Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Historybr>br>''Read it. It will open your eyes about race history in America. It will shock you for what it tells you about politics in America today.'' Richard Fordbr>br>''A remarkably wide-ranging synthesis of the history of the 1850s and the Civil War ... that effectively integrates in one volume social, political and military events from the immediate aftermath of the Mexican War through the sectional strife of the 1850s, the secession movement, and the Civil War ... It is a masterful work'' New York Review of Booksbr>br>''Compellingly readable ... the best one-volume treatment of its subject I have ever come across. It may be the best ever published ... This is magic'' The New York Timesbr>br>This book covers one of the most turbulent periods of the USA''s history, from the Mexican War in 1848 to the end of the Civil War in 1865. With a broad historical sweep, it traces the heightening sectional conflict of the 1850s: the growing estrangement of the South and its impassioned defence of slavery; the formation of the Republican Party in the North, with its increasing opposition to slavery; and the struggle over territorial expansion, with its accompanying social tensions and economic expansion. The whole panorama of the Civil War is captured in these pages, from the military campaign, which is described with vividness, immediacy, a grasp of strategy and logistics, and a keen awareness of the military leaders and the common soldiers involved, to its political and social aspects.>
In the newest volume in the award-winning Penguin History of American Life series, James R. Barrett chronicles how a new urban American identity was forged in the streets, saloons, churches, and workplaces of the American city. This process of "Americanization from the bottom up" was deeply shaped, Barrett argues, by the Irish. From Lower Manhattan to the South Side of Chicago to Boston's North End, newer waves of immigrants and African Americans found it nearly impossible to avoid the Irish. While historians have emphasized the role of settlement houses and other mainstream institutions in Americanizing immigrants, Barrett makes the original case that the culture absorbed by newcomers upon reaching American shores had a distinctly Hibernian cast. By 1900, there were more people of Irish descent in New York City than in Dublin; more in the United States than in all of Ireland. But in the late nineteenth century, the sources of immigration began to shift, to southern and eastern Europe and beyond. Whether these newcomers wanted to save their souls, get a drink, find a job, or just take a stroll in the neighborhood, they had to deal with Irish Americans. Barrett reveals how the Irish vacillated between a progressive and idealistic impulse toward their fellow immigrants and a parochial defensiveness stemming from the hostility earlier generations had faced upon their own arrival in America. They imparted racist attitudes toward African Americans; they established ethnic "deadlines" across city neighborhoods; they drove other immigrants from docks, factories, and labor unions. Yet the social teachings of the Catholic Church, a sense of solidarity with the oppressed, and dark memories of poverty and violence in both Ireland and America ushered in a wave of progressive political activism that eventually embraced other immigrants. Drawing on contemporary sociological studies and diaries, newspaper accounts, and Irish American literature, The Irish Way illustrates how the interactions between the Irish and later immigrants on the streets, on the vaudeville stage, in Catholic churches, and in workplaces helped forge a multi-ethnic American identity that has a profound legacy in the USA today.
"Following up on his book on President Bush's foreign policy advisers, James Mann provides an equally insightful look at the team around President Obama, including the bright young advisers who have remained little known. His book shows how carefully calibrated the administration's policy has been and the key role that Obama has played himself." - Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs.
"James Mann has pioneered a new and immensely readable genre: an in-depth group portrait of foreign-policy advisers whose backgrounds and interactions help explain the worldview and policies of the president they serve. He did that superbly in "Rise of the Vumcans" about George W. Bush's inner circle, and he's done it again with The Obamians." - Strobe Talbott, president, The Brookings Institution.
"James Mann gives us valuable insight into the crafting of American foreign policy in President Obama's administration. He takes us behind the scenes and into the room where decisions are made on some of the most critical issues of ou time." - Nancy Pelosi.
"James Mann is unique among writers on contemporary Amrican foreign policy. He combines a reporter's eye for detail and ancedote with a scholar's grasp of the broad sweep of historical events. Essential reading for who want to understand the successes and failures of the current administration's approach to the world." - Aaron Friedberg, professor of politics and international affairs, Woodrow Wilson School.
In his surprising new book, critically lauded author James Mann trains his keen analytical eye on Ronald Reagan and the Soviet Union, shedding new light on the hidden aspects of American foreign policy. Drawing on recent interviews and previously unavailable documents, Mann offers a new history assessing what Reagan did, and did not do, to help bring America's four-decade conflict with the U.S.S.R. to a close. Ultimately, The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan dispels the facile stereotypes surrounding America's fortieth president in favour of a levelheaded, cogent understanding of an often misunderstood man.
