Collection : American Institutions and Society

History happens in and through institutions. Social scientists and political historians have rediscovered the importance of institutions, placing them in their broader cultural and social context. Far less attention has been devoted to the ways in which core institutions have influenced the social and cultural landscape around them. This is despite the fact that it is in institutions that we all engage in history, understand ourselves, reform our culture, and ultimately act in ways that make concrete differences in society. The American Institutions and Society series turns our attention toward the crucial organizations and practices that define the history of the United States of America. Guided by the understanding that these institutions both reflect and affect trends in society, books in the series will show us the complex relationship among institutions and individuals in the social, psychological, cultural, political, and economic facets of their lives.

Forthcoming Titles in the Series

For Common Ends for the Common Good: A New History of Higher Education in America by Charles Dorn

The End of Poverty? Social Scientists and the War Against Poverty in Cold War America by Romain Huret

The Social Scientists' War: Knowledge, Statecraft, and Democracy in the Era of Containment by Joy Rohde

About the Editors

Brian Balogh is Professor of History, Director and Chair of the Miller Center National Fellowship Program, and Compton Professor at the University of Virginia. His publications include A Government Out of Sight: The Mystery of National Authority in Nineteenth-Century America (Cambridge University Press).

Jonathan Zimmerman is Professor of Education and History at New York University and Director of the History of Education Program at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. His publications include the forthcoming Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory (Yale University Press).

Please send inquiries or proposals to Michael McGandy, Acquisitions Editor, Cornell University Press: mjm475@cornell.edu.