Böcker av Ian Tyrrell

A powerful dissection of a core American myth. The idea that the United States is unlike every other country in world history is a surprisingly resilient one. Throughout his distinguished career, Ian Tyrrell has been one of the most influential historians of the idea of American exceptionalism, but he has never written a book focused solely on it until now. The notion that American identity might be exceptional emerged, Tyrrell shows, from the belief that the nascent early republic was not simply a postcolonial state but a genuinely new experiment in an imperialist world dominated by Britain. Prior to the Civil War, American exceptionalism fostered declarations of cultural, economic, and spatial independence. As the country grew in population and size, becoming a major player in the global order, its exceptionalist beliefs came more and more into focus--and into question. Over time, a political divide emerged: those who believed that America's exceptionalism was the basis of its virtue and those who saw America as either a long way from perfect or actually fully unexceptional, and thus subject to universal demands for justice. Tyrrell masterfully articulates the many forces that made American exceptionalism such a divisive and definitional concept. Today, he notes, the demands that people acknowledge America's exceptionalism have grown ever more strident, even as the material and moral evidence for that exceptionalism--to the extent that there ever was any--has withered away.

Frances Willard founded the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in 1884 to carry the message of women's emancipation throughout the world. Ian Tyrrell tells the extraordinary story of how a handful of women sought to change the mores of the world - not only by abolishing alcohol but also by promoting peace and attacking prostitution, poverty, and male control of democratic political structures.

One of the most critical environmental challenges facing both Californians and Australians in the 1860s involved the aftermath of the gold rushes. This book demonstrates how Californians and Australians shared plants, insects, technology, and dreams, creating a system of environmental exchange that transcended national and natural boundaries.

Shows that the perceived threat to history is recurrent, exaggerated, and often misunderstood. This book shows, the utility of history is a distinctive theme throughout the history of the discipline, as is the attempt to be responsive to public issues among pressure groups.