A Righteous Cause: The Life of William Jennings Bryan

by Robert W. Cherny

Overview

Three times the Democratic Party’s nominee for president (1896, 1900, and 1908) and secretary of state under Woodrow Wilson, William Jennings Bryan voiced the concerns of many Americans left out of the post–Civil War economic growth.

In A Righteous Cause: The Life of Williams Jennings Bryan, Robert W. Cherny presents Bryan’s key role in the Democratic Party’s transformation from the conservatism of Grover Cleveland to the progressivism of Woodrow Wilson. Cherny draws on Bryan’s writings and correspondence to trace his major political crusades for a new currency policy, prohibition, and women’s suffrage, and against colonialism, monopolies, America’s entry into World War I, and the teaching of evolution in the public schools.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780806126678
Publisher:	University of Oklahoma Press
Publication date:	09/28/1994
Series:	Library of American Biography
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	238
Sales rank:	653,590
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.61(d)

About the Author

Robert W. Cherny is Professor Emeritus of History at San Francisco State University. He is the author of Populism, Progressivism, and the Transformation of Nebraska Politics, 1885-1915, American Politics in the Gilded Age, 1868–1900  and coauthor of Competing Visions: A History of California and Making America: A History of the United States.

Editorial Reviews

"A succinct study in which the author combines a knowledge of the standard works in the field with original research and new insights and analysis. . . . His book is a serious and intelligent one that students, scholars, and a general public can read with pleasure and profit."—Martin Ridge, Annals of Iowa


"The best short biography of Bryan. . . . Cherny’s treatment of Bryan and Darrow at the Scopes trial is fair, and his concluding chapter, ‘Evaluating a Crusader,’ is very well balanced."—Ferenc M. Szasz, Ohio History


"Cherny has traced Bryan’s life in short compass and in a fashion that works well for the student and general reader."—R. Hal Williams, Western Historical Quarterly

From the Publisher

**** Reprint of the Little, Brown work originally published in 1985, and recommended as part of college core collections by BCL3. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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