Standing at Armageddon: A Grassroots History of the Progressive Era
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
"A consistently engrossing, occasionally irreverent, always smoothly written history of America's painful entry into the modern age."—Kirkus Reviews
Standing at Armageddon is a comprehensive and lively historical account of America's shift from a rural and agrarian society to an urban and industrial society. Nell Irvin Painter will be featured in the PBS multipart series The Progressive Era with Bill Moyers, which coincides with the release of the updated edition of this acclaimed work.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"Fear of working-class violence,'' the author comments in the preface, ``explains much of what has been called progressive reform.'' In this excellent illustrated survey of American labor radicalism and political reaction from the end of Reconstruction to the end of World War I, Painter concentrates largely on the struggle between ``partisans of democracy'' and ``protectors of hierarchy'' during a 42-year period when the country was evolving from an agrarian to an urban industrial society. Her major theme is the public's identification of organized labor with incendiary radicalism. She notes that the years of greatest unrest inspired ever more violent ``red scares'' during which the restoration of law and order meant using whoever could be defined as ``reds'' as the scapegoats. The author is a history professor at the University of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill.