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Industrialization of the United States

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Comparative Book Essay The industrialization of the United States is arguable the most important aspect of the entire nineteenth century. It not only changed the way Americans produced goods, it also changed how Americans ran their lives and what the focus of society became. Besides these outcomes of the industrialization period, along with an increase in technology and production, there were other important side effects. The most important side effect of the industrialization period and topic of my paper that was mentioned in all three textbooks, was it’s effect on the relationship between social classes. This topic is a very important section, imbedded throughout Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, George Brown Tindall and David Emory Shi’s America: A Narrative History, and Paul Johnson’s A History of the American People. First we must take a look at the personal views of these authors before looking at how they each analyzed the topic. Zinn has a radical, Marxist interpretation of early US history in which he believes the entire history of the United States was based off of conflict. This includes racial conflict, gender conflict, and in our case, class conflict. Tindall and Shi have, as most history books do, a liberal interpretation of early US history in which they believe the history of the United States is based on consensus and agreement of core values among Americans. They believe the US has a good future because of the agreement on these values which include freedom, democracy, capitalism, and equal opportunities. Johnson has a conservative interpretation of early US history in which he believes the history of the United States is based on people with too much freedom, acquired too quickly by too many irresponsible people. He believes the society in America is filled with moral relativism and decay. Now that we have a background on

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