During the summer of 2016, we will be bringing together our previously published articles, book reviews, and podcasts on key themes and periods in the history of the USA. Each grouping is designed to correspond to the core areas of the US History Survey Courses taken by undergraduate students at the University of Texas at Austin.
The Rise of American Capitalism:
Check out H.W. Brands special NEP feature on the Rise of American Capitalism, including a video interview.
Mark Eaker recommends Lords of Finance, by Liaquat Ahamed (Penguin, 2009).
Henry Wiencek looks back to the Oil boomtowns of the early twentieth century, and offers some historical perspectives on the current oil boom.
And H.W. Brands shares some more Great Books on The Rise of American Capitalism.
The Rise of the Global US:
Taking a wider view, Mark Lawrence discusses the rise of America as an international super-power from the late nineteenth-century to the early twentieth-century and shares five books on International History and the Global United States.
Sarah Steinbock-Pratt reviews Amigo (2011) and the formal American Empire in the Philippones from 1899 until 1946, when the Philippines achieved independence.
Kody Jackson recommends The Fish that Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America’s Banana King, by Rich Cohen (Picador, 2012).
And if you want to know more about the rise of US interest in Central and South America in the early twentieth century see Felipe Cruz’s review of Banana Cultures: Agriculture, Consumption & Environmental Change in Honduras and the United States, by John Soluri (University of Texas Press, 2005) and these recommended books and a film on the Amazon.