These United States: The Questions of Our Past, Volume I, To 1877, Concise Edition (2nd Edition)

Written by a Pulitzer Prize winning author, this “concise” survey explores the many and varied threads of American history—social, intellectual, cultural political, diplomatic, economic, and military—from the arrival of the first native American inhabitants thousands of years ago through the Reconstruction after the Civil War. Inclusive of all the diverse groups that are and have been part of the American fabric, it shows how the story of America is a human story revealing the imperfections, as well as the triumphs of human endeavor and the human spirit. Using a unique “inquiry approach,” each chapter is built around a specific question or theme designed to challenge readers to consider the complexity of America's past. Considers questions such as: What Brought Europeans and Africans to the New World? How Did Old World Life and Culture Change the Wilderness? Why Did the Colonists Revolt? How Did the Revolution Change America? What Made the American Economic Miracle Possible? What Was Jacksonian Democracy and How Did It Change Political Life? Was the Mexican War and Expansionism Greed, Manifest Destiny or Inevitability? What Were Americans before the Civil War Really Like? What Is Myth and What Was Real Regarding the Old South? How Did the Civil War Change the Nation? What Went Wrong in Reconstruction? For anyone interested in American history.