"In One eloquent essay after another, some of the wisest historians of our time write American history in a grand cosmopolitan context. From the era of discovery to the present, histories that we thought we knew—of labor, of race relations, of politics, of gender relations, of diplomacy, of ethnicity—are more richly understood when causes and consequences are traced throughout the globe. One emerges invigorated, ready to welcome a new American history for a new international century."—Linda K. Kerber, author of No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies: Women and the Obligations of Citizenship "Rethinking American History in a Global Age is an extremely stimulating and thought-provoking collection of essays written by leading historians who offer wider contexts for illuminating the traditional themes and issues of American national history. Particularly impressive is the book's combination of caution and original, sometimes daring insights."—David Brion Davis, author of In the Image of God: Religion, Moral Values, and Our Heritage of Slavery "For decades American historians have been urging one another to place our culture in comparative or transnational perspective. Thomas Bender's unique volume includes not only essays theorizing such efforts and essays exemplifying such work at its most successful and its most provocative, it also provides more skeptical assessments questioning whether American historians can meet the challenge of overcoming our longstanding national preoccupations. Rethinking American History in a Global Age is an indispensable book that will shape the work of a rising generation of historians whose horizons will extend beyond our own shores."—James T. Kloppenberg, author of The Virtues of Liberalism

What is grand strategy ? What does it aim to achieve? And what differentiates it from normal strategic thought--what, in other words, makes it "grand"? In answering these questions, most scholars have focused on diplomacy and warfare, so much so that "grand"? In answering these questions, most scholars have focused on diplomacy and warfare, so much so that "grand strategy" has become almost an equivalent of "military history." The traditional attention paid to military affairs is understandable, but in today's world it leaves out much else that could be considered political, and therefore strategic. Just as contemporary world politics is driven by a wide range of non-military issues, the most thorough considerations of grand strategy must consider the bases of peace and security--including gender, race, the environment, and a wide range of cultural, social, political, and economic issues. Rethinking American Grand Strategy assembles a roster of leading historians to examine America's place in the world. Its innovative chapters re-examine familiar figures, such as John Quincy Adams, George Kennan, and Henry Kissinger, while also revealing the forgotten episodes and hidden voices of American grand strategy. They expand the scope of diplomatic and military history by placing the grand strategies of public health, race, gender, humanitarianism, and the law alongside military and diplomatic affairs to reveal hidden strategists as well as strategies. --

"Rethinking Home is pioneering scholarship at its best. Amato makes his case for a new local history combining academic sophistication with a deft human touch, that can provide a new perspective on the way in which humans have interacted with their natural and created environments over the past 150 years. Amato’s eloquent plea for scholars to rethink the intricate relationships between home, place, nation, and world is one that cannot be ignored."—Richard O. Davies, University Foundation Professor, University of Nevada "Local history is the stepchild of our profession. Joseph Amato has emancipated Cinderella. Innovative and engaging, his passion for particulars brings life to people and places whose interest we have underrated far too long; and provides a good read beside."—Eugen Weber Department of History, UCLA "In the best Thoreauvian sense, Joseph Amato masterfully synthesizes and eloquently presents two decades of practicing and thinking deeply about local history. How pleasantly odd, how wonderful that a book on local history should be so rousing, so encouraging, so redemptive! Rethinking Home is a veritable call to arms for those of us who care deeply about the special, the distinctive character of our own home places, our own locales."—Bradley P. Dean, Thoreau Institute at Walden Woods

"In One eloquent essay after another, some of the wisest historians of our time write American history in a grand cosmopolitan context. From the era of discovery to the present, histories that we thought we knew—of labor, of race relations, of politics, of gender relations, of diplomacy, of ethnicity—are more richly understood when causes and consequences are traced throughout the globe. One emerges invigorated, ready to welcome a new American history for a new international century."—Linda K. Kerber, author of No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies: Women and the Obligations of Citizenship "Rethinking American History in a Global Age is an extremely stimulating and thought-provoking collection of essays written by leading historians who offer wider contexts for illuminating the traditional themes and issues of American national history. Particularly impressive is the book's combination of caution and original, sometimes daring insights."—David Brion Davis, author of In the Image of God: Religion, Moral Values, and Our Heritage of Slavery "For decades American historians have been urging one another to place our culture in comparative or transnational perspective. Thomas Bender's unique volume includes not only essays theorizing such efforts and essays exemplifying such work at its most successful and its most provocative, it also provides more skeptical assessments questioning whether American historians can meet the challenge of overcoming our longstanding national preoccupations. Rethinking American History in a Global Age is an indispensable book that will shape the work of a rising generation of historians whose horizons will extend beyond our own shores."—James T. Kloppenberg, author of The Virtues of Liberalism

A provocative new book that shows us why we must put American history firmly in a global context--from 1492 to today Americans like to tell their country's story as if the United States were naturally autonomous and self-sufficient, with characters, ideas, and situations unique to itself. Thomas Bender asks us to rethink this "exceptionalism" and to reconsider the conventional narrative. He proposes that America has grappled with circumstances, doctrines, new developments, and events that other nations, too, have faced, and that we can only benefit from recognizing this. Bender's exciting argument begins with the discovery of the Americas at a time when peoples everywhere first felt the transforming effects of oceanic travel and trade. He then reconsiders our founding Revolution, occurring in an age of rebellion on many continents; the Civil War, happening when many countries were redefining their core beliefs about the nature of freedom and the meaning of nationhood; and the later imperialism that pitted the United States against Germany, Spain, France, and England. Industrialism and urbanization, laissez-faire economics, capitalism and socialism, and new technologies are other factors that Bender views in the light of global developments. A Nation Among Nations is a passionate, persuasive book that makes clear what damage is done when we let the old view of America alone in the world falsify our history. Bender boldly challenges us to think beyond our borders.

In this stimulating and highly original study of the writing of American history, twenty-four scholars from eleven European countries explore the impact of writing history from abroad. Six distinguished scholars from around the world add their commentaries. Arguing that historical writing is conditioned, crucially, by the place from which it is written, this volume identifies the formative impact of a wide variety of institutional and cultural factors that are commonly overlooked. Examining how American history is written from Europe, the contributors shed light on how history is written in the United States and, indeed, on the way history is written anywhere. The innovative perspectives included in Historians across Borders are designed to reinvigorate American historiography as the rise of global and transnational history is creating a critical need to understand the impact of place on the writing and teaching of history. This book is designed for students in historiography, global and transnational history, and related courses in the United States and abroad, for US historians, and for anyone interested in how historians work.

A thought-provoking new book from one of America's finest historians "History," wrote James Baldwin, "does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do." Rarely has Baldwin's insight been more forcefully confirmed than during the past few decades. History has become a matter of public controversy, as Americans clash over such things as museum presentations, the flying of the Confederate flag, or reparations for slavery. So whose history is being written? Who owns it? In Who Owns History?, Eric Foner proposes his answer to these and other questions about the historian's relationship to the world of the past and future. He reconsiders his own earlier ideas and those of the pathbreaking Richard Hofstadter. He also examines international changes during the past two decades--globalization, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of apartheid in South Africa--and their effects on historical consciousness. He concludes with considerations of the enduring, but often misunderstood, legacies of slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. This is a provocative, even controversial, study of the reasons we care about history--or should.