Rebirth of a Nation

In the half-century between the Civil War and World War I, dreams of spiritual, moral, and physical rebirth formed the foundation for the modern United States. Inspired by imperial ambition, presidents and entrepreneurs-from Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson to Andrew Carnegie-helped usher the nation into the modern era, but sometimes the consequences of their actions failed to match the grandeur of their hopes.Award-winning historian Jackson Lears richly chronicles this momentous period in America-years marked by wrenching social conflict and vigorous political debate-vividly capturing the roles played by a variety of seekers, from Gilded Age mavericks to vaudeville entertainers, and from populist farmers and progressive reformers to avant-garde artists and writers. Illuminating and authoritative, Rebirth of a Nation brilliantly weaves the remarkable story of this crucial epoch into a masterful work of history.

Jackson Lears is Board of Governors Professor of History at Rutgers University and the editor of Raritan: A Quarterly Review. The author of Fables of Abundance (winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for history), Something for Nothing, and No Place of Grace, Lears writes for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The New Republic. He lives in western New Jersey.