Rhodes Scholars, Oxford, and the Creation of an American Elite

Rhodes Scholars, Oxford, and the Creation of an American Elite
Author: Thomas J. Schaeper
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 439
Release: 2010-02-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0857453696

Each year thirty-two seniors at American universities are awarded Rhodes Scholarships, which entitle them to spend two or three years studying at the University of Oxford. The program, founded by the British colonialist and entrepreneur Cecil Rhodes and established in 1903, has become the world's most famous academic scholarship and has brought thousands of young Americans to study in England. Many of these later became national leaders in government, law, education, literature, and other fields. Among them were the politicians J. William Fulbright, Bill Bradley, and Bill Clinton; the public policy analysts Robert Reich and George Stephanopoulos; the writer Robert Penn Warren; the entertainer Kris Kristofferson; and the Supreme Court Justices Byron White and David Souter. Based on extensive research in published and unpublished documents and on hundreds of interviews, this book traces the history of the program and the stories of many individuals. In addition it addresses a host of questions such as: how important was the Oxford experience for the individual scholars? To what extent has the program created an old-boy (-girl since 1976) network that propels its members to success? How many Rhodes Scholars have cracked under the strain and failed to live up to expectations? How have the Americans coped with life in Oxford and what have they thought of Britain in general? Beyond the history of the program and the individuals involved, this book also offers a valuable examination of the American-British cultural encounter.

Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing

Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing
Author: Kelly Boyd
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 864
Release: 2019-10-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 113678764X

The Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing contains over 800 entries ranging from Lord Acton and Anna Comnena to Howard Zinn and from Herodotus to Simon Schama. Over 300 contributors from around the world have composed critical assessments of historians from the beginning of historical writing to the present day, including individuals from related disciplines like Jürgen Habermas and Clifford Geertz, whose theoretical contributions have informed historical debate. Additionally, the Encyclopedia includes some 200 essays treating the development of national, regional and topical historiographies, from the Ancient Near East to the history of sexuality. In addition to the Western tradition, it includes substantial assessments of African, Asian, and Latin American historians and debates on gender and subaltern studies.

The American Oxonian

The American Oxonian
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 748
Release: 1985
Genre:
ISBN:

Vol. for 1934- include Addresses and occupations of Rhodes scholars and other Oxonians (called 1934-36, Addresses and occupations of Rhodes scholars).

Handbook for Research in American History

Handbook for Research in American History
Author: Francis Paul Prucha
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 232
Release: 1994-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780803287310

When the Handbook for Research in American History was first published, reviewers called it "an excellent tool for historians of all interests and levels of experience . . . simple to use, and concisely worded" (Western Historical Quarterly) and "an excellent work that fulfills its title in being portable yet well-filled" (Reference Reviews). The Journal of American History added, "It is not easy to produce a reference work that is utilitarian and enriching and does not duplicate existing works. Professor Prucha has done the job very well." This second, revised edition takes account of the revolution that is occurring in bibliographic science as printed reference works extend to electronic databases, CD-ROMs, and online networks such as the Internet. Focusing on and expanding the major section of the original Handbook, it provides information on traditional printed works, describes new guides and updated versions of old ones, notes the availability of reference works and of some full-text sources in electronic form, and discusses the usefulness to researchers of different kinds of material and the forms in which they are available. Extensive cross-referencing and a detailed index that includes authors, subjects, and titles enhance the book's usefulness.

The Jarring Interests

The Jarring Interests
Author: Philip J. Schwarz
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2012-05-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 143844575X

Focusing on the men who fought, schemed, argued, petitioned, and maneuvered at all levels of government to resolve the intercolonial disputes over land in America, the author analyzes the tangled webs of interest involved in the conflicts. These controversies are seen to necessitate the use of all available legal and political techniques. Meticulously researched in nearly a dozen manuscript repositories as well as the "public record" and with maps to illustrate the varied interests and entanglements with neighboring colonies. Territorial conflicts between colonies convincingly bear out historian Bernard Bailyn's characterization of much of eighteenth-century provincial politics as the "almost unchartable chaos of competing groups." But the key to New York's boundary disputes is that their settlement required the successful harmonization of discordant interest groups on the local, intercolonial, and Anglo-American levels. This study shows how New York's boundary makers, who had long experience with their province's particularly factionalized politics and with the ever-shifting politics of the Anglo-American connection, managed frequently "to conciliate the jarring interests." The major methodological error of the very few previous studies of boundary quarrels was to rely too heavily on the public record, which was so amply, if not always accurately, made available in nineteenth-century publications of the state of New York. It would be equally mistaken to take private records as the sole repository of a hidden truth, however. The nature of New York's boundary disputes can be made apparent from the public records if they are interpreted with the help of the private sources.

Essays in the Economic History of the Atlantic World

Essays in the Economic History of the Atlantic World
Author: John McCusker
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 586
Release: 2005-08-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1134703392

Written by one of the leading authorities on trade and finance in the early modern Atlantic world, these fourteen essays, revised and integrated for this volume, share as their common theme the development of the Atlantic economy, especially British America and the Caribbean. Topics treated range from early attempts in medieval England to measure the carrying capacity of ships, through the advent in Renaissance Italy and England of business newspapers that reported on the traffic of ships, cargoes and market prices, to the state of the economy of France over the two hundred years before the French Revolution and of the British West Indies between 1760 and 1790. Included is the story of Thomas Irving who challenged and thwarted the likes of John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.