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Reviews
| Modern America: A Documentary History of the Nation Since 1945, edited by Gary Donaldson. Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 2007. 345 pages. $27.95, paper.
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| History teachers love to employ primary documents in the classroom as a tool for helping students gain a better understanding of the past. Nevertheless, it often seems that documentary collections are uneven, privileging earlier American history at the expense of the more recent past. This approach focuses the attention of students upon such essential works as the Mayflower Compact, Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. While these writings should retain their place within the history curriculum, it is also imperative that the history of post-World War II America and the world find its place in the classroom. Gary Donaldson, a specialist in twentieth-century American history, seeks to address this imbalance with the documentary history of modern America, focusing upon the post-World War II period. Donaldson acknowledges that studying more contemporary history does raise questions of personal bias, but he concludes that these modern documents "tell us most about ourselves today, and about those events that most changed our lives" (xiv). |
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Modern America is well structured to serve the needs of history teachers at both the university and more advanced high schools. It will provide an excellent supplement for courses dealing with the post-war period, but teachers of more general American history surveys should also consider using this volume to address a cultural and historical period which all too often gets short shrift at the end of a semester or school year. Donaldson organizes the volume chronologically with twenty topical chapters containing three to four documents each. A short introductory essay is provided for each section of the volume, while all the documents are clearly placed within historical context. Teachers will also appreciate the biographical sketches, study questions, and suggestions for further reading which accompany each chapter. |
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The documentary collection is clearly intended as a supplementary text, and Donaldson makes no claim for Modern America as a comprehensive history. Instead, he asserts, "The documents have been chosen to give a good representation of events, to spark interest and discussion, and to establish a strong foundation for the use of primary materials in the classroom" (xiii). While the collection tends to center upon political and diplomatic events, privileging the voice of politicians over those of everyday Americans, the biographical sketches certainly provide a degree of diversity with profiles of James Dean, Janis Joplin, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Cesar Chavez paired with more traditional figures such as John Foster Dulles, Robert McNamara, and Henry Kissinger. The documents in Modern America are not limited to the realms of party politics and foreign policy. For example, Donaldson includes chapters on the civil rights movement, the lifestyle of the 1950s, feminism, the environmental and consumer movements, and the cultural conflicts of the 1960s with their continuing manifestation in the 1990s. As Donaldson concedes, it is impossible for a representative collection to cover all significant post-war topics. Nevertheless, one might still hope for a bit more attention to such popular culture topics as the impact of sport, film, and literature upon post-war culture. Donaldson, however, does address popular music through the lyrics of Bob Dylan and the life of Janis Joplin. Religion is also a topic somewhat shortchanged in this collection. Attention is given to Jerry Falwell during the culture wars of the 1980s and 1990s, but the influence of religion in post-war America extends well beyond the political agenda of the religious right. |
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Donaldson is fairly even-handed in his treatment of controversial material and issues. An excerpt from the 9/11 Commission Report is included to raise questions about the Bush administration's efforts to link Saddam Hussein with the terrorist attacks of 9/11. In his selection of materials for the politics of the 1980s, however, the author employs five speeches from President Ronald Reagan as well as a selection from Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens extolling the Reagan economic program. With due apologies to the "Great Communicator," students relying upon this document collection might miss the point that the politics of the 1980s were conflicted over such issues as Central America and the Cold War, while scholars continue to argue the impact of Reagan's policies upon the nation's economy. While there is no denying the significance of Reagan's influence upon the shift of American politics to the right in the 1980s, teachers might want to balance the material on Reagan with more skeptical scholars and politicians. But arguing over which documents to include in a collection of materials is half the fun of teaching recent American history, and Donaldson's documentary history does an excellent job of fostering this debate. It should be a welcome addition to the nation's classrooms. |
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| Sandia Preparatory School, Albuquerque, NM |
Ron Briley |
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