Historian/Author A Renegade History of the United States

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As an author and cultural commentator, Thaddeus Russell will be publishing A Renegade History of the United States in 2010 with Free Press/Simon and Schuster. History, American Studies and the history of philosophy have all been part of his teaching at Columbia University, Barnard College and the New School for Social Research. Occidental College is where he currently lectures.

Russell was born and brought up in Berkeley, California, where he attended Antioch College and Columbia University, where he earned a PhD in history.

Alfred A. Knopf published Russell’s debut book in 2001, Out of the Jungle: Jimmy Hoffa or the Remaking of a American Working Class. New York Magazine, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor and Salon are just some of the publications he has written for in the past few years. He has also contributed scholarly pieces to American Quarterly as Well as the Columbia History of Post-World War II America.

Additionally, Russell has been featured just on History Channel and Jon Stewart’s show The Daily Show.

A Renegade History Of The United States (A Renegade History):

Reknowned historian Thaddeus Russell presents a fresh perspective on the genesis of American liberty in this ground-breaking book. As opposed to the traditional textbook heroes, Russell reveals that the taboo lives that helped legitimise the taboo and make America the country of freedom were people on the outskirts of society.

It is through these battles between those who want to keep society in order, and others who want to pursue their own goals, that the history of the United States has been shaped. “Insiders” versus “outsiders,” good citizens and “bad citizens.” The more of these unintentional revolutionaries there were, the more society was open to new ideas and the more resistance there was to change.

Russell persuasively argues many of its most prized privileges were founded by history’s iconoclasts. Those who have paved the way for personal freedom have been found in locations that are normally overlooked—saloons, speakeasies, brothels, and even the Iron Curtain. Antiheroes like “Diamond Jessie” Hayman, a madam who currently owns her possess land, to use her own weapons, offered her staff members with clothes just on cutting-edge of fashion, & gave shelter and food to the 1000s left homeless by a 1906 San Francisco earthquake are all featured in this fascinating collection of antiheroes. Among them are workers who invented the weekend, prostitutes who set the precedent for women’s liberation, and criminals who pioneered racial integration.

A controversial argument of Russell’s is that the enemies of the renegade freedoms we presently cherish are the very heroes of our histories—he not just to takes over traditional idols such as John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller and shows some of the most famous & revered abolitionists and progressive activists, as well as feminist leaders, are the very enemies of the renegade freedoms humans now hold dear.

Unlike textbook history, this is a very creative and challenging depiction of the History of america that has never been published before.