Reproduces and comments on the works of the nineteenth-century political cartoonist who best expressed political issues and the need for reform

The Art and Politics of Thomas Nast

KELLER, Morton

Oxford University Press

Making Harvard Modern is a candid, richly detailed portrait of America's most prominent university from 1933 to the present: seven decades of dramatic change. Early twentieth century Harvard was the country's oldest and richest university, but not necessarily its outstanding one. By the century's end it was widely regarded as the nation's, and the world's, leading institution of higher education. With verve, humor, and insight, Morton and Phyllis Keller tell the story of that rise: a tale of compelling personalities, notable achievement and no less notable academic pratfalls. Their book is based on rich and revealing archival materials, interviews, and personal experience. Young, humbly born James Bryant Conant succeeded Boston Brahmin A. Lawrence Lowell as Harvard's president in 1933, and set out to change a Brahmin-dominated university into a meritocratic one. He hoped to recruit the nation's finest scholars and an outstanding national student body. But the lack of new money during the Depression and the distractions of World War Two kept Conant, and Harvard, from achieving this goal. In the 1950s and 1960s, during the presidency of Conant's successor Nathan Marsh Pusey, Harvard raised the money, recruited the faculty, and attracted the students that made it a great meritocratic institution: America's university. The authors provide the fullest account yet of this transformation, and of the wrenching campus crisis of the late 'sixties. During the last thirty years of the twentieth century, a new academic culture arose: meritocratic Harvard morphed into worldly Harvard. During the presidencies of Derek Bok and Neil Rudenstine the university opened its doors to growing numbers of foreign students, women, African- and Asian-Americans, and Hispanics. Its administration, faculty, and students became more deeply engaged in social issues; its scientists and professional schools were more ready to enter into shared commercial ventures. But worldliness brought its own conflicts: over affirmative action and political correctness, over commercialization, over the ever higher costs of higher education. This fascinating account, the first comprehensive history of a modern American university, is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the present state and future course of higher education.

Making Harvard Modern: The Rise of America's University

History

Keller, Phyllis

Americas

America's Three Regimes: A New Political History

Hailed in The New York Times Book Review as "the single best book written in recent years on the sweep of American political history," this groundbreaking work divides our nation's history into three "regimes," each of which lasts many, many decades, allowing us to appreciate as never before the slow steady evolution of American politics, government, and law. The three regimes, which mark longer periods of continuity than traditional eras reflect, are Deferential and Republican, from the colonial period to the 1820s; Party and Democratic, from the 1830s to the 1930s; and Populist and Bureaucratic, from the 1930s to the present. Praised by The Economist as "a feast to enjoy" and by Foreign Affairs as "a masterful and fresh account of U.S. politics," here is a major contribution to the history of the United States--an entirely new way to look at our past, our present, and our future--packed with provocative and original observations about American public life.

Thomas Nast (1840 - 1902) was a German-born American caricaturist and editorial cartoonist who is considered to be the "Father of the American Cartoon". Among his notable works were the creation of the modern version of Santa Claus, the male personification of the United States government, Uncle Sam, as well as the political symbols of both major United States political parties: the Republican elephant and the Democratic donkey. He was born in the barracks of Landau, Germany (in the Rhine Palatinate), the son of a trombonist in the 9th regiment Bavarian band. The elder Nast's socialist political convictions put him at odds with the German government, and in 1846 he left Landau, enlisting first on a French man-of-war and subsequently on an American ship. He sent his wife and children to New York City, and at the end of his enlistment in 1849 he joined them there. Thomas Nast's passion for drawing was apparent from an early age, and he was enrolled for about a year of study with Alfred Fredericks and Theodore Kaufmann and at the school of the National Academy of Design. Nast attended school in New York City from the age of six to fifteen when he was forced to drop out due to financial problems. Thomas had problems adjusting to life in America and never took well to school. He spent his entire school career on the verge of flunking out and consequently never learned to read or write. After school he started working in 1855 as a draftsman for Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper; three years afterward, for Harper's Weekly.

