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American History : A Very Short Introduction
This brief history of America will span the earliest migrations to the present, reflecting Paul S. Boyer's interests in social, intellectual, and cultural history, including popular culture and religion. It will reflect his personal view of American history, in which a sense of paradox andirony loom large. While noting positive achievements - political, economic, social, and cultural - he will also discuss the United States's failures to live up to its oft-stated ideals; although America has figured in the world's imagination (and its own self-image) as a "land of opportunity"offering "liberty and justice for all," the reality has often fallen short.For example, the establishment of the North American colonies had very different meanings for colonists from the British Isles and Europe, for Native peoples, and for enslaved Africans brought against their will. The late nineteenth century saw not only impressive industrial expansion and thecreation of vast fortunes but also appalling conditions in urban-immigrant slums and a degraded, exploited labor force. The twentieth-century emergence of a suburban society of consumer abundance meant a better life for many and laid the groundwork for impressive cultural creativity, yet left behindcrime-ridden inner cities and spawned a stultifying mass culture. The immigrants who have renewed and revitalized the nation have also stirred hostility and resentment. While American popular culture has demonstrated global appeal, the projection of U.S. military power abroad, from the Philippinesearly in the twentieth century to Iraq early in the twenty-first, has sometimes failed in its purpose and damaged the nation's international standing. Although this book will not be a muckraking expose or anachronistic moral tract, neither will it be a celebratory panegyric or a bland recital offacts.
American History Unbound
A survey of U.S. history from its beginnings to the present, American History Unbound reveals our past through the lens of Asian American and Pacific Islander history. In so doing, it is a work of both history and anti-history, a narrative that fundamentally transforms and deepens our understanding of the United States. This text is accessible and filled with engaging stories and themes that draw attention to key theoretical and historical interpretations. Gary Y. Okihiro positions Asians and Pacific Islanders within a larger history of people of color in the United States and places the United States in the context of world history and oceanic worlds.
American Ideas of Equality : A Social History, 1750-2020
"Equality is a fundamental American value. The nation's Declaration of Independence declared equality as a self-evident foundation for political life and the pursuit of equality has continued to dominate policy debates in the twenty-first century. However, equality is a complex idea and it has had different meanings in different eras. Using a variety of data sources, this book describes how the views we hold regarding this fundamental national value developed as products of our cultural history from the origins of the American republic to 2020. It traces how cultural transmission, political and economic structures, and communication technology have shaped this core American value. The book begins with the early days of the American republic and follows ideological changes through the era of the self-made man, the rise of corporate society, the New Deal, the post-World War II era, and the era of Civil Rights. It ends with a detailed discussion of how this history has resulted in some of the most divisive political and social controversies of the twenty-first century. Most studies of equality have taken this as having a single, clear meaning. Most often, this has been either how much equality of opportunity exists now or has existed in the past, or how much equality of condition exists now or has existed in the past. They rarely consider that people can be equal or unequal in different ways, and that what we mean when we talk about equality or engage in debates about it has been shaped by historical experience. This book is a work of historical sociology that examines the forces that have shaped and re-shaped this fundamental cultural value. The book leads readers through an exploration of how different stages of American history have led to thinking about equality in terms of independence from hierarchy, the opportunity for self-creation, access to services and resources, widespread upward mobility, and equality across social categories. It takes a unique multi-disciplinary approach, combining intellectual and cultural history with political, economic, and sociological analysis. No other book offers this kind of analysis of the both the historical origins and contemporary consequences of a cultural concept at the core of American national life. American Ideas of Equality will interest academic researchers, students, and general readers interested in American studies; cultural, economic, and political history; political science; and sociology"--
The Atlantic World and Virginia, 1550-1624
