Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.

Click to enlarge

Request Exam Copy

Print Price: $95.99

Format:
Paperback
832 pp.
7.5" x 9.25"

ISBN-13:
9780197540206

Copyright Year:
2024

Imprint: OUP US

Forging America: Volume Two since 1863

A Continental History of the United States

Steven Hahn

Forging America speaks to both the complexities of historical experience and the meanings of the past for our present-day lives. Warning against the assumption of preordained outcomes, Pulitzer-Prize winning historian Steve Hahn focuses the reader's attention on those moments when historical change occurs. He weaves a history that is continental and transnational, a history of the many peoples whose experiences and aspirations-oftentimes involving struggle and conflict-went into the forging of a nation.

Readership : History text for undergraduate students.

Reviews

"Forging America is superb: the treatment of power, conflict, and crisis within the US is convincingly located within the dynamics of global transformation. The narrative is illuminating and vivid - sometimes troubling, in the best of ways - as it charts how American history is marked not only by achievements won in the realms of equity, autonomy, and human dignity but also by longstanding as well as unprecedented threats to social justice and human survival. It judiciously explores clashing perspectives. And it highlights turning-points and ruptures, making contingency come alive while also tracing long patterns of change over time, helping students to understand the relationship between past and present."

-Amy Dru Stanley, University of Chicago
"Forging America is a brilliant effort to reimagine the complex history of the United States by placing events in a global context, establishing the central role race and gender played in the emergence of the republic, and demanding that we recognize the nation's development as a contingent process rather than a pre-determined outcome. It demands that students reflect on history, consider alternative outcomes, and find viable explanations when confronted with a wide range of causal factors."

-Thomas Summerhill, Michigan State University
"This is an innovative, sharply written, fast moving history of the United States, one that places the U.S. within broader worlds not of the country's own making. It demonstrates the role of everyday people, particularly non-white people, in shaping the country."

-Gregory P. Downs, University of California, Davis
"Steven Hahn's Forging America is a tour-de-force. His fast-moving narrative provides a global history of US history while simultaneously centering the experiences of people of color whose lives are often marginalized in survey texts. It is a major scholarly achievement."

-Karlos K. Hill, University of Oklahoma

Maps, Tables, and Figures
Features
Sources for Forging America
Preface

About the Author

Chapter 15 Ending the Rebellion and Re(constructing) the Nation 1863-1865
Part Four: Industrial Society and Its Discontents
Chapter 16 THE PROMISE AND LIMITS OF RECONSTRUCTION, 1865-1877
Chapter 17 CAPITALISM AND THE GILDED AGE, 1873-1890
Chapter 18 CAULDRONS OF PROTEST, 1873-1896
Chapter 19 CONSTRUCTING PROGRESSIVISM, 1886-1914
Chapter 20 EMPIRE AND RACE, 1890-1914

Part Five: Social Democracy and Its Enemies
Chapter 21 WAR, REVOLUTION, AND REACTION, 1910-1925
Chapter 22 LOOKING INTO THE ABYSS, 1920-1934
Chapter 23 BIRTH PANGS OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY, 1933-1940
Chapter 24 FLAMES OF GLOBAL WAR, VISIONS OF GLOBAL PEACE, 1940-1945
Chapter 25 COLD WAR AMERICA, 1945-1957

Part Six: Conservatism, Neoliberalism, and Militarism
Chapter 26 REBELLION ON THE LEFT, RESURGENCE ON THE RIGHT, 1957-1968
Chapter 27 DESTABILIZATIONS, 1968-1979
Chapter 28 A NEW CONSERVATISM AND ITS DISCONTENTS: 1980-1989
Chapter 29 NEW WORLD DISORDER, 1989-2004
Chapter 30 DESTINIES, 2005 - The Present

Appendix A: Historical Documents
Appendix B: Historical Facts and Data
Credits
Index

There are no Instructor/Student Resources available at this time.

Steven Hahn earned his B.A. at the University of Rochester and his M.A. and Ph. D. at Yale University. He is a specialist on the social and political history of the nineteenth-century United States, on the history of the American South, on slavery, emancipation, and race, and on the development of American empire on the North American continent, in the Western Hemisphere, and in the Pacific world. His books include the Pulitzer Prize winning A Nation under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration (2003); The Political Worlds of Slavery and Freedom (2009); A Nation without Borders: The United States and Its World in an Age of Civil Wars, 1830-1910 (2016); and most recently, Illiberal America: A History (2024).

Hahn has held fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, and the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers of the New York Public Library. He has taught at the University of Delaware, the University of California San Diego, Northwestern University, and the University of Pennsylvania, and is currently Professor of History at New York University where he is also actively involved in the NYU Prison Education Program.

Sources for Forging America Volume Two - Steven Hahn
Edited by Felicia Angeja Viator and Stefan Lund

Special Features

Encourages the reader to recognize that history is a continuous process of discovery, and that history is a way of learning and thinking.
Use multiple and shifting perspectives to narrate the history of the United States and to focus the readers' attentions on those moments when historical change occurs.
Reorients the narrative trajectory so that the Pacific world is as much a part of United States history as the Atlantic world has been.
Breaks with convention by striving, whenever possible, to map continuity and change from the perspectives of the people who lived through them. Instead of relying exclusively on standard projections that show the United States with an east-west and north-south orientation, many of the maps in the "Mapping America" feature in each chapter show events from a south-north or west-east perspective.
Uses images to convey the substance and meaning of differing perspectives, and to show how people envisioned the world around them. Every chapter includes a "Perspectives" feature that pairs two contrasting images.
Emphasizes the contingency of history--that those who lived at times when important historical events took place did not themselves know what the outcome would be. Every chapter ends with a "What If?" section: an alternative outcome accompanied by original source materials for students to consider, discuss, and debate.
Integrated directly in the e-book at no extra charge, the audio book for Forging America provides another mode for engaging with the text. Each chapter is narrated by a professional actor. Music and sound effects enhance the listening experience. Go to https://learninglink.oup.com/access/hahn1e to listen to a sample.
The e-book includes nearly 100 primary sources, embedded at the end of each chapter, and edited specifically to accompany Forging America
A complete package of digital teaching resources is available for adopters at https://learninglink.oup.com/access/hahn1e