Spreading the American Dream
American Economic and Cultural Expansion, 1890-1945
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ISBN10: 0809001462
ISBN13: 9780809001460
Trade Paperback
264 Pages
$18.00
CA$24.50
This book urges us to consider whether the American Dream of promoting abundance, egalitarianism, and mobility avoided the pitfalls of exploitation and human degradation that most expansionist powers have fallen into. Emily Rosenberg examines the economic growth and cultural trends that accompanied America's expansionist impulse during the first half of the twentieth century—expressed so eagerly by traders, investors, labor leaders, philanthropists, international societies, and pioneers of mass media—and shows how U.S. foreign relations evolved from a largely private system to an increasingly public one and how, soon, the American dream became global.
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Praise for Spreading the American Dream
"This stimulating essay combines intellectual, economic, and diplomatic history, [and] provides fresh insights into the way governmental power was used to shape the American domestic marketplace, and how that visible hand was again used overseas."—Walter Lafeber, Cornell University
"Looks at foreign policy in the broadest sense by examining industrial as well as cultural forces . . . A perceptive analysis of the promotional, cooperative, and regulatory functions of the American state . . . Clear, concise, and readable."—Allan M. Winkler, University of Oregon
"[A] stimulating effort to bring some of the new social history to the study of foreign relations."—William Appleman Williams, Oregon State University
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BOOK EXCERPTS
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Spreading the American Dream
One
INTRODUCTION: THE AMERICAN DREAM
THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION OF 1893
A SPECTACULAR World's Fair, the Columbian Exposition, opened in Chicago in 1893. Acres of classical buildings,...