Brands, The Reckless Decade - American In The 1890s

Abstract

According to H. W. Brands, Americans in the 1890s, like their descendants a hundred years later, experienced a fin-de-siècle debate. On one side were people who expected the new century to bring a gloomy decline; on the other were those who foresaw a bright new future. Brands suggests their debates brought about a fusion of old and new ideas that set the stage for the twentieth century. Divided into eight chapters, Brands's sweeping and rather old-fashioned synthesis of the 1890s zeroes in on national and overseas expansion, economic and racial conflict, and politics.