs, monopolies have sparked endless debate and often conflicting responses from Washington. Monopolies in America surveys the important pieces of legislation and judicial rulings that have emerged since the post-Civil War era, and proposes that American antitrust activity has had less to do with hard economics than with political opinion. What was considered a monopoly in 1911 when Standard Oil and American Tobacco were broken up was not applied again when the Supreme Court refused to dismantle U.S. Steel in 1919. Charting the growth of big business in the United States, Geisst reaches the startling conclusion that the mega-mergers that have dominated Wall Street headlines for the past fifteen years are not simply a trend, but a natural consequence of American capitalism.
Intelligent and informative, Monopolies in America skillfully chronicles the course of American big business, and allows us to see how the debate on monopolies will be shaped in the twentieth-first century.
368 pp.; 35 halftones; 6-1/8 x 9-1/4; 0-19-512301-8 2000 $30.00 (02)

Encounters in the New World
A History in Documents
JILL LEPORE, Boston University

A collection of primary sources documenting the early clash of cultures in the Americas, Encounters in the New World spans the years from Columbus's voyage in 1492 to the publication of the autobiography of Olaudah Equiano, a former slave, in 1789. Emotional eyewitness accounts--memoirs, petitions, diaries, captivity narratives, private correspondence--as well as formal documents, official reports, and journalistic reportage give body and texture to the historical events described. A special 16-page color cartographic section, including maps from both Europe and North America, is fascinating not only for the maps' telltale imperfections, but also because they convey information about how their creators saw themselves and the world around them. A Jesuit priest's chronicle of life among his Iroquois captors, Aztec records of forbidding omens, excerpts from Columbus's ship's log, John Smith's account of cannibalism among the British residents of Jamestown, slave auction advertisements, memoirs by several members of Cortes's expedition, the reminiscences of an escaped slave-these are just a few examples of the wealth of primary sources collected here. Jill Lepore, winner of the distinguished Bancroft Prize for history in 1999, provides informed, expert commentary linking the documents into a fascinating and seamless narrative.

Textbooks may interpret history, but the books in the Pages from History series are history. Each title, compiled and edited by a prominent historian, is a collection of primary sources relating to a particular topic of historical significance. Documentary evidence including news articles, government documents, memoirs, letters, diaries, fiction, photographs, and facsimiles allows history to speak for itself and turns every reader into a historian. Headnotes, extended captions, sidebars, and introductory essays provide the essential context that frames the documents. All the books are amply illustrated and each includes a documentary picture essay, chronology, further reading, source notes, and index.

"Whether drawn by curiosity or compelled by assignment, students of American history will find plenty to chew on in this meaty, heavily illustrated entry in the new Pages from History series. Lepore gathers extracts from letters, books, journals, sermons, advertisements, prophecies, folktales, and news reports generated by the meeting of New World and Old, chronicling the period from 1492-1789.... The author opens with a discussion of what primary sources are and how to interpret them,...and links all of her passages with analytical background notes. Beginning with a full-color section, the pictures are...heavy on maps that chart the world's expansion in the European consciousness and including often fanciful scenes that in many cases are all that is left of vanished Native American cultures.... [Lepore] draws from a host of hard-to-find sources, and creates a ghastly, compelling picture of one of human history's pivotal moments."--Kirkus Reviews
176 pp.; 150 b/w & 12 color illus; 12 pp. insert; 8 x 10; 0-19-510513-3 February 2000 $32.00 (04) Tentative

The Depression and New Deal
A History in Documents
ROBERT MCELVAINE, Millsaps College, Jackson, Mississippi

