There are eras of U.S. history that set the table for the crucial debates and signal events that came immediately after them.  Then there are eras of U.S. history that remodel the whole damn kitchen.  The readings in the first section of Volume II of Hollinger and Capper – and, for that matter, the second section — come from the latter sort of era.  And we are still cooking in that kitchen. This is my favorite era to teach in the second half of the survey:  this dizzying period of rapid epistemic, social, economic and cultural transformations between, oh, 1880 Read more