America’s tradition as a pluralistic society dates back to before its birth as a modern nation state. Before the first European outposts of Jamestown and Plymouth were erected, North America was already populated with nearly 160 culturally different Native American tribes — without a common language. The introduction of European culture to North America only injected more diversity into an already competitive pluralistic society. The objective of this course will be to examine how such diversity influenced the arc of American history and society through a careful analysis of the people, events, themes, and consequences that shaped the American experience from the pre-Columbian to the post-Civil War period — with special attention paid to religion, culture, language, and politics, as well as class, gender, and ethnicity. At the end of the semester, you will have enough knowledge to identify recurrent themes and events in American History. You will also have the opportunity to improve your critical thinking, reading, research and writing skills through assignments where you will have to identify, contextualize, and analyze events, sources, and viewpoints within US history.

U.S. History is designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of most introductory courses. The text provides a balanced approach to U.S. history, considering the people, events, and ideas that have shaped the United States from both the top down (politics, economics, diplomacy) and bottom up (eyewitness accounts, lived experience). U.S. History covers key forces that form the American experience, with particular attention to issues of race, class, and gender.Senior Contributing AuthorsP. Scott Corbett, Ventura CollegeVolker Janssen, California State University, FullertonJohn M. Lund, Keene State CollegeTodd Pfannestiel, Clarion UniversityPaul Vickery, Oral Roberts UniversitySylvie Waskiewicz

Restoring the Union
Congress and the Remaking of the South, 1865–1866
Radical Reconstruction, 1867–1872
The Collapse of Reconstruction