The Depression and New Deal is a collection of primary sources documenting American life during the longest and deepest economic collapse in American history. From the prosperity and rampant consumerism of the 1920s, the book moves forward to cover the double shock of the stock market crash and dust bowl and then on to the recovery efforts of Roosevelt's New Deal. Some of the most revealing testaments to the times-including songs by Woody Guthrie, articles from sources as diverse as Fortune magazine and the communist periodical New Masses, murals and posters sponsored by the Works Progress Administration, excerpts from literary classics such as The Grapes of Wrath and selections from Eleanor Roosevelt's "My Day" column-have been assembled to provide a well-rounded portrait of the age.
The battle among conflicting political and economic forces is brought to life with political cartoons, Roosevelt's "Forgotten Man" radio address and first inaugural address, Supreme Court decisions, newspaper editorials, text from the National Labor Relations Act, and many other documents. Some of the most compelling elements of this history record the impact of the depression on ordinary people. The experiences of Americans of both sexes, all ages, and various racial and ethnic groups are explored through documents such as Farm Security Administration photographs, interviews, letters to the Roosevelts, and the memoirs of a "southern white girl." A special section of Hollywood film stills demonstrates how the changing values of the nation were reflected in popular culture. Renowned historian Robert McElvaine provides expert commentary linking the documents into a fascinating and seamless narrative.
Textbooks may interpret history, but the books in the Pages from History series are history. Each title, compiled and edited by a prominent historian, is a collection of primary sources relating to a particular topic of historical significance. Documentary evidence including news articles, government documents, memoirs, letters, diaries, fiction, photographs, and facsimiles allows history to speak for itself and turns every reader into a historian. Headnotes, extended captions, sidebars, and introductory essays provide the essential context that frames the documents. All the books are amply illustrated and each includes a documentary picture essay, chronology, further reading, source notes, and index.
192 pp.; 150 b/w illus.; 8 x 10; 0-19-510493-5 January 2000 $30.00 (04) Tentative
library edition

The Better Angel
Walt Whitman in the Civil War
ROY MORRIS, Jr.

The first full account of Whitman's Civil War years sheds new light on the man, his poetry, and the treatment of the war's sick and wounded.

On May 26, 1863, Walt Whitman wrote to his mother: "O the sad, sad things I see--the noble young men with legs and arms taken off--the deaths--the sick weakness, sicker than death, that some endure, after amputations...just flickering alive, and O so deathly weak and sick." For nearly three years, Whitman immersed himself in the devastation of the Civil War, tending to thousands of wounded soldiers and recording his experience with an immediacy and compassion unequaled in wartime literature anywhere in the world.
In The Better Angel, acclaimed biographer Roy Morris, Jr. gives us the fullest accounting of Whitman's profoundly transformative Civil War Years and an historically invaluable examination of the Union's treatment of its sick and wounded. Whitman was mired in depression as the war began, subsisting on journalistic hackwork, wasting his nights in New York's seedy bohemian underground, his "great career" as a poet apparently stalled. But when news came that his brother George had been wounded at Fredericksburg, Whitman rushed south to find him. Though his brother's injury was slight, Whitman was deeply affected by his first view of the war's casualties. He began visiting the camp's wounded and, almost by accident, found his calling for the duration of the war. Three years later, he emerged as the war's "most unlikely hero," a living symbol of American democratic ideals of sharing and brotherhood.
Instead of returning to Brooklyn as planned, Whitman continued to visit the wounded soldiers in the hospitals in and around the capital. He brought them ice cream, tobacco, brandy, books, magazines, pens and paper, wrote letters for those who were not able and offered to all the enormous healing influence of his sympathy and affection. Indeed, several soldiers claimed that Whitman had saved their lives. One noted that Whitman "seemed to have what everybody wanted" and added "When this old heathen came and gave me a pipe and tobacco, it was about the most joyful moment of my life." Another wrote that "There is many a soldier that never thinks of you but with emotions of the greatest gratitude." But if Whitman gave much to the soldiers, they in turn gave much to him. In witnessing their stoic suffering, in listening to their understated speech, and in being always in the presence of death, Whitman evolved the new and more direct poetic style that was to culminate in his masterpiece, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd."
Brilliantly researched and beautifully written, The Better Angel explores a side of Whitman not fully examined before, one that greatly enriches our understanding of his later poetry. More than that, it gives us a vivid and unforgettable portrait of the "other army"--the legions of sick and wounded soldiers who are usually left in the shadowy background of Civil War history--seen here through the unflinching eyes of America's greatest poet.
256 pp.; 6-1/8 x 9-1/4; 0-19-512482-0 May 2000 $27.50 (02) Tentative

The Oregon Trail
FRANCIS PARKMAN, Jr.
Edited with an Introduction by BERNARD ROSENTHAL

