Victoria Brown
The Education of Jane Addams (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003)
traces, with unprecedented care, Addams's three-decade journey from a privileged prairie girlhood through her years as the competent spinster daughter in a demanding family after her father's death to her early seasoning on the Chicago reform scene. It weaves her spiritual struggles with Christianity into her political struggles with elitism and her emotional struggles with intimacy. Finally, it reveals the logic of her journey to Chicago and makes biographical sense of the political and personal choices she made once she arrived there. The founder of Chicago's Hull-House and, later, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom is portrayed here as a complicated young woman who summoned the energy to pursue public life, the honesty to admit her own arrogance, and the imagination to see joy in collective endeavor.
Carolyn Herbst Lewis
Prescription for Heterosexuality: Sexual Citizenship in the Cold War Era (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2010)
In, Carolyn Herbst Lewis explores how medical practitioners, especially family physicians, situated themselves as the guardians of Americans' sexual well-being during the early Cold War years. Lewis argues that many doctors believed that a satisfying sexual relationship with very specific attributes and boundaries was the foundation of a successful marriage, a source of happiness in the American family, and a crucial building block of a secure nation.
Edward Cohn
The High Title of a Communist: Postwar Party Discipline and the Values of the Soviet Regime (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2015)
is the first study of the Communist Party’s internal disciplinary system in the decades following World War II. Edward Cohn uses the practices of expulsion and censure as a window into how the postwar regime defined the ideal Communist and the ideal Soviet citizen. As the regime grappled with a postwar economic crisis and evolved from a revolutionary prewar government into a more bureaucratic postwar state, the Communist Party revised its informal behavioral code, shifting from a more limited and literal set of rules about a party member’s role in the economy to a more activist vision that encompassed all spheres of life.
Elizabeth Prevost
, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)
Elizabeth Prevost looks at missionaries as the products as well as the agents of the globalization of Christianity, during a time of rapid change at the local, regional, and international level. Anglican women in Madagascar, Uganda, and the British metropole form the basis for this story. Using a rich and largely untapped base of archival and published sources, and encompassing a wide scope of geographical, social, political, and theological contexts, Prevost brings together the fine grain and the broad strokes of the global interconnections of Christianity and feminism.
Sarah Purcell
Sealed with Blood: War, Sacrifice, and Memory in Revolutionary America, (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002)
reveals how public memories and commemorations of Revolutionary War heroes, such as those for Dr. Joseph Warren, helped Americans form a common bond and create a new national identity. Drawing from extensive research on civic celebrations and commemorative literature in the half-century that followed the War for Independence, Sarah Purcell shows how people invoked memories of their participation in and sacrifices during the war when they wanted to shore up their political interests, make money, argue for racial equality, solidify their class status, or protect their personal reputations. Images were also used, especially those of martyred officers, as examples of glory and sacrifice for the sake of American political principles.
Sarah J. Purcell, Michael Schaller, Robert D. Schulzinger, John BezÃs-Selfa, Janette Thomas Greenwood, Andrew Kirk, and Aaron Sheehan-Dean
American Horizons: U.S. History in a Global Context, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 2 Vols. Second Edition (2014)
Second Edition, is the only U.S. History survey text that presents the traditional narrative in a global context. The authors use the frequent movement of people, goods, and ideas into, out of, and within America's borders as a framework. This unique approach provides a fully integrated global perspective that seamlessly contextualizes American events within the wider world. The authors, all acclaimed scholars in their specialties, use their individual strengths to provide students with a balanced and inclusive account of U.S. history.
Sarah J. Purcell
The Early National Period, An Eyewitness History (New York: Facts on File, 2004)
examines the transformation of the fledgling American republic after the conclusion of the Revolutionary War in 1783 into a hearty and rapidly expanding nation by 1828. During these years the United States survived an array of challenges and growing pains, both from forces within the country and from outside forces. The country underwent rapid, significant political change including the ratification of two different constitutions and major changes in the electoral system. It experienced rapid geographic expansion westward, a difficult war with Great Britain, and military conflicts with North African pirates, France, and many different Indian nations. Several cycles of economic boom and bust and a host of significant social changes contributed to the general sense of upheaval. Yet, throughout it all, many people liked to believe the country was destined for greatness.
L. Edward Purcell and Sarah J. Purcell
The Encyclopedia of Battles in North America: 1577-1916 (New York: Facts on File, 2000).
Voted “Best of Reference†award by the New York Public Library, 2000.
From Booklist: “The Encyclopedia of Battles in North America … succinctly describes nearly all the military and naval battles that have taken place on the North American continent. Entries are in alphabetical order by battle name, from Adobe Walls to Yorktown, each one with bibliographic references. Many were from wars that are vaguely remembered today, if at all (e.g., the Pequot War of 1637 or the Russian-Indian War of 1804 in Alaska). There are cross references to alternate names, a comprehensive bibliography, a glossary, 50 maps, and indexes by war, year, and geographic area. Each battle is placed in context, while the authors describe opposing forces, commanders, casualties, and outcomes.â€