The New American History

Originally released in 1990, The New American History, edited for the American Historical Association by Eric Foner, has become an indispensable volume for teachers and students. In essays that chart the shifts in interpretation within their fields, some of our most prominent American historians survey the key works and themes in the scholarship of the last three decades. Along with the substantially revised essays from the first edition, this volume presents three entirely new ones -- on intellectual history, the history of the West, and the histories of the family and sexuality. The second edition of The New American History reflects, in Foner's words, "the continuing vitality and creativity of the study of the past, how traditional fields are being expanded and redefined even as new ones are created."