The art and politics of Thomas Nast

Barack Obama swept into office in 2008, capitalizing on his fresh and compelling political persona, the appeal of his "Hope and Change" campaign, the pre-election financial crisis, and a wave of popular discontent with his predecessor. The nation's first African-American president stirred unusually high expectations, and his first term saw the passage of a substantial economic stimulus package, a large-scale expansion of financial regulation, a drawdown in Iraq, and his signature health care reform. But a stagnant economy persisted. His personal popularity had no effect on the persistent disapproval of his program. The Democrats suffered a severe electoral setback in the 2010 Congressional election. But Obama's exceptional campaign organization, his strong personal appeal, and a weak Republican opponent won him a second term in 2012. Now his presidency is in its final stage. In Obama's Time, eminent historian Morton Keller has written the first historical assessment of Barack Obama's presidency. Drawing on a lifetime of scholarship on American history and politics, Keller examines Obama's presidential persona and governing style, his domestic and foreign policies, and his place in the broader history of American politics. Obama is deeply committed to active federal government, in the tradition of FDR's New Deal and LBJ's Great Society. But his ambitions have been tempered by the heavy weight of existing institutions and past precedents, strong Republican opposition, and unforeseen events. Keller concludes that this is a time when the centralized bureaucratic state faces a deep crisis of legitimacy. He ascribes the intense party polarization to a political culture in which the media, advocacy groups, and ideologically-driven donors have outsize influence. Historians will continue to debate the Obama presidency for decades to come. Keller's account of how Obama governed, the larger political context in which he functioned, and why he was unable to close the gap between expectations and reality, will be invaluable to that debate.

Obama's Time: A History

This first modern history of American public life after the Civil War is a work of magisterial sweep and sophisticated insight. It will be the standard work on the era for many years to come. 
 Integrating political, legal, and administrative history on a scale not previously attempted, Morton Keller examines crosscurrents in American institutions during a key transitional period in American history—a period that began with the end of a bloody civil war and ended with the beginning of massive industrialization. At the same time, he vividly captures the energy and optimism of a young country about to burst into the twentieth century. 
 Keller begins by reviewing the twin legacies of the Civil War: a strengthened belief in an active national government and a vigorous drive toward civil equality. He moves on to the postwar years when centralizing and reformist tendencies were evident everywhere, not only in the Reconstructed South but also in a renewed North. After the 1880s, however, the pendulum began to swing back, and Americans faced the social and economic upheavals of the last decades of the nineteenth century with deeply divided views—an uncertainty that persists in our own day.

Affairs of State: Public Life in Late Nineteenth-Century America

Belknap Press

Examines political, legal, and administration developments in the transitional post-Civil War era. Bibliogs

Affairs of State: Public Life in Late Nineteenth Century America

Harvard Univ Pr

This first modern history of American public life after the Civil War is a work of magisterial sweep and sophisticated insight. It will be the standard work on the era for many years to come. 
 Integrating political, legal, and administrative history on a scale not previously attempted, Morton Keller examines crosscurrents in American institutions during a key transitional period in American history--a period that began with the end of a bloody civil war and ended with the beginning of massive industrialization. At the same time, he vividly captures the energy and optimism of a young country about to burst into the twentieth century. 
 Keller begins by reviewing the twin legacies of the Civil War: a strengthened belief in an active national government and a vigorous drive toward civil equality. He moves on to the postwar years when centralizing and reformist tendencies were evident everywhere, not only in the Reconstructed South but also in a renewed North. After the 1880s, however, the pendulum began to swing back, and Americans faced the social and economic upheavals of the last decades of the nineteenth century with deeply divided views--an uncertainty that persists in our own day.

Harvard University Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by KELLER, Morton. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by KELLER, Morton

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by KELLER, Morton. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Art and Politics of Thomas Nast

Making Harvard Modern: The Rise of America's University

America's Three Regimes: A New Political History

Making Harvard Modern: The Rise of America's University

America's Three Regimes: A New Political History

The art and politics of Thomas Nast

Obama's Time: A History

Affairs of State: Public Life in Late Nineteenth-Century America

Affairs of State: Public Life in Late Nineteenth Century America

Affairs of State: Public Life in Late Nineteenth-Century America