The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era

Table of Contents - April 2012 - Volume 11, Issue 02  

Forum: Revisiting John Higham's Strangers in the Land

Strangers in the Land: A View from Western History

Katherine Benton-Cohena1 c1

a1 Georgetown University

My task for this retrospective was to discuss John Higham's treatment of region in Strangers in the Land, with particular reference to the American West. My analysis looks especially at race and imperialism. These choices reflect in part the interests and approaches of John Higham, but also the general direction of the field of western history in the twenty-first century.

Correspondence:

c1 kab237@gmail.com; kab237@georgetown.edu

Katherine Benton-Cohen is an associate professor of history at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. She teaches courses in women's and gender history, the American West, and race and immigration. She is the author of Borderline Americans: Racial Division and Labor War in the Arizona Borderlands (2009) and is currently writing a book on the Dillingham Commission and Progressive Era America.