- 544 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
The Contours of American History
About This Book
William Appleman Williams was one of America's greatest critics of US imperialism. The Contours of American History, first published in 1961, reached back to seventeenth-century British history to argue that the relationship between liberalism and empire was in effect a grand compromise, with expansion abroad containing class and race tensions at home.
Williams was not the first historian to identify the United States as an imperial power, yet he was unique in linking domestic disquiet to the long history of American expansion, which he traced back to England's Glorious Revolution. Reaching deep into thirteenth century British history to identify the motor contradictions of what eventually would become known as liberalism, Williams presents a wholly original interpretation of US history; one where the story of the United States is the story of capitalism.
Coming as it did before the political explosions of the 1960s, Williams's message was a deeply heretical one, and yet the Modern Library ultimately chose Contours as one of the best 100 nonfiction books of the 20th Century. This fiftieth anniversary edition will introduce this magisterial work to a new readership, with a new introduction by Greg Grandin, one of today's leading historians of US foreign policy.
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Table of contents
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Foreword to the 2011 Edition: Reading The Contours of American History at Fifty
- Preface to the 1966 Edition: Concerning Such Matters as Authors, Reviewers, Readers, and Even the Book Itself
- Preface: History as a Way of Learning
- Introduction: British Mercantilism as the Political Economy of English Backwardness
- The Age of Mercantilism: 1740â1828
- The Age of Laissez Nous Faire: 1819â1896
- The Age of Corporation Capitalism: 1882â
- Conclusion: History as a Way of Breaking the Chains of the Past
- Acknowledgments
- Index