Andrew Preston is Professor of American History and a Fellow of Clare College at Cambridge University. He is the author of The War Council: McGeorge Bundy, the NSC, and Vietnam and Sword of the Spirit, Shield of Faith: Religion in American War and Diplomacy. Doug Rossinow is Associate Professor of History at the University of Oslo. He is the author of The Reagan Era: A History of the 1980s and The Politics of Authenticity: Liberalism, Christianity, and the New Left in America.
"""This collection of 11 essays employs the emerging concept of transnational history to broaden the study of US history by focusing on neglected actors, giving new perspectives to traditional topics. Transnational history, the editors explain in their introduction, focuses on non-state actors (thus differing from international history), provides a 'bottom-up, social history,' and demonstrates ways that interactions between Americans and others have influenced US history (thus the Outside in of the title)....The editors and several authors acknowledge that transnational studies cannot ignore the nation-state, but their approach nonetheless represents a dramatic departure from state-centered diplomatic history or international history. The collection thus makes a convincing case for the value of transnational history. The essays are of uniformly high quality, well documented, and convincing in their interpretations. Highly recommended.""--CHOICE ""Outside In offers a fantastic sampling of the latest scholarship on the history of the United States in transnational perspective. Brimming with missionaries, oil men, counterinsurgents, and other boots-on-the-ground actors, yet without losing sight of the importance of state structures and borders, the essays in this collection carefully unpack the interplay between international cooperation and competition, and between domestic politics and foreign affairs.""--Brooke L. Blower, author of Becoming Americans in Paris: Transatlantic Politics and Culture between the World Wars ""While in recent years we have learned a great deal about US influences on the world, Outside In helps us see the world's influences on the United States. In these essays, a dozen terrific historians pull back the cover on the 'transnational circuitry' of America's past. The editors rightly note that U.S. history is 'shot through with contending international and transnational forces of all kinds'-and this collection is shot through with insights and revelations of all kinds.""--Thomas (""Tim"") Borstelmann, author of The 1970s: A New Global History from Civil Rights to Economic Inequality ""A rich sampling of recent work...covering themes ranging from foreign policy and political economy to gender, race, religion, and migration.""--Erez Manela, Journal of Interdisciplinary History ""Awareness of the interdependence between national and global history informs the entire volume, and for this reason alone the book may be considered a landmark in U.S. historiography.""--Akira Iriye, Journal of American History"