In response to the global turn in scholarship on colonial and early modern history, the eighteen essays in this volume provide a fresh and much-needed perspective on the wider context of the encounter between the inhabitants of precolonial Virginia and the English. This collection offers an interdisciplinary consideration of developments in Native America, Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and the Chesapeake, highlighting the mosaic of regions and influences that formed the context and impetus for the English settlement at Jamestown in 1607. The volume reflects an understanding of Jamestown not as the birthplace of democracy in America but as the creation of a European outpost in a neighborhood that included Africans, Native Americans, and other Europeans. With contributions from both prominent and rising scholars, this volume offers far-ranging and compelling studies of peoples, texts, places, and conditions that influenced the making of New World societies. As Jamestown marks its four-hundredth anniversary, this collection provides provocative material for teaching and launching new research. Contributors: Philip P. Boucher, University of Alabama, Huntsville Peter Cook, Nipissing University J. H. Elliott, University of Oxford Andrew Fitzmaurice, University of Sydney Joseph Hall, Bates College Linda Heywood, Boston University James Horn, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation E. Ann McDougall, University of Alberta Peter C. Mancall, University of Southern California Philip D. Morgan, Johns Hopkins University David Northrup, Boston College Marcy Norton, The George Washington University James D. Rice, State University of New York, Plattsburgh Daniel K. Richter, University of Pennsylvania David Harris Sacks, Reed College Benjamin Schmidt, University of Washington Stuart B. Schwartz, Yale University David S. Shields, University of South Carolina Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert, McGill University James H. Sweet, University of Wisconsin, Madison John Thornton, Boston University
Atlas of Indian Nations
In the most comprehensive atlas of Native American history and culture available, the story of the North American Indian is told through maps, photos, art, and archival cartography. Organized by region, this encyclopedic reference details Indian tribes in these areas: beliefs, sustenance, shelter, alliances and animosities, key historical events, and more.
Children of Coyote, Missionaries of Saint Francis
Recovering lost voices and exploring issues intimate and institutional, this sweeping examination of Spanish California illuminates Indian struggles against a confining colonial order and amidst harrowing depopulation. To capture the enormous challenges Indians confronted, Steven W. Hackel integrates textual and quantitative sources and weaves together analyses of disease and depopulation, marriage and sexuality, crime and punishment, and religious, economic, and political change. As colonization reduced their numbers and remade California, Indians congregated in missions, where they forged communities under Franciscan oversight. Yet missions proved disastrously unhealthful and coercive, as Franciscans sought control over Indians' beliefs and instituted unfamiliar systems of labor and punishment. Even so, remnants of Indian groups still survived when Mexican officials ended Franciscan rule in the 1830s. Many regained land and found strength in ancestral cultures that predated the Spaniards' arrival. At this study's heart are the dynamic interactions in and around Mission San Carlos Borromeo between Monterey region Indians (the Children of Coyote) and Spanish missionaries, soldiers, and settlers. Hackel places these local developments in the context of the California mission system and draws comparisons between California and other areas of the Spanish Borderlands and colonial America. Concentrating on the experiences of the Costanoan and Esselen peoples during the colonial period, Children of Coyote concludes with an epilogue that carries the story of their survival to the present day.
Complete Idiot's Guide to American History
This second edition of Alan Axelrod's guide to American history now includes coverage of America's role in the Kosovo conflict of 1999 whilst continuing with the format and content of the first edition.
An Economic History of the United States : From 1607 to the Present
An Economic History of the United Statesis an accessible and informative survey designed for undergraduate courses on American economic history. The book spans from 1607 to the modern age and presents a documented history of how the American economy has propelled the nation into a position of world leadership. Noted economic historian Ronald E. Seavoy covers nearly 400 years of economic history, beginning with the commercialization of agriculture in the pre-colonial era, through the development of banks and industrialization in the nineteenth century, up to the globalization of the business economy in the present day.
Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History
This Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History surveys the richly layered dimensions of American life in a format that clarifies the many issues, ideas, movements and places that constitute the American experience. The Encyclopedia covers not only historic periods such as the Colonial era and the Reagan era, but also looks at cultural groups such as the working class and cultural institutions and forms such as the university and cinema.
