American Visions
Ayers, Edward L. (University of Richmond)
With so many of our histories falling into dour critique or blatant celebration, here is a welcome departure: a book that offers hope as well as honesty about the American past. The early decades of the nineteenth century saw the expansion of slavery, Native dispossession, mass immigration, and wars with continental neighbors. And yet eccentric visions altered the accepted wisdom, voices from the margins moved the center, acts of empathy defie...