New Spirits: Americans in the Gilded Age, 1865-1905 [Paperback]

Rebecca Edwards (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 8, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0195147294 | ISBN-13: 978-0195147292

New Spirits: Americans in the Gilded Age, 1865-1905 provides a fascinating look at one of the most crucial chapters in U.S. history. Rejecting the stereotype of a "Gilded Age" dominated by "robber barons," author Rebecca Edwards invites us to look more closely at the period when the United States became a modern industrial nation and asserted its place as a leader on the world stage. Employing a concise, engaging narrative, Edwards recounts the contradictions of the era, including stories of tragedy and injustice alongside tales of humor, endurance, and triumph. She offers a balanced perspective that considers a number of different viewpoints, including those of native-born Anglos, Native Americans, African Americans, and an array of Asian, Mexican, and European immigrants. Beginning with Emancipation and ending with the first deployment of U.S. troops overseas, New Spirits traces the roots of today's diverse and conflicted nation. Organized around major themes, the text consists of three parts. Opening with the legacies of the Civil War, Part I focuses on the era's political and economic transformations. Part II explores upheavals in family life, scientific thought, and religious faith. Part III follows the depression of the 1890s and its aftermath. The book reveals a world of hopeful immigrants and striving professionals; generations in conflict with one another; a new West and South; and religious, political, intellectual, and sexual experimentation. Offering a fresh, sweeping narrative, New Spirits is ideal for readers seeking an introduction to this critical epoch, and for undergraduate and graduate courses on the Gilded Age, the Progressive Era, and 20th-century U.S. history.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Rebecca Edwards' analysis reveals the complex dichotomy of angst and optimism that filled the decades from 1865 to 1905. This is not the romanticized story of a more innocent time. Instead, New Spirits uncovers a complex period of economic, political, and cultural diversity that mapped the main pathways to the contemporary United States in a global context."--Kriste Lindenmeyer, University of Maryland-Baltimore County

"Finally, we have a fresh historical interpretation of the most neglected half-century in American history. Edwards has done the seemingly impossible--written a book that keeps a superb balance between the material, regional, political, religious, ethnic, and literary sides of the story; purveys key facts in a highly readable way; never bogs down in abstraction; and, at moments, is humorous to boot. Not only is she sensitive to class, cultural, racial, and gender diversity both in her text's scope and tone, she also sounds themes whose continuity with the present any reader can easily discern. This book should have the classic staying power and meet the same needs of that favorite text of an earlier generation, Robert Wiebe's The Search for Order."-- Louise W. Knight, author of Citizen: Jane Addams and the Struggle for Democracy

About the Author

Rebecca Edwards is at Vassar College.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (December 8, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195147294
• ISBN-13: 978-0195147292
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #243,364 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Forgotten age, February 12, 2006

By 

R. Sylvester (Washington DC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: New Spirits: Americans in the Gilded Age, 1865-1905 (Paperback)

Dr. Edwards newest book is a smash for history buffs. The book attacks the Gilded age with a fresh thematic style that avoids the stuffy typical academic style. She does a great job covering the social issues and doesn't get bogged down in the militarism of the period either. She does a super job exposing the racism and crushing ambivalence of unrestrained capitalism of the age and still has room for a chapter on the sexual mores of the era.

There was one draw back though, in avoiding the academic style she decided not to use footnotes which hampers us graduate students from following in her foot prints. For example what student would fail to be motivated to read a first hand source that contains this information, "and one infamous book instructed married couples to schedule sexual intercourse once every three years, between the hours of 11 A.M. and noon. The author even made recommendations on what to eat that day for breakfast" Now how will a dutiful student ever know what that fortifying morning repast should consist of without a footnote to the primary source?

I liked how Dr. Edwards ended her book. Edwards ends her work with an epilogue that ties the whole book back to her philosophical guide, Walt Whitman, in the guise of a guided tour of the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. She mixes the optimism characteristic of Americans with the depredations characteristic of unchecked capitalists. She ends on a haunting note that actually stirs the heart of a historian to wonder what comes next. And so we grad students move out to discover that answer...

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Back to the Future: The Gilded Age Returns?, July 25, 2006

By 

Chief Armorer (Eldred, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: New Spirits: Americans in the Gilded Age, 1865-1905 (Paperback)

Edward's book is a very nice total history of the time period, with particularly interesting examinations of the culture. Edwards effectively tears down the notion of a sudden birth of a Progressive Era and looks at its roots in the "Gilded Age." She, in a very thoughtful way, breaks down some of the simple victomology that tends to encompass study of the period and instead examines the more complex interrelations of class, race and gender in this formative period in US History. She implicitly argues that much of the late nineteenth century is very akin (i.e. recognizable) to the late 20th with its pro-big business and aggressive and racist foreign policy. The book is simply smashing.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Lover of the Gilded Age, January 19, 2006

By 

A Lover of the Gilded Age (Fairfax County, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: New Spirits: Americans in the Gilded Age, 1865-1905 (Paperback)

Dr. Edwards's new book is superior in all respects. Her account is interesting, lucid, and fun. I learned many new things about this critical period in our history from her fine narriative that relies on recent scholarship. Nothing dusty or drab here at all. As a history teacher, I highly recommend her book to professionals, teachers, and students. This is a winner and should not be passed up. We must hope that she continues to research and to write on this period.