Documenting American Violence: A Sourcebook - Couverture rigide

Waldrep, Christopher

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0195150031 ISBN 13 : 9780195150032

Editeur : Oxford University Press Inc, 2006

Synopsis

Violence forms a constant backdrop to American history, from the revolutionary overthrow of British rule, to the struggle for civil rights, to the present-day debates over the death penalty. It has served to challenge authority, defend privilege, advance causes, and throttle hopes.
In the first anthology of its kind to appear in over thirty years, Documenting American Violence brings together excerpts from a wide range of sources about incidents of violence in the United States. Each document is set into context, allowing readers to see the event through the viewpoint of contemporary participants and witnesses and to understand how these deeds have been excused, condemned, or vilified by society. Organized topically, this volume looks at such diverse topics as famous crimes, vigilantism, industrial violence, domestic abuse, and state-sanctioned violence. Among the events these primary sources describe are:
--Benjamin Franklin's account of the Conestoga massacre, when an entire village of American Indians was killed by the Paxton Boys, a group of frontier settlers
--militant abolitionist John Brown's attack on Harper's Ferry
--Ida B. Wells' condemnation of lynchings in the South
--the massacre of General Custer's 7th Cavalry at Little Bighorn, as witnessed by Cheyenne war chief Two Moon
--Nat Turner's confession about the slave revolt he led in Southampton County, Virginia
--Oliver Wendell Holmes' diaries and letters as a young infantry officer in the Civil War
--a police officer's account of the Haymarket Trials
--Harry Thaw's murder of the Gilded Age's most prominent architect, Stanford White, through his own published version of the events
--the post-trial, public confessions of Ray Bryant and J.W. Milam for the murder of Emmett Till
--the Los Angeles Police Department's investigation into the causes of the 1992 riot
Taken as a whole, this anthology opens a new window on American history, revealing how violence has shaped America's past in every era

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

Through contemporary voices, Documenting American Violence tracks the changes in the nature of American violence. This anthology looks at violence as an integral part of American history and includes excerpts from a wide range of primary sources, including court records. newspaper accounts, and political documents. Topics include violence and the conquest of America, Revolutionary violence, slavery, the Civil War, lynching, the West, industrial violence, civil rights, domestic violence, and crime as social drama. Taken together, they open a new window on American history, covering the colonial period, the American Revolution, the Age of Jackson, the Civil War, the industrial revolution, World War II, the Sixties, and contemporary America.

Biographie de l'auteur

Christopher Waldrep is Jamie and Phyllis Pasker Prof. of History at San Francisco State University and the author of The Many Faces of Judge Lynch: Extralegal Violence and Punishment in America. Michael Bellesiles is the editor of Lethal Imagination: Violence and Brutality in American History.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Oxford University Press Inc
• Date d'édition: 2006
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0195150031
• ISBN 13: 9780195150032
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 464
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: Ufficio Anagrafiche Messaggerie; ufficio.anagrafiche@meli.it; ; Via Verdi, 8; Assago Milano; 20090; Italie