New Spirits: Americans in the Gilded Age, 1865-1905
"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 Spiritsuncovers 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'sThe Search for Order."-- Louise W. Knight, author ofCitizen: Jane Addams and the Struggle for Democracy