The Comparative Approach to American History

Front Cover
Comer Vann Woodward
Oxford University Press, 1997 - 370 pages
In the mid 1960s, C. Vann Woodward was asked to organize a program of broadcast lectures on US history for the Voice of America as part of a longer series designed to acquaint foreign audiences with leaders in American arts and sciences. Reasoning that a comparative approach "was peculiarly adapted to the interests and needs of foreign audiences," Woodward commissioned twenty-two noted scholars to cover classic topics in American history--the Civil War, the World Wars, slavery, immigration, and many others--but to add a comparative dimension by relating these topics to developments elsewhere in the world. The result was the 1968 Basic Books edition of The Comparative Approach to American History.

Now, three decades later, Oxford is very pleased to be reissuing this classic collection of historical essays in a paperback edition, with a new introduction by Woodward that discusses the decline and resurgence of comparative history since the 1960s.
 

Contents

1 The Comparability of American History
3
2 The Colonial Phase
18
3 The Enlightenment
34
4 The Revolution
47
5 The Newness of the New Nation
62
6 Frontiers
75
7 Immigration
91
8 Mobility
106
14 Urbanization
187
15 Political Parties
206
16 The Coming of Big Business
220
17 Socialism and Labor
238
18 Imperialism
253
19 Social Democracy 19101918
271
20 World War I
285
21 The Great Depression
296

9 Slavery
121
10 Civil War
135
Ultraconservative Revolution
146
12 The Negro since Freedom
160
13 Industrialization
175
22 World War II
315
23 The Cold War
328
24 The Test of Comparison
346
Index
359
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