What is the New History?

The thirteen essays in this volume were originally commissioned by the American Historical Association as a series of pamphlets to acquaint schoolteachers with the latest trends in historical writing about the United States. The contributors are well known and highly regarded specialists on various subfields of American history. Individual essays vary in the extent to which they attempt to synthesize recent scholarship in a comprehensive way. At one extreme, Sean Wilentz makes “the market revolution” the central and unifying theme of the period 1815 to 1848. At the less ambitious end of the spectrum James Shenton provides little more than a bibliographical essay on the recent scholarship concerning ethnicity and immigration. ...