Reprint of the original, first published in 1876.

In this update to his landmark publication, William J. Reese offers a comprehensive examination of the trends, theories, and practices that have shaped America’s public schools over the last two centuries. Reese approaches this subject along two main lines of inquiry—education as a means for reforming society and ongoing reform within the schools themselves. He explores the roots of contemporary educational policies and places modern battles over curriculum, pedagogy, race relations, and academic standards in historical perspective. A thoroughly revised epilogue outlines the significant challenges to public school education within the last five years. Reese analyzes the shortcomings of “No Child Left Behind” and the continued disjuncture between actual school performance and the expectations of government officials. He discusses the intrusive role of corporations, economic models for enticing better teacher performance, the continued impact of conservatism, and the growth of home schooling and charter schools. Informed by a breadth of historical scholarship and based squarely on primary sources, this volume remains the standard text for future teachers and scholars of education.

The voice of the nation rings out loud and clear in this unique anthology of great American poetry. Editors Oscar Williams and Edwin Honig concentrate on the work of 20 major American poets. They include sizable selections from the poetry of: • Wallace Stevens • Ralph Waldo Emerson • William Carlos Williams • Henry Wadsworth • Ezra Pound • Walt Whitman • Edgar Allen Poe • Emily Dickinson • Edna St. Vincent Millay • Stephen Crane • e. e. cummings • Robert Frost • Hart Crane • W. H. Auden • And more...

Imitation as Resistance also offers American perspectives on the individual reputations of a number of British writers and their specific works, often down to the particular lines in plays and poems. The reader whose interest is limited, for example, to the singular reputation of a Dickens novel or a Byron poem may find the book functional for its broad bibliographical qualities. For cultural studies students, Americanists, and others, the book will demonstrate the complexity of cultural appropriation and the patterns of nineteenth-century American resistance and harmonization.