William L. Barney ed., A Companion to 19th-Century America (Malden, MA:
Blackwell, 2001, £80) Pp. 414. ISBN 0 631 20985 9.
As we all know, the nineteenth century is one of the longest in American history and
any help in making sense of it must be welcomed. Part of Blackwell’s ambitious
series of Companions to American History that intend to cover subjects from the
Colonial period to Vietnam and beyond, this volume is addressed to students, scholars
and the “general reader.” The volume fulfils its mission admirably: teachers will get
their students up to speed by recommending chapters on, for example, the Civil War,
the working classes, and African Americans. They will also find many of the essays a
ready means of enrichment and up dating. An illustration of the volume’s virtues is
Cindy Aron’s chapter on “The Evolution of the Middle Class.” It acts as a useful
introduction to a subject that has received considerable scholarly attention over the
last twenty years. Here students will find clear signposting of the key issues and an
outline of the major studies in the field. References come with each chapter and the
Companion has an extensive bibliography -- an ideal platform for students to delve
deep into the subject.
There is something here for most tastes. Essays deal with major chronological
periods, the West, foreign relations, urbanisation, class, women, race, region,
immigration and ethnicity, religion, science and technology, communications, and
representations of America. Inevitably, in a volume of twenty-four essays there is a
degree of unevenness. Alan Marcus, in “Science and Technology,” falls between
stools in dealing with two large and divergent subjects. There are gaps: while David
Sicilia writes on industrialisation after 1860, and Stanley Engerman and Robert
Gallman examine the emergence of the market economy before 1860, there is nothing
specifically on the important issue of early nineteenth-century industrialisation. More
should have been included on popular culture. Ironically, the book’s best essay, in my
opinion -- John Ashworth’s “The Sectionalization of American Politics” -- is the least
appropriate for this volume. I have twice read it and benefited immensely. While
Ashworth offers a partial survey of the terrain, he is more interested in developing his
own thesis through a critique of the literature. No bad thing you might think, but it
makes the essay difficult to recommend to those new to sectional conflict. Weighing
in at a thumping £80 this is a book for the library to buy.
University of Greenwich ANDREW DAWSON