Isolationism is a political philosophy advocating a national foreign policy that opposes involvement in the political affairs,and especially the wars,of other countries. Thus,isolationism fundamentally advocates neutrality and opposes entanglement in military alliances and mutual defense pacts. In its purest form,isolationism opposes all commitments to foreign countries including treaties and trade agreements. This distinguishes isolationism from non-interventionism,which also advocates military neutrality but does not necessarily oppose international commitments and treaties in general.
In United States history,the Gilded Age is a term coined by Mark Twain and used by some historians to refer roughly to the period between 1877 and 1900,which was sandwiched between the Reconstruction Era and the Progressive Era. It was a time of rapid economic growth,especially in the Northern and Western United States. As American wages grew much higher than those in Europe,especially for skilled workers,and industrialization demanded an ever-increasing unskilled labor force,the period saw an influx of millions of European immigrants.
The Progressive Era (1896–1917) was a period of widespread social activism and political reform across the United States focused on defeating corruption,monopoly,waste,and inefficiency. The main themes ended during American involvement in World War I (1917–1918) while the waste and efficiency elements continued into the 1920s. Progressives sought to address the problems caused by rapid industrialization,urbanization,immigration,and political corruption;and by the enormous concentration of industrial ownership in monopolies. They were alarmed by the spread of slums,poverty,and the exploitation of labor. Multiple overlapping progressive movements fought perceived social,political and economic ills by advancing democracy,scientific methods,professionalism and efficiency;regulating businesses,protecting the natural environment,and improving working conditions in factories and living conditions of the urban poor. Spreading the message of reform through mass-circulation newspapers and magazines by "probing the dark corners of American life" were investigative journalists known as "muckrakers". The main advocates of progressivism were often middle-class social reformers.
Thomas Andrew Bailey was a professor of history at his alma mater,Stanford University,and wrote many historical monographs on diplomatic history,including the widely used American history textbook,The American Pageant. He was known for his witty style and clever terms he coined,such as "international gangsterism." He popularized diplomatic history with his entertaining textbooks and lectures,the presentation style of which followed Ephraim Douglass Adams. Bailey contended foreign policy was significantly affected by public opinion,and that current policymakers could learn from history.
Progressivism in the United States is a political philosophy and reform movement. Today in the United States it generally advocates policies that are generally considered social democratic and left-wing. But it has also expressed itself with right-wing politics,such as New-nationalism and Progressive Conservatism.
Henry William Brands Jr. is an American historian. He holds the Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin,where he earned his PhD in history in 1985. He has authored more than thirty books on U.S. history. His works have twice been selected as finalists for the Pulitzer Prize.
Leon Fink is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of History at the University of Illinois at Chicago. A historian,his research and writing focuses on labor unions in the United States,immigration and the nature of work. He is the founding editor of Labor:Studies in Working-Class History,the premier journal of labor history in the United States.
Richard Schneirov is a professor of history and noted labor historian at Indiana State University.
William Edward Leuchtenburg is an American historian. He is the William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor Emeritus of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,and a leading scholar of the life and career of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Ballard C. Campbell is an American historian.
Walter Allen McDougall is an American historian,currently a professor of history and the Alloy-Ansin Professor of International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania.
Charles Postel is an American historian and professor at San Francisco State University. He studied at Laney College in Oakland before receiving his B.A. in history from UC-Berkeley in 1995,and his Ph.D. in history from UC-Berkeley in 2002. Postel's scholarship focuses on politics and social movements in the United States during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. He is best known for his book The Populist Vision, about which the Longview Institute said,
Elegantly written,meticulously researched,The Populist Vision is an enthralling history of the movement that created the most pervasive political impulse in American politics. Postel’s book has won both the Frederick Jackson Turner and Bancroft awards,which it justly deserves. His work also helps us to understand the actual Populist Vision that lies behind the superficial and shallow rhetoric to which we’ve been subjected during this election year.
John Milton Cooper Jr. is an American historian,author,and educator. He specializes in late 19th and early 20th-century American political and diplomatic history with a particular focus on presidential history. His 2009 biography of Woodrow Wilson was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize,and biographer Patricia O'Toole has called him "the world's greatest authority on Woodrow Wilson." Cooper is Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
John Dittmer is an American historian,and Professor Emeritus of DePauw University.
Fredrik Logevall is a Swedish-American historian and educator at Harvard University,where he is the Laurence D. Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and professor of history in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. He is a specialist in U.S. politics and foreign policy. Logevall was previously the Stephen and Madeline Anbinder Professor of History at Cornell University,where he also served as vice provost and as director of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies. He won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for History for his book Embers of War:The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam. His most recent book,JFK:Coming of Age in the American Century,1917-1956 (2020),won the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.
Justus Drew Doenecke is an American historian,writer,and professor. His 2000 book,Storm on the Horizon:the Challenge to American Intervention,1939-1941,received the Herbert Hoover Book Award from the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum. Doenecke is Professor Emeritus at New College of Florida.
Jeremi Suri is an American historian and the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.
Charles W. Calhoun is an American historian and academic. He is a professor at East Carolina University. He holds a BA,from Yale University; PhD,Columbia University. Calhoun is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. He lives in Greenville,North Carolina.
Nancy C. Unger is an American history professor and author. She chairs the history department at Santa Clara University. She has written books on American women in the environmental movement,Bob La Follette,and Belle La Follette.
Julie Greene is an American historian,specializing in transnational history,global labor history,and American immigration history,best known for her books Pure and Simple Politics (1998) and The Canal Builders (2009),the latter for which she was awarded a James A. Rawley Prize in 2010. She has been the professor of history at the University of Maryland,College Park since 2010,and the editor-in-chief of the academic journal Labor:Studies in Working-Class History since 2023.
