Cover: America's History: Concise Edition, Volume 1, 10th Edition by Rebecca Edwards; Eric Hinderaker; Robert Self; James Henretta

America's History: Concise Edition, Volume 1

Tenth Edition  ©2021 Rebecca Edwards; Eric Hinderaker; Robert Self; James Henretta Formats: Achieve, E-book, Print

Authors

  • Headshot of Rebecca Edwards

    Rebecca Edwards

    Rebecca Edwards is Eloise Ellery Professor of History at Vassar College, where she teaches courses on nineteenth-century politics, the Civil War, the frontier West, and women, gender, and sexuality. She is the author of, among other publications, Angels in the Machinery: Gender in American Party Politics from the Civil War to the Progressive Era; New Spirits: Americans in the “Gilded Age,” 1865–1905; and the essay “Women's and Gender History” in The New American History. She is currently working on a book about the role of childbearing in the expansion of America's nineteenth-century empire.


  • Headshot of Eric Hinderaker

    Eric Hinderaker

    Eric Hinderaker is Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Utah. His research explores early modern imperialism, relations between Europeans and Native Americans, military-civilian relations in the Atlantic world, and comparative colonization. His most recent book, Boston's Massacre, was awarded the Cox Book Prize from the Society of the Cincinnati and was a finalist for the George Washington Prize. His other publications include Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673–1800; The Two Hendricks: Unraveling a Mohawk Mystery, which won the Herbert H. Lehman Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in New York History from the New York Academy of History; and, with Peter C. Mancall, At the Edge of Empire: The Backcountry in British North America.


  • Headshot of Robert O. Self

    Robert O. Self

    Robert O. Self is Mary Ann Lippitt Professor of American History at Brown University. His research focuses on urban history, American politics, and the post-1945 United States. He is the author of American Babylon: Race and the Struggle for Postwar Oakland, which won four professional prizes, including the James A. Rawley Prize from the Organization of American Historians, and All in the Family: The Realignment of American Democracy Since the 1960s. He is currently at work on a book about the centrality of houses, cars, and children to family consumption in the twentieth-century United States.


  • Headshot of James Henretta

    James Henretta

    James A. Henretta  is Professor Emeritus of American History at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he taught Early American History and Legal History. His publications include “Salutary Neglect”: Colonial Administration under the Duke of Newcastle; Evolution and Revolution: American Society, 1600–1820; and The Origins of American Capitalism. His most recent publication is a long article, “Magistrates, Lawyers, Legislators: The Three Legal Systems of Early America,” in The Cambridge History of American Law.

Table of Contents

PART 1 Transformations of North America, 1491–1700

CHAPTER 1 Colliding Worlds, 1491–1600

Why did contact among Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans cause such momentous changes?

The Native American Experience

The First Americans

American Empires

Chiefdoms and Confederacies

Patterns of Trade

Sacred Power

Western Europe: The Edge of the Old World

Hierarchy and Authority

Peasant Society

Expanding Trade Networks

Myths, Religions, and Holy Warriors

West and Central Africa: Origins of the Atlantic Slave Trade

Empires, Kingdoms, and Ministates

Trans-Saharan and Coastal Trade

The Spirit World

Exploration and Conquest

Portuguese Expansion

The African Slave Trade

Sixteenth-Century Incursions

SUMMARY

CHAPTER 1 REVIEW

America in the World Altered Landscapes

Thinking Like a Historian Colliding Cultures

CHAPTER 2 American Experiments, 1521–1700

Why did the American colonies develop the social, political, and economic institutions they did, and why were some colonial experiments more successful than others?

Spain’s Tribute Colonies

A New American World

The Columbian Exchange

The Protestant Challenge to Spain

Plantation Colonies

Brazil’s Sugar Plantations

England’s Chesapeake Colonies

The Laboratory of the Caribbean

Plantation Life

Neo-European Colonies

New France

New Netherland

The Rise of the Iroquois

New England

War and Rebellion in North America

Metacom’s War, 1675-1676

The Pueblo Revolt

Bacon’s Rebellion

SUMMARY

CHAPTER 2 REVIEW

Thinking Like a Historian Who Was Pocahontas?

Comparing Interpretations What Role Did Climate and Ecology Play in American Colonization?

