Rating the Books From This Semester

So I thought I'd give my list of the books that I liked, ranking from my favorite to my least favorite. I, like anyone else writing this list, have a bias towards my historical interest (Progressive Era, social and culture U.S. history, etc.). I really like books that are accessible, engaging and expose me to new ideas or forms of historical thinking that I had never came across before. I'll give a little short explanation blurb about each one too.

So here's my list.

1. Alan Trachtenberg, The Incorporation of America: Culture and Society in the Gilded Age

So I feel pretty certain I'm in the minority, like probably the only one, who would call this my favorite book of the semester, but for students like me who are very interested in studying cultural history and Gilded Age American history, then this book is foundational. I loved how Trachtenberg weaved in the culture of the times into his book, even though at times the text was difficult to read and fully comprehend. I just enjoyed the content of the book and the focus on cultural history as Trachtenberg gave a very rich, detailed account of the famous figures, ideas, and concepts of the period. I think its a book that made me want to go back to it and continue to decipher and unravel its themes, so it kept me intrigued.

2. C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow

I really liked this book because Woodward provided a new and interesting way to look at the Jim Crow era. I liked how he elaborated on the nuances that did or did not differentiate between race in the South and I thought it was interesting that he took the discussion into the 1970's, making connections between Jim Crow as it looked in different eras of time and comparing that to how Jim Crow manifests itself in issues like "white flight" urban development. This book has a lot of applications to community and public history as well, which I really like.

3. Linda Kerber, No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies

This book surprised me, as I wasn't sure if I was going to like it. I felt like it was one of the books that I understood the most, very easily readable, applicable. I liked the format of her argument, how she broke it down into interesting historical stories. I found her argument to be intriguing and fascinating.

4. Paul Lombardo, Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, The Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell

Probably helped that Professor Lombardo was kind enough to come to the class and speak with us, adding an added bonus of being able to meet the author and exchange in dialogue. But I also loved this book because it read like a novel. It didn't feel like you were being lectured about a historical topic, but rather taken through a historical topic filled with mystery and intrigue.


5. Edmund Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom

I really liked this book because I felt like it taught me a lot of new material about an era of American history that I felt has been discussed time and time again. But Morgan and his arguments about the incorporation of American slavery and its different manifestations really made me rethink how I viewed America's earliest settlers. Very engaging writing as well, with a good deal of wit mixed in, which I always appreciate.

6. Lizabeth Cohen, Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago 1919-1930.

So we had to read the book for this week. I haven't had the chance to discuss it with the class, so i don't know where to put the book on the list. Also, labor history is not really a topic that I enjoy very much, so that dropped it a bit on the list. But, having said that, I think there is a lot of merit to studying this historical period and I thought Cohen did a good job writing about the topic.

7. David Roediger,  The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class

This book was ok, but I just couldn't get very engaged in the book. I thought the concept of racial tensions within the American working class to be very interesting, especially how Roediger looked into how African-American workers were discriminated against by Irish and Italian-American workers.

8. Gordon Wood, Radicalism of the American Revolution

I will acknowledge that this is an extremely important book in the study of Revolutionary American history, but I just never could get myself into the argument. I don't like Wood's highly academic style of writing and I just don't really buy into the American Revolution being as "radical" as he made it out to be.


9. Eugene Genovese, Roll Jordan Roll

Same as above. I think this book is very important to the study of slavery and paternalism in America, but as many have mentioned, Genovese's ideas seem to me to be outdated and at times very controversial. In fact, the controversy regarding this book was about the only part that really engaged me into reading this book.

10. Woody Holton, Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution

I just did not like this book. While he makes an interesting case in establishing the economic factors that contributed to the formation of the Constitution, I found the book either very hard to follow or extremely dull. I think, as other classmates were, that I was misled into thinking the book was going to be about something else besides economics.