Province of Reason

Author:   Sam Bass Warner, Jr.
Publisher:   Harvard University Press
Edition:   New edition
ISBN:  

9780674719583


Pages:   320
Publication Date:   01 January 1988
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   Out of stock   Availability explained
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.

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Province of Reason


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Overview

This book is about some of the largest events of the twentieth century, about international war, economic collapse, new science and technologies, and about the transformation of an old mill town region into a modern American metropolis. But it sees those sweeping changes through the eyes of fourteen particular Bostonians, in an ambitious attempt to understand the disorienting experiences of recent history. These lives span the years from 1850 to 1980, a time when Boston, like all American cities, was being rebuilt according to the continually changing specifications of science, engineering, mass wealth, and big corporations. From Boston Brahmins to self-made millionaires, Sam Warner, Jr., brings us into the diverse worlds of Robert Grant, judge and popular novelist; Mary Antin, mystic and advocate for immigrants; Fred Allen, radio comedian; Charles A. Stone and Edwin S. Webster, electrical engineers; Laura Elizabeth Richards, reformist clubwoman; Emily Greene Balch, economist and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize; William Madison Wood, textile magnate; Fred Erwin Beal, socialist labor organizer; Louise Andrews Kent, suburban housewife and writer; Vannevar Bush, science administrator; Laurence K. Marshall, electronics entrepreneur; James Bryant Conant, university president and educational reformer; and Rachel Carson, renowned science writer. These varied lives have been deftly brought together to illuminate the many contradictory qualifies of today's metropolitan life: ambitions for education and pervasive social neglect; conspicuous luxuries and endemic poverty; elaborate science and a poisoned environment; far-reaching cooperative networks of strangers and narrow, segregated neighborhoods; the multiplication of women's roles and the entrapment of women in the home. Individual experience-how one person lived as a child in a family and in a particular place, how people did their work-can bring renewed insight to the conflicts of modern life. This engrossing story speaks from an urge to recapture history through human lives and to examine its meaning as authentic experience. As Alfred Kazin expresses it, we are a nation of men and women who have endeavored to escape traditions, and therefore self-discovery is our preoccupation and delight.

Full Product Details

Author:   Sam Bass Warner, Jr.
Publisher:   Harvard University Press
Imprint:   Harvard University Press
Edition:   New edition
Dimensions:   Width: 14.60cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.726kg
ISBN:  

9780674719583


ISBN 10:   0674719581
Pages:   320
Publication Date:   01 January 1988
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock   Availability explained
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.

Table of Contents

Introduction THE PROVINCE IN AN EMPIRE Robert Grant Mary Antin Fred Allen NEW PATHWAYS Charles A. Stone and Edwin S. Webster Laura Elizabeth Richards Emily Greene Balch FAILURE OF COMMUNITY William Madison Wood Fred Erwin Beal THE PROVINCE DIVIDED Louise Andrews Kent Vannevar Bush and Laurence K. Marshall MERITOCRACY AND ROMANTICISM James Bryant Conant Rachel Carson Notes Credits Index

Reviews

An extraordinarily wise, sensitive, and humane work...I know of no more compelling history of the United States in the twentieth century. -- Robert H. Wiebe


An extraordinarily wise, sensitive, and humane work...I know of no more compelling history of the United States in the twentieth century.--Robert H. Wiebe


Author Information

Sam Bass Warner, Jr., is Visiting Professor of Urban History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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