PART 2 British North America and the Atlantic World, 1607–1763

CHAPTER 3 The British Atlantic World, 1607–1750

Why and how did the South Atlantic System reshape the economy, society, and culture of British North America?

Colonies to Empire, 1607–1713

Self-Governing Colonies and New Elites, 1607–1660

The Restoration Colonies and Imperial Expansion

From Mercantilism to Imperial Dominion

The Glorious Revolution in England and America

Imperial Wars and Native Peoples

Tribalization

Indian Goals

The Imperial Slave Economy

The South Atlantic System

Africa, Africans, and the Slave Trade

Slavery in the Chesapeake and South Carolina

An African American Community Emerges

The Rise of the Southern Gentry

The Northern Maritime Economy

The Urban Economy

Urban Society

The New Politics of Empire, 1713–1750

The Rise of Colonial Assemblies

Salutary Neglect

Protecting the Mercantile System

Mercantilism and the American Colonies

SUMMARY

CHAPTER 3 REVIEW

America in the World Olaudah Equiano: The Brutal "Middle Passage"

Thinking Like a Historian Servitude and Slavery

CHAPTER 4 Growth, Diversity, and Conflict, 1720–1763

Why did transatlantic travel and communication reshape Britain’s American colonies so dramatically?

New England’s Freehold Society

Farm Families: Women in the Household Economy

Farm Property: Inheritance

Freehold Society in Crisis

Diversity in the Middle Colonies

Economic Growth, Opportunity, and Conflict

Cultural Diversity

Religion and Politics

Cultural Transformations

Transportation and the Print Revolution

The Enlightenment in America

American Pietism and the Great Awakening

Religious Upheaval in the North

Social and Religious Conflict in the South

The Midcentury Challenge: War, Trade, and Social Conflict, 1750–1763

The French and Indian War

The Great War for Empire

British Industrial Growth and the Consumer Revolution

The Struggle for Land in the East

Western Rebels and Regulators

SUMMARY

CHAPTER 4 REVIEW

Thinking Like a Historian Women’s Labor

America in the World Transatlantic Migration, 1500–1760

PART 3 Revolution and Republican Culture, 1754–1800

CHAPTER 5 The Problem of Empire, 1754–1776

Why did the imperial crisis lead to war between Britain and the United States?

An Empire Transformed

The Costs of Empire

George Grenville and the Reform Impulse

An Open Challenge: The Stamp Act

The Dynamics of Rebellion, 1765–1770

Formal Protests and the Politics of the Crowd

The Ideological Roots of Resistance

Another Kind of Freedom

Parliament and Patriots Square Off Again

The Problem of the West

Parliament Wavers

The Road to Independence, 1771–1776

A Compromise Repudiated

The Continental Congress Responds

The Rising of the Countryside

Loyalists and Neutrals

Violence East and West

Lord Dunmore’s War

Armed Resistance in Massachusetts

The Second Continental Congress Organizes for War

Thomas Paine’s Common Sense

Independence Declared

SUMMARY

CHAPTER 5 REVIEW

Thinking Like a Historian Beyond the Proclamation Line

Comparing Interpretations Did British Administrators Try to Protect or Exploit Native Americans?

CHAPTER 6 Making War and Republican Governments, 1776–1789

Why did the American independence movement succeed, and what changes did it initiate in American society and government?

The Trials of War, 1776–1778

War in the North

Armies and Strategies

Victory at Saratoga

The Perils of War

Financial Crisis

Valley Forge

The Path to Victory, 1778–1783

The French Alliance

War in the South

The Patriot Advantage

Diplomatic Triumph

Creating Republican Institutions, 1776–1787

The State Constitutions: How Much Democracy?

Women Seek a Public Voice

The War’s Losers: Loyalists, Native Americans, and Slaves

The Articles of Confederation

Shays’s Rebellion

The Constitution of 1787

The Rise of a Nationalist Faction

The Philadelphia Convention

The People Debate Ratification

SUMMARY

CHAPTER 6 REVIEW

Thinking Like a Historian The Black Soldier’s Dilemma

Comparing Interpretations What did the Framers Intend When They Drafted The Constitution?

CHAPTER 7 Hammering Out a Federal Republic, 1787–1820

Why did the United States survive the challenges of the first three decades to become a viable, growing, independent republic?

The Political Crisis of the 1790s

The Federalists Implement the Constitution