User:Hydrangeans/draft of Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945–1974

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Publication
Oxford University Press publishes lines of books called "Oxford histories", typically intended to provide general syntheses of certain historical topics. Beginning in 1961, American historians Richard Hofstadter and C. Vann Woodward collaborated to co-edit an Oxford History of the United States, planned to be a multivolume series of books, each written by different authors, modeled on the Oxford History of England. Hofstadter and Woodward did not originally plan for the Oxford History of the United States to include a volume on postwar history but added one to a list of projected volumes in 1970, initially commissioning historian William Leuchtenburg to write the volume and later replacing Leuchtenburg with James T. Patterson.

Oxford University Press published Patterson's contribution as Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945–1974 in February 1996, releasing it as a clothbound hardcover. The book is 847 pages long. On release, Grand Expectations sold for $35 (USD, ). Upon its publication, Grand Expectations was billed as the tenth volume of the Oxford History of the United States, though it was the third to be published.

Content
Grand Expectations narrates the history of the United States from 1945 to 1975, bookended by the end of World War II and the resignation of United States president Richard Nixon. A synthesis of secondary sources, the book mostly focuses on political history, with social history interspersed throughout for context. The title refers to its thematic through line, which argues that in the wake of military victories abroad and amid post–World War II economic expansion domestically, Americans were increasingly optimistic about themselves and their country and had "grand expectations" that individuals could have equal access to civil and political rights as well as prosperous living and that the nation could significantly influence global politics. In Patterson's words, "More than ever before… Americans came to believe that they could shape the international scene in their own image as well as fashion a more classless, equal opportunity society".

s had "grand expectations" for their country, including expectations of

The book includes an index, maps, and illustrations.

Reception
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The Atlantic praised the "power of writing" in Grand Expectations, averring the book "redeem[ed] the world by the power of the word from the monotone dream of television".

Charles Alexander called Grand Expectations "the finest general history so far on the postwar United States".

According to David Adams, Patterson's tone at times understates the severity of events that were "immense traumas", such as the second Red Scare.

In 1997, Patterson received a Bancroft Prize for writing Grand Expectations.