The Frontier in American History
A fascinating exploration of American identity by one of the most influential historians and thinkers of the twentieth century According to Frederick Jackson Turner, the distinct qualities of the American character are inseparable from the idea of the frontier. One of the nation's most influential historians, Turner sets forth his "frontier thesis" in the eight brilliant, enlightening, and provocative essays that make up his seminal work, The Frontier in American History--a book which profoundly altered the way Americans viewed themselves. Disputing the traditionally held emphasis on European cultural influences, Turner argues that the American frontier fostered self-reliance, optimism, ingenuity, individualism, restlessness, materialism, and democratic ideals--traits that collectively shaped the national character. His groundbreaking work continues to influence American culture, politics, and history more than eighty years after it was first published.
The Great American History Fact-Finder
Covers a wide spectrum of American history and culture, including political events, military history, sports, arts, entertainment, landmark legislation, and business. The book's concise entries, arranged from A to Z, bring the United States' past into sharp focus while also offering just plain useful facts about the well known and not so well known
History Decoded
It's an irresistible combination: Brad Meltzer, a born storyteller, counting down the world's most intriguing unsolved mysteries. And to make this richly illustrated book even richer, each chapter invites the reader along for an interactive experience through the addition of facsimile documents--the evidence! It's a treasure trove for conspiracy buffs, a Griffin and Sabine for history lovers. Adapted from Decoded, Meltzer's hit show on the HISTORY network, History Decoded explores fascinating, unexplained questions. Is Fort Knox empty? Why was Hitler so intent on capturing the Roman "Spear of Destiny"? What's the government hiding in Area 51? Where did the Confederacy's $19 million in gold and silver go at the end of the Civil War? And did Lee Harvey Oswald really act alone? Meltzer sifts through the evidence; weighs competing theories; separates what we know to be true with what's still--and perhaps forever--unproved or unprovab≤ and in the end, decodes the mystery, arriving at the most likely solution. Along the way we meet Freemasons, Rosicrucians, Nazi propagandists, and the real DB Cooper. At the beginning of each story is a custom-designed envelope--a faux 19th-century leather satchel, a U.S. government classified file--containing facsimiles of relevant evidence: John Wilkes Booth's alleged unsigned will, a map of the Vatican, Kennedy's death certificate. The whole is a riveting, interactive adventure through the compelling world of mysteries and conspiracies.
Selling America: Immigration Promotion and the Settlement of the American Continent, 1607–1914
An in-depth look at the motivating factors behind immigration to America from 1607 to 1914, including what attracted people to America, who was trying to attract them, and why. * Features a synthesis of 35 state promotional policies regarding immigration * Challenges the commonly held view that the 19th century was a period of "laissez faire" immigration policy * Examines the question of why immigrants migrate to certain areas * Highlights the corporate, for-profit nature of English colonization in the 17th century * Includes private corporate, religious, and philanthropic promotional activities * Analyzes why policymakers favored certain immigrant groups over others
United States:1763-2000
This book takes a new approach to teaching and learning early US history from 1763 to 2001 at A level. It meets the needs of teachers and students studying for today's revised AS and A2 exams. In a unique style, The United States, 1763-2001 focuses on the key topics within the period. Each topic is then comprehensively explored to provide background, essay writing advice and examples, source work and historical skills exercises. The key topics featured include: * the struggle for the Constitution, 1763-1877 * the American Civil War * Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal * foreign policy, 1890-1991 * civil rights, 1863 - 1992. Using essay styles and source exercises from each of the exam boards - AQA, Edexcel and OCR - this book is an essential text for students and teachers.
The Value of a Dollar, 1860-2014
This fifth edition of the highly successful The Value of a Dollar records the actual prices of thousands of items that consumers purchased from the Civil War to the present, along with facts about investment options and income opportunities.