This study focuses on the state’s impact on American society from the Civil War to the present. For the past several decades historians have tended to divide themselves into increasingly distinct historical perspectives. This anthology seeks to reverse that trend by linking the viewpoints of political and social historians to interpret the growth of the state and society in the United States since 1865, an era during which the state’s role has been expanded and redefined in a diverse and rapidly modernizing America. This technique challenges historians to think more broadly about the interactions between the state and society.