The only critical paperback edition available

The Oregon Trail is the gripping account of Francis Parkman's journey west across North America in 1846. After crossing the Allegheny Mountains by coach and continuing by boat and wagon to Westport, Missouri, he set out with three companions on a horseback journey that would ultimately take him over two thousand miles. His detailed description of the journey, set against the vast majesty of the Great Plains, has emerged through the generations as a classic narrative of one man's exploration of the American Wilderness.
384 pp.; 1 map; 0-19-283912-8 March 2000 $10.95 (03) Tentative paper

Return to Armageddon
The United States and the Nuclear Arms Race, 1981-1999
RONALD E. POWASKI

A sobering look at risks of nuclear war as we enter the next millennium

When the Cold War ended, the world let out a collective sigh of relief as the fear of nuclear confrontation between superpowers appeared to vanish overnight. As we approach the new millennium, however, the proliferation of nuclear weapons to ever more belligerent countries and factions raises alarming new concerns about the threat of nuclear war.
In Return to Armageddon, Ronald Powaski assesses the dangers that beset us as we enter an increasingly unstable political world. With the START I and II treaties, completed by George Bush in 1991 and 1993 respectively, and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), signed by Bill Clinton in 1996, it seemed as if the nuclear clock had been successfully turned back to a safer hour. But Powaski shows that there is much less reason for optimism than we may like to think. Continued U.S.-Russian cooperation can no longer be assured. To make matters worse, Russia has not ratified the START II Treaty and the U.S. Senate has failed to approve the CTBT. Perhaps even more ominously, the effort to prevent the acquisition of nuclear weapons by nonweapon states is threatened by nuclear tests conducted by India and Pakistan. The nuclear club is growing and its most recent members are increasingly hostile. Indeed, it is becoming ever more difficult to keep track of the expertise and material needed to build nuclear weapons, which almost certainly will find their way into terrorist hands.
Accessible, authoritative, and provocative, Return to Armageddon provides both a comprehensive account of the arms control process and a startling reappraisal of the nuclear threat that refuses to go away.
304 pp.; 6-1/8 x 9-1/4; 0-19-510382-3 February 2000 $30.00 (02) Tentative

Postwar America
A Student Companion
HARVARD SITKOFF

The half-century since the end of World War II has been crucial in defining America's image of itself and role in the world. A thorough survey of an era dominated by the cold war on the international front and conflicting social forces at home, this authoritative reference volume details every aspect of a turbulent age. It features:
--Brief biographical vignettes of notable political and civil leaders, from Eleanor Roosevelt to Newt Gingrich
--Insightful portraits of prominent cultural icons, from Allen Ginsburg and Elvis to Billy Graham and Jackie Robinson
--Informative analyses of major political events, from the Yalta Conference and the Cuban Missile Crisis to Watergate
--Brief histories of pivotal armed conflicts, from the Korean War and the invasion of Lebanon to the Persian Gulf War
--Articles on social and cultural milestones, from Woodstock to suburban migration to the World Wide Web
--Summaries of such crucial documents as the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the Equal Rights Amendment
--Descriptions of groundbreaking legal cases, such as Roe v. Wade, Miranda v. Arizona, and Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas
--Profiles of major civil rights movements, such as black nationalism and feminism
--Explanations of political and social concepts, such as affirmative action, consumer culture, and McCarthyism
--Authoritative accounts of momentous episodes spurred by social protest, such as the Montgomery bus boycott and the Kent State University shootings
--Further reading lists and cross-references following each entry
--A detailed chronology
The issues that united and divided Americans during the second half of the century--the civil rights movement, the Vietnam war, the cold war--are discussed in lively, objective articles which breathe life into the events and people that have shaped our nation. More than 200 illustrations, including photographs, posters, and ephemera such as political campaign buttons, make Postwar America: A Student Companion an excellent introductory resource for students and all readers interested in modern history.
Oxford's Student Companions to American History are state-of-the-art references for school and home, specifically designed and written for ages 12 and up. Each book is a concise but comprehensive A-to-Z guide to a major historical period or theme in U.S. history, with articles on key issues and prominent individuals. The authors--distinguished scholars well-known in their areas of expertise--ensure that the entries are accurate, up-to-date, and accessible. Special features include an introductory section on how to use the book, further reading lists, cross-references, chronology, and full index.
296 pp.; 198 b/w halftones; 8-1/2 x 11; 0-19-510300-9 2000 $40.00 (04) library edition

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