Sean Dennis Cashman

I bought this book to fill in some gaps in my knowledge. Written in the 90's it draws from many of the revisionist views of this period, and rightly so. It's very textbookish, but certainly leaves open some avenues for further exploration.

It does cover the major themes of the period-growth of business, combination and the growth of trusts, development of labor unions, some nice insight into American art and the development of culture, agrarian revolt and the rise of Theodore Roosevelt.

You show more won't find any exciting prose or special insights here, but it's a worthwhile general history. show less

Absolutely yawn-inducing. This work by Cashman is simplistic in conclusions about the period and is only of use if you have very little knowledge about the period. Otherwise you should skip this work and go for almost any other book.

3018 America in the Gilded Age: From the Death of Lincoln to the Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (Third Ed.), by Sean Dennis Cashman (read 7 Oct 1997) I was not overly impressed by this book. It is, I think, intended as a college text, and a little superficial. I thought some of the author's judgments simplistic, though they are of course liberalistic and oh so politically correct.