Contemporary American History: 1877-1913

by Charles A. Beard

PREFACE IN teaching American government and politics, I constantly meet large numbers of students who have no knowledge of the most elementary facts of American history since the Civil War. When they are taken to task for their neglect, they reply that there is no textbook dealing with the period, and that the smaller histories are sadly deficient in their treatment of our age. It js to supply the student and general reader with a handy guide to contemporary history that I have undertaken this volume. I have made no attempt to present an artistically balanced account of the last thirty-five years, but have sought rather to furnish a background for the leading issues of current politics and to enlist the interest of the student in the history of the most wonderful period in American development. The book is necessarily somewhat impressionistic and in part it is based upon materials which have not been ade quately sifted and evaluated. Nevertheless, I have endcavored to be accurate and fair, and at the same time to invite on the part of the student some of that free play of the mind which Matthew Arnold has shown to be so helpful jn literary criticism. Although the volume has been designed, in a way, as a textbook, I have thrown aside the methods of the almanac and chronicle, and, at the risk of displeasing the reader who expects a little about everything includ ing the Sioux war and the San Fralicisco earthquake,I have otnittcd with a light heart many of the staples of history in order to treat more fully the matters which seem important from the modern point of view. I have also refused to mar the pages with black type, paragraph numbers, and other apparatus l which tradition has prescribed for manuals. DetaiIed election statistics and the guide to additional reading I have placed - in an appendix. In the preparation of the book, I have made extensive use of the volumes by Professors Dunning, Sparks, Dewey, and Latanb, in the American Nation Series, and 1-wish to acknowledge once for all my deep debt to them. My colleague, Mr. B. B. Kendrick, read all of the proofs and saved me from many an etrot. Professor R. L. Schuyler gave me the benefit of his criticisms on part of the proof. To Dr. Louis A. hlayers, of the College of the City of New York, I am under special obligations for valuable suggestions as to arrangement and for drafting a large portion of Chapter 111. The shortcomings of the book fall to me, but I shall be recompensed for my indiscretions, if this vol ume is speedily followed by a number of texts, large and small, dealing with American history since the Civil War. It is showing no disrespect to our ancestors to be as much interested in our age as they were in theirs and the doctrine that we can know more about Andrew Jackson whom we have not seen than about Theodore Roosevelt whom we have seen is a pernicious psychological error. CHARLES . A. BEARI. COLUMUI U A N IVERSITY, November, 1913. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. THE RESTORATIO O N F WHIT n E 0 1IN10 I N THE v. VI. v r r . VIII. IX. X. XI. XII. XIII. THE E CONOMIRCE VOLUTION . THE REVOJ, UTIO IN N POLITIC A S N D LAIV PARTIES A ND PARTYIS SUES, 1877-1896 . Two DECADES O F FEDERALL EGISLATIO1N8,7 7-1896 THE G ROWTH OF DISSEST . THE CAMPAIG O N F 1896 . I, irenlALIs i . THE D EVELOP IE O N F T C APITALTS . BI THE ADMINISTRATIO O N F ST HEODORREO OSEVELT . THE R EVIVAL 011 DISSENT . MR. TAFT A ND REPUBLICADNI SINTEGRAT . I O THE CAMPAIGN O F 1912 m APPENDIX . BIBLIOGRAPHY. INDEX...

397 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

American historian and educator Charles Austin Beard explored the aspects in works, such as An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution in 1913; self-interests of formulators based the document in his view, which profoundly affected the study.

Mary Ritter Beard shared economic view of history of Charles Austin Beard, her husband, and they collaborated on first volume in 1927 of The Rise of American Civilization , which characterized northern capitalists, who perpetrated the Civil War as the "second American Revolution" over southern plantation owners for gain.

shared her husband Charles's economic view of history and collaborated with him on The Rise of American Civilization (first volume 1927), in which they characterized the Civil War as the "second American Revolution," perpetrated by Northern capitalists over Southern plantation owners for economic gain


Charles Austin Beard with Frederick Jackson Turner most influenced of the first half of the 20th century. He published hundreds of monographs and textbooks in political science. He included a radical re-evaluation and thought of more than philosophical principles that motivated the Founding Fathers of the United States. Charles Austin Beard with Mary Ritter Beard, his wife, wrote the wide-ranging and bestselling The Rise of American Civilization , most influential major book, in 1927.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles...

Reviews

[Michael McCue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charles Beard was mentioned on The Writers Almanac on NPR on 11-27-2013. I am reading it and it is really making me mad. Contemporary is right! The first chapter is about how the blacks and poor whites were disenfranchised in the South after Reconstruction. It sound so much like the voter suppression of today. Next chapter is about the railroads and other industrialists who got millions of public assets for them selves. Including millions of acres of public land granted to them by their cronies in Congress. Again so much like right now.

[Robert Marovich · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book for getting a detailed and focused look at the political and economic activities of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century because it was written when these issues were still fresh in the minds of Americans.