This unusual book traces the development of the feminist movement in America and, to a lesser extent, in England. The comparison between the movements is enlightening. Professor O'Neill starts with Mary Wollstonecraft and traces the development of the attack on Victorian institutions right up to the 1920s and on to the 'permissive' society in which we live. But the story covers all facets of the movement: the struggle for enfranchisement, for property rights, and education, for working women in industry, for temperance and social reform. These remarkable women leaders live in these pages, but even more in the Documents which form the second part of the book. Here their own voices come to us across the years with a sincerity which gives life to the language of a past age.

Poet and Journalist, Max Eastman is perhaps the most famous example of an American intellectual who during his life moved across the entire political spectrum. This reexamination of his career and his place in history reveals the dynamics behind his several careers and political transformations, offering new insight into one of the most influential writers of this century. It is a model biography of a key intellectual of the twentieth century. It is also both a perspective social history of his times and a study in the history of ideas. The book will find a welcome place in history, literature, and political science courses, as well as in personal libraries.

William L. O'Neill's lively history of American women's struggle for equality is written with style and a keen sense for the variety of possible interpretations of 150 years of the feminist movement, from its earliest stirring in the 1830's to the latest developments in the 1980s. O'Neill's most controversial thesis is that the feminist movements of the past have largely failed, and for reasons that remains of deep concern; the movements have never come to grips with the fact that marriage and the family are the chief obstacles to women's emancipation. O'Neill also holds that the sexual revolution of the 1920s, far from liberating women, actually undermined their role in American life. O'Neill treats seriously the ideas of the great feminist leaders and their organizations. His was the first book to deal directly with the failure of feminism as a social force in American society; to tie together the scattered people and events in the history of American women; and to examine seriously feminist experience in the twentieth century. Since the women's agenda is hardly complete, the women's movement remains active, often militantly so. In this new revised edition, O'Neill interprets and illumines not only the history of feminism, but aspects of feminism that still trouble us today. O'Neill's book was widely heralded upon its initial publication. Elizabeth Janeway, writing for Saturday Review, calls it "a truly intelligent discussion...an extraordinary perceptive analysis." Carl Degler, in the Magazine of History calls A History of American Feminism "the most challenging and exciting book on the subject of women to appear in years." And Lionel Tiger, writing for the NewRepublic, says that "O'Neill has turned his mastery of a wide range of historical sources into a lively, engaging, and almost faultlessly sensible book."

The all-too-brief period of relative tranquility that extended from the end of the Cold War to the beginning of the War on Terror is the subject of William L. O'Neill's brilliant new study of recent American history. Mr. O'Neill's sharp eye for the telling incident and the apt quotation combine with an acute historical judgment to make A Bubble in Time a compellingly readable informal history. The first Gulf War and President Clinton's interventions abroad notwithstanding, American spirits were freer from fear than they had been since the 1920s, the author argues. No world war loomed before the United States, and after the Berlin Wall came down the specter of nuclear annihilation faded as well. A brief recession in the 1990s gave way to the most prosperous years Americans had known for decades. Unlike in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan, the increase in national wealth trickled down to the middle class thanks to an unusual rise in productivity and large infrastructure investments by firms in the "new economy." To general amazement, crime rates began falling after almost thirty years of increases, so that Americans were happier, safer, and materially better off than before. Although the Republican party turned to the dark side, Mr. O'Neill writes, peace and prosperity enabled people to enjoy the finer things in life and to lavish their concerns on political correctness, the decline of the military, the troubles of higher education, and the manifestations of an out-of-control popular culture he calls "Tabloid Nation" the trials of O.J. Simpson and President Clinton, SUVs, cell phones, and bimbo eruptions. Mr. O'Neill explores them all, and more, with insight and wit. "It was all too good to last," he tells us. "Reality intruded again with the dot.com crash in 2000 and the terrorist attacks of 2001. Still, we will always have Paris Hilton." With 8 pages of black-and-white photographs."

Poet and Journalist, Max Eastman is perhaps the most famous example of an American intellectual who during his life moved across the entire political spectrum. This reexamination of his career and his place in history reveals the dynamics behind his several careers and political transformations, offering new insight into one of the most influential writers of this century. It is a model biography of a key intellectual of the twentieth century. It is also both a perspective social history of his times and a study in the history of ideas. The book will find a welcome place in history, literature, and political science courses, as well as in personal libraries.

William L. O'Neill's masterly chronicle of the twentieth century's most confounding decade is an immensely readable book that combines wit with learning and seriousness with entertainment. Its emphasis is inevitably on politics, but it offers a brilliant yet balanced portrayal of the New Left, the counterculture, the civil rights movement, the plunge into Vietnam, the crisis in the universities, and the freakier aspects of the popular culture. It has endured as one of the great interpretations of the sixties.

This book chronicles the struggle among non-Communist leftists and liberals over American relations with the Soviet Union from 1939 through the 1950s. Few now care as passionately and as violently as people did then about Soviet-American relations. It was a time when friends became enemies, and others forged strange alliances, all in the name of commitments that today seem remote. A Better World evokes those times and their choices, and explains why these long-ago battles still arouse such deep feelings today - and should.Americans who were pro-Soviet without being members of the Communist party - 'progressives' as they called themselves - had a large emotional investment in the Soviet Union. From 1935 to 1939 literally millions joined the 'Popular Front' of pro-Soviet organizations. O'Neill takes us through the shock of the Stalin-Hitler pact of 1939, through the revival of the Popular Front spurred by government and business support after Russia entered the war against Hitler. He traces the isolation of the anti-Stalinists, the rise and fall of Henry Wallace, and the eclipse of progressivism. And he explores the shifting allegiances of intellectuals as they struggled, often with each other, to influence the course of public debate, with long-lasting consequences for American intellect, culture, and morals.As O'Neill observes in his introduction, 'More than any of my other books A Better World inspired correspondents to send me probing or reflective letters.' It was this response, along with the extraordinary critical debate spurred by initial publication of this volume, that makes the book's continuing importance clear. The dream of achieving a better world through radical violence never dies, and the willingness of apologists to cling to utopian visions persists. As long as it does, the lessons of this book need to be available to us.

William L. O'Neill's lively history of American women's struggle for equality is written with style and a keen sense for the variety of possible interpretations of 150 years of the feminist movement, from its earliest stirring in the 1830's to the latest developments in the 1980s.

O'Neill's most controversial thesis is that the feminist movements of the past have largely failed, and for reasons that remains of deep concern; the movements have never come to grips with the fact that marriage and the family are the chief obstacles to women's emancipation. O'Neill also holds that the sexual revolution of the 1920s, far from liberating women, actually undermined their role in American life.

O'Neill treats seriously the ideas of the great feminist leaders and their organizations. His was the first book to deal directly with the failure of feminism as a social force in American society; to tie together the scattered people and events in the history of American women; and to examine seriously feminist experience in the twentieth century. Since the women's agenda is hardly complete, the women's movement remains active, often militantly so. In this new revised edition, O'Neill interprets and illumines not only the history of feminism, but aspects of feminism that still trouble us today.

O'Neill's book was widely heralded upon its initial publication. Elizabeth Janeway, writing for Saturday Review, calls it "a truly intelligent discussion...an extraordinary perceptive analysis." Carl Degler, in the Magazine of History calls A History of American Feminism "the most challenging and exciting book on the subject of women to appear in years." And Lionel Tiger, writing for the NewRepublic, says that "O'Neill has turned his mastery of a wide range of historical sources into a lively, engaging, and almost faultlessly sensible book."

This unusual book traces the development of the feminist movement in America and, to a lesser extent, in England. The comparison between the movements is enlightening.

Professor O Neill starts with Mary Wollstonecraft and traces the development of the attack on Victorian institutions right up to the 1920s and on to the 'permissive' society in which we live. But the story covers all facets of the movement: the struggle for enfranchisement, for property rights, and education, for working women in industry, for temperance and social reform. These remarkable women leaders live in these pages, but even more in the Documents which form the second part of the book. Here their own voices come to us across the years with a sincerity which gives life to the language of a past age.

This book chronicles the struggle among non-Communist leftists and liberals over American relations with the Soviet Union from 1939 through the 1950s. Few now care as passionately and as violently as people did then about Soviet-American relations. It was a time when friends became enemies, and others forged strange alliances, all in the name of commitments that today seem remote. A Better World evokes those times and their choices, and explains why these long-ago battles still arouse such deep feelings today--and should.

Americans who were pro-Soviet without being members of the Communist party--"progressives" as they called themselves--had a large emotional investment in the Soviet Union. From 1935 to 1939 literally millions joined the "Popular Front" of pro-Soviet organizations. O'Neill takes us through the shock of the Stalin-Hitler pact of 1939, through the revival of the Popular Front spurred by government and business support after Russia entered the war against Hitler. He traces the isolation of the anti-Stalinists, the rise and fall of Henry Wallace, and the eclipse of progressivism. And he explores the shifting allegiances of intellectuals as they struggled, often with each other, to influence the course of public debate, with long-lasting consequences for American intellect, culture, and morals.

As O'Neill observes in his introduction, "More than any of my other books A Better World inspired correspondents to send me probing or reflective letters." It was this response, along with the extraordinary critical debate spurred by initial publication of this volume, that makes the book's continuing importance clear. The dream of achieving a better world through radical violence never dies, and the willingness of apologists to cling to utopian visions persists. As long as it does, the lessons of this book need to be available to us.

As America fought to defend democracy in Europe and Asia during World War II, its own democratic politics both aided and impeded the war effort at home and the military campaigns abroad. Now, in a broad-ranging social, political, military, and diplomatic history, William O'Neill reveals how the United States won its victory despite its reluctance to enter the war, and despite proceeding by costly half-measures even after committing to battle.

Hughie, the only surviving manuscript from a series of eight one-act monologue plays that O'Neill planned in 1940, was completed in 1941. In the play, only two characters appear on stage; Hughie, the third and most important one, is dead. It is Hughie's innocence, gullibility, and need to believe in a far more exciting existence than he ever knew that gives purpose to the shabby livs of the two who remain. O'Neill here again writes of the defeated and the courage that comes by way of illusions.