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The Oxford Companion to United States History (Oxford Companions) [Hardcover]

Paul S. Boyer (Editor)
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

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Book Description

July 4, 2001 Oxford Companions
Here is a volume that is as big and as varied as the nation it portrays. With over 1,400 entries written by some 900 historians and other scholars, it illuminates not only America's political, diplomatic, and military history, but also social, cultural, and intellectual trends; science, technology, and medicine; the arts; and religion.
Here are the familiar political heroes, from George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, to Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. But here, too, are scientists, writers, radicals, sports figures, and religious leaders, with incisive portraits of such varied individuals as Thomas Edison and Eli Whitney, Babe Ruth and Muhammed Ali, Black Elk and Crazy Horse, Margaret Fuller, Emma Goldman, and Marian Anderson, even Al Capone and Jesse James. The Companion illuminates events that have shaped the nation (the Great Awakening, Bunker Hill, Wounded Knee, the Vietnam War); major Supreme Court decisions (Marbury v. Madison, Roe v. Wade); landmark legislation (the Fugitive Slave Law, the Pure Food and Drug Act); social movements (Suffrage, Civil Rights); influential books (The Jungle, Uncle Tom's Cabin); ideologies (conservatism, liberalism, Social Darwinism); even natural disasters and iconic sites (the Chicago Fire, the Johnstown Flood, Niagara Falls, the Lincoln Memorial). Here too is the nation's social and cultural history, from Films, Football, and the 4-H Club, to Immigration, Courtship and Dating, Marriage and Divorce, and Death and Dying. Extensive multi-part entries cover such key topics as the Civil War, Indian History and Culture, Slavery, and the Federal Government.
A new volume for a new century, The Oxford Companion to United States History covers everything from Jamestown and the Puritans to the Human Genome Project and the Internet--from Columbus to Clinton. Written in clear, graceful prose for researchers, browsers, and general readers alike, this is the volume that addresses the totality of the American experience, its triumphs and heroes as well as its tragedies and darker moments.

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

From abortion to "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias, Abrams vs. United States to the Zenger trial, and abstract impressionism to Dr. Marie Zakrzewska, The Oxford Companion to United States History is an encyclopedic overview covering the pre-Columbian era to the election of George W. Bush in 2000.

The Companion examines the notable men and women and major events in U.S. history, such as wars or the Depression, as well as ideas and ideologies, technological innovations and economic developments, and long-term processes such as immigration and urbanization. Each entry is written by an authority on the subject, thoroughly cross-referenced in the 78-page index, and arranged alphabetically for easy reference. The alphabetic organization makes for some strange (or amusing) combinations of people on the same page: Billy Graham and Martha Graham; "Mother" Jones and Michael Jordan; Persian Gulf War and Petroleum Industry; Income Tax, Federal, and Indentured Servitude.

A browser's delight, but full of solid scholarship, The Oxford Companion to United States History deserves the treatment its editors recommend--as "a work to be thumbed and worn out, not a book to be put behind glass on a shelf!" Absolutely essential for the well-stocked history library. --Sunny Delaney

From Library Journal

With this long-awaited update to The Oxford Companion to American History (1966), social historian Boyer (Univ. of Wisconsin; Notable American Women) has put together an extraordinary single-volume compendium of 1400 entries on U.S. history with the assistance of more than 900 contributors, including many well-recognized scholars. This edition is not only a resource on history itself but a measure of how the discipline has changed over the past generation. While Boyer's work continues to include entries on great people and politics, it also presents topics as diverse as the environment and the Human Genome Project and individuals as varied as Black Elk and Bill Gates. This especially user-friendly work is arranged alphabetically, with numerous cross references and an extensive index. The entries are highly readable, and most have a short bibliography. The only challenge some will find in using this work is reading the small typeface. Otherwise, this is an excellent selection for both public and academic libraries. Highly recommended. Daniel Liestman, Kansas State Univ. Libs., Manhattan
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 984 pages
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (July 4, 2001)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0195082095
  • ISBN-13: 978-0195082098
  • Product Dimensions: 10 x 7.1 x 2.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #221,856 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

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Average Customer Review
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74 of 87 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Fails as a Guide to American History, July 8, 2003
By 
S. Diamond "book addict" (Oak Park, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Oxford Companion to United States History (Oxford Companions) (Hardcover)
Students and history buffs need a good, comprehensive volume on the significant people, events, movements and changes in the United States over the course of its history. This volume, from the leading publisher of reference books in the English language, fails and disappoints with regard to these goals. This Oxford Companion tries to be the United States History of Everything, as a result it misses key aspects of political history and what it does cover is often inadequate and incomplete.

The Companion tries to cover too many aspects of cultural history and its icons. As a result it sacrifices information on many important political and public figures. We get biographies of Michael Jordan and Marilyn Monroe but no separate bios of George Mason, William Borah, Hiram Johnson, Henry Cabot Lodge, Tom Watson, Joseph Cannon, Thomas Dewey, Nelson Rockefeller, Clarence Darrow, Sam Rayburn, Jesse Jackson -- and the list goes on and on. When they are covered it is often in snipets in subject area articles, which does not give a complete overview of their public careers.

What it does cover in cultural and intellectual history is often incomplete. The Companion has separate artices on the history of the blues, jazz and a weak article on rural country and folk music, but absolutely nothing on bluegrass or commercial country music and its pioneers. The index doesn't even mention the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers, Bill Monroe or Hank Williams. Yet country music far exceeds both the blues and jazz in popularity in terms of its fan base and are certainly deserving popular art forms for inclusion.

The selection of significant figures for separate biographies is often strange and arbitrary. The Companion offers a bio of physicist Eugene Wigner but not of Hans Bethe or Richard Feynman, like Wigner both Nobel Prize winners. Feynman is considered by many to be the most important theoretical physicist of the second half of the 20th century. This arbitrariness in selecting subjects for biographies can be repeated in many different subject areas.

The Companion contains 26 black and white maps, often of poor resolution, and follows the same arbitrary editing in terms of subject matter. You get a map of the properties of U.S. Steel, but no map on how the United States looked at the end of the Revolution or after the Louisiana Purchase, though there is a barely readable map of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. No reference tables and charts are included to tell the reader Presidential election results, who were the Chief Justices of the Supreme Court, or who occupied important positions in Congress or the military over the course of American history.

On the positive side there are many good articles here on political and social history. However the reader must use this book carefully and supplement it with other Oxford Companions and reference books. At $... I would examine this book in a library before considering a purchase.

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25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars a vital and reliable companion to u.s. history today, August 7, 2001
By 
Dr. John J. Obrien (Shrewsbury, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Oxford Companion to United States History (Oxford Companions) (Hardcover)
This volume contains entries that deal with concepts, events, persons, and movements in u.s. history. The length of the entries is appropriate to the topic considered. In addition, the entires both inform the reader with up-to-date information and indicate how revisionist historians have resahped opionions or refocused the discipline. The entries are clearly written and eminently readable. They are persuasive in thier opionions, yet respectful of other stances. The cross references are helpful and ample. The same obtains for the bibliographies. The Oxford Companion to U.S. History far surpasses some other contemporary dictionaries in U.S. history. Its articles are treated in more depth and greater nuances. The entries in the other dictionaries are too short and far too superficial. I would highly recommend this for people involved in serious historical study and research. The price, especially the discounted one offered by amazon.com, is well worth the investment for scholars,libraries, and families.
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24 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars excellent reference material, June 16, 2001
By 
This review is from: The Oxford Companion to United States History (Oxford Companions) (Hardcover)
This book is a must have for anyone with an interest in American History. It gives a clear, concise explanation on most important aspects of the United States history and the history of the lands that would eventually become the United States. The most unique aspect of this book is that, unlike a school textbook, it explains a topics role throughout the history of the United States in on section. In other words, if you looked up Civil Rights, you would find a history of Civil Rights in America from the colonial period to present. All the background information you would need would be in one place, not scattered throughout the book. This is beneficial for teachers who need to quickly find some basic information to answer a student's question, or for a student who needs to quickly brush up on a topic. This is a work that I will definetly use for years to come.
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
ABORTION. The legal status of abortion in the United States has undergone dramatic shifts but its practice has been consistent: Throughout American history, many women have relied on abortion to control their fertility. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
antinuclear protest movements, industrial outwork, public school movement, free silver movement, lesbian rights movement, blind entry
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, African Americans, New England, New Deal Era, North America, Revolutionary War, Soviet Union, Gilded Age, Progressive Era, Great Britain, Vietnam War, New Jersey, San Francisco, United Nations, Great Depression, Latin America, South Carolina, New Orleans, President Franklin Delano, New Mexico, Middle West, Native Americans, House of Representatives, Los Angeles, North Carolina
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