Describes the period after the Civil War when the United States was becoming increasingly industrialized and technological, including the coming of the railroads, the rise of the large corporations, the development of labor unions, and government regulation.

The rise of corporate capitalism was a cultural revolution as well as an economic event, according to James Livingston. That revolution resides, he argues, in the fundamental reconstruction of selfhood, or subjectivity, that attends the advent of an 'age of surplus' under corporate auspices. From this standpoint, consumer culture represents a transition to a society in which identities as well as incomes are not necessarily derived from the possession...

In Illiberal Reformers, Thomas Leonard reexamines the economic progressives whose ideas and reform agenda underwrote the Progressive Era dismantling of laissez-faire and the creation of the regulatory welfare state, which, they believed, would humanize and rationalize industrial capitalism. But not for all. Academic social scientists such as Richard T. Ely, John R. Commons, and Edward A. Ross, together with their reform allies in social work, charity,...

The author examines such issues as black suffrage, disengranchisement, taxation, westward migration, lynching and civil rights to detect the trajectory of Northern disenchantment with Reconstruction.

In this new edition, Samuel P. Hays expands the scope of his pioneering account of the ways in which Americans reacted to industrialism during its early years from 1885 to 1914. Hays now deepens his coverage of cultural transformations in a study well known for its concise treatment of political and economic movements. Hays draws on the vast knowledge of America's urban and social history that has been developed over the last thirty-eight years...

The author examines America's reluctant rise to power and the United Kingdom's subsequent decline. Exhibiting a Darwinian perspective on the hierarchy of nations, Adams analyzes how power, wealth, and war are related. He argues that trade is an even more powerful force than war, demonstrating his point through the example of sugar production. Adams strongly believed that America's rise to world supremacy was both a blessing and a curse.

This is Who We Were: Post Civil War 1880-1899 provides a deeper understanding of day-to-day life in America in the late 1800s, serving as both a serious research tool for students of American history and an intriguing climb up America's family tree. Thirty in-depth personal profiles examine the home, work, and social lives of individuals and families living in the United States between 1880 and 1900. Featured profiles include a Chinese photographer...

Brahmin Capitalism explores the surprisingly dynamic role of established wealth in the rise of modern capitalism in the United States. Far from declining in prosperity and influence, elite Bostonians of illustrious lineage - the quintessential old money families on the American scene - successfully reinvented themselves. Better known as social reformers, philanthropists, and men of letters, these scions of wealth were also astute businessmen with...