Oxford History of The United States - Woodward Editorship

Woodward Editorship

The series originated in the 1950s with a plan laid out by historians C. Vann Woodward and Richard Hofstadter for a multi-volume history of the United States, one that would provide a summary of the political, social, and cultural history of the nation for a general audience. The project proved to be more challenging than initially envisioned, however. New fields of historical study emerged in the 1960s, and personal issues intervened for some of the authors. Among the historians connected with the series at one time or another were Willie Lee Rose, Morton Keller, John Lewis Gaddis, Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick. Though some of these historians completed books as a result of their respective assignments, none of them was published as part of the series.

The first volume published in the series, Robert Middlekauff's The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763–1789, finally was released in 1982 (ISBN 0-19-502921-6). Included on the rear dust jacket flap to the original hardcover edition was a projected outline for the series at that point:

• Volume 1: Colonial America by T. H. Breen
• Volume 2: The Glorious Cause by Robert Middlekauff
• Volume 3: Early National America, 1789–1815 by Gordon S. Wood
• Volume 4: Jacksonian America, 1815–1846 by Charles Grier Sellers
• Volume 5: The Civil War by James M. McPherson
• Volume 6: Reconstruction and Industrial America by George M. Fredrickson
• Volume 7: Early 20th Century America, 1900–1930 by William H. Harbaugh
• Volume 8: The New Deal, 1930–1945 by David M. Kennedy
• Volume 9: Postwar America, 1945–1968 by William E. Leuchtenburg
• Volume 10: The American Economy by Stuart Bruchey
• Volume 11: American Diplomacy by Norman A. Graebner

McPherson's volume on the Civil War and its causes was subsequently published in 1988 as Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. Two more volumes followed under Woodward's editorship. Volume 10, Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945–1974 by James T. Patterson, was published in 1997, while Volume 9, David Kennedy's Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945, was published in 1999. Sellers's contribution was published separately from the series in 1991 as The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815–1846 (ISBN 0-19-503889-4), supposedly for its excessive focus on the economics of the era, and the volume reassigned to another historian.