The Big Change - America Transforms Itself, 1900-50 Hardcover - 1952

Ex-library book in good condition. Book with usual card holder, stamps, stickers, markings and writing. Binding tight. Image of actual book: Boards with slight wearing and smudging. No DJ. Slight bumping and rubbing on corners and edges. Some bumping and wear on tail. Slight fading on the top, spine, edges, corners. Outer edges with slight tanning, browning, stains and foxing. Page edges are clean. Frederick Lewis Allen was one of the pioneers in social history. Best known as the author of Only Yesterday, Allen originated a model of what is sometimes called instant history, the reconstruction of past eras through vivid commentary on the news, fashions, customs, and artifacts that altered the pace and forms of American life. The Big Change was Allen's last and most ambitious book. In it he attempted to chart and explain the progressive evolution of American life over half a century. Written at a time of unprecedented optimism and prosperity, The Big Change defines a transformative moment in American history and provides an implicit and illuminating perspective on what has taken place in the second half of the twentieth century. Allen's theme is the realization, in large measure, of the promise of democracy. As against the strain of social criticism that saw America as enfeebled by affluence and conformity, Allen wrote in praise of an economic system that had ushered in a new age of well being for the American people. As William O'Neill remarks in his introduction to this new edition, The Big Change is both a deep and wonderfully readable work of social commentary, a book that gains rather than loses with the years. 1952. FC3.