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American Colossus Hist 1302 11365

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American Colossus Hist 1302 11365
Eva Baez
The United States since 1877
HIST 1302-11365
July 21, 2014

H. W. Brands. American Colossus: The Triumph of Capitalism, 1865-1900. New York: Anchor Books, 2010. Pp. 686. $17.95 (pap.) ISBN: 978-0-307-368677-9.

H. W. Brands attended Stanford University where he earned a bachelor’s degree in history; he then went on to earn at masters and doctorate in history at Reed College in 1978, Portland State University 1981, University of Texas at Austin1985. In addition to American Colossus, Brands has also written The Man Who Saved the Union: Ulysses Grant in War and Peace, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2012., Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2008, and The Murder of Jim Fisk for the Love of Josie Mansfield: A Tragedy of the Gilded Age, Anchor Books (New York, NY), 2011.He has also won several awards. Amongst these awards were the Deolece Parmelee Award, Texas Historical Foundation, 2005, for Lone Star Nation: How a Ragged Army of Volunteers Won the Battle for Texas Independence and Changed America and the Daughters of the American Revolution History Medal, 2008; finalist, Pulitzer Prize, 2009, for Traitor to His Class. Based on this information American Colossus promises to be a great learning experience as I will be educated in past times from the Reconstruction process in the South, the Indian Wars of the West, immigration in the East, and the emergence of organized labor and the agrarian reformers. American Colossus is a book focusing on 19th century economic and social conditions in the United Stated from 1865 to 1900 with Andrew Carnegie, John Pierpont Morgan, and John D. Rockefeller playing a significant part in the triumph of capitalism. The main idea that Brands is trying to communicate to readers is “In accomplishing its revolution, capitalism threatened to eclipse American democracy.”(American Colossus, page ) Throughout American Colossus,

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