Books in the Yale Historical Publications Series series

Presenting a detailed history of the events that culminated in the Great Depression, this text highlights the role of specific economic events, national policies, and individuals. It examines the reserve-hoarding policies of central banks, particularly the Bank of France.

This work blends social and environmental history to offer a look at the angry struggles between American wildlife conservationists and local hunters since the late 19th century.

Examines benevolent work performed by middle- and upper-middle-class American women from the 1820s to 1885 and offers a new interpretation of the shifting political contexts and meanings of this long tradition of women's reform activism.

Impoverished after 50 years of continuous war, Spain negotiated treaties with her three most powerful enemies at the end of the 16th century. This investigation looks at the strategies which led King Philip III to seek peace, arguing that this was in fact part of a grand plan to regain power.

A social and cultural history of out-of-wedlock pregnancy in the United States from 1890 to 1945. The book examines the three groups of women involved with the issue: the evangelical reformers, the new generation of social workers and the unmarried mothers themselves.

During the tumultuous Civil War era, the border state of Maryland occupied a middle position both geographically and socially. Situated between the slave-labor states of the lower South and the free-labor states of the North, Maryland--with a black population almost evenly divided between slave and free--has long received credit for moderation and mediation in an era of extremes. Barbara Fields argues that this position in between concealed as intense and immoderate a drama as enacted in the Deep South. According to Fields, "The middle ground imparted an extra measure of bitterness to enslavement, set close boundaries on the liberty of the ostensibly free, and played havoc with bonds of love, friendship, and family among slaves and between them and free black people." Moreover, the work of destroying slavery and constructing a society of free labor proved to be as difficult in Maryland as in the former Confederacy--even more difficult, in some respects. Probing the relationships among Maryland's slaves and free blacks, its slaveholders, and its non-slaveholders, Fields shows how centrist moderation turned into centrist immoderation under the stress of the Civil War and how social channels formed by slavery established the course of struggle over the shape of free society. In so doing, she offers historical reflections on the underlying character both of slave society and of the society that replaced it. In this prizewinning history, Fields shows how Maryland's centrist moderation turned into centrist immoderation under the stress of the Civil War and argues that Reconstruction proved to be at least as difficult in Maryland as in the Confederacy. "A marvelous book, written with compassion and humor and a rare talent for irony. It establishes Barbara Jeanne Fields as a major historian of the American South, for she has provided new boundaries for understanding the relationship between race and class and she has contributed greatly to our overall understanding of the political economy of slavery."--Nan Elizabeth Woodruff, Journal of Social History"[A] perceptive and provocative book.... Students of slavery and of the South cannot afford to overlook it."--Daniel C. Littlefield, American Historical Review"Writing in a clear, spirited style, Fields probes the relationships between slaves and free blacks, between slaveholders and nonslaveholders, and between Maryland's conflicting sections."--Choice"A stunning achievement.... The book is must reading for those with a special interest in the nineteenth-century South; those with a general interest in the development of capitalist relations of production will also not want to miss it."--Joseph P. Reidy, Science and SocietyWinner of the American Historical Association's 1986 John H. Dunning Prize

Before the 19th century, American prisons were used to hold people for trial and not to incarcerate them for wrong-doing. After independence, states began to reject such public punishment as whipping and pillorying and turn to imprisonment instead. Hirsch explores the reasons behind this change.