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"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
List of contents
Preface
Introduction. Historians, the Nation, and the Plenitude of Narratives
Thomas Bender
Part I. Historicizing the Nation
Part II. New Historical Geographies and Temporalities
Part III. Opening the Frame
Part IV. The Constraints of Practice
Appendix. Participants in the La Pietra Conferences, 1997–2000
Contributors
Index
About the author
Thomas Bender is University Professor of the Humanities and Professor of History at New York University. He is the author of Intellect and Public Life: Essays on the Social History of Academic Intellectuals in the United States (1993), New York Intellect: A History of Intellectual Life in New York City, from 1750 to the Beginnings of Our Own Time (1988), and Community and Social Change in America (1978) and the editor of The Antislavery Debate: Capitalism and Abolitionism as a Problem in Historical Interpretation (California, 1992).
Summary
This volume asks questions about both nationalism and the discipline of history itself. The essays offer fresh ways of thinking about the traditional themes and periods of American history. The aim is to provide a history that more accurately reflects the dimensions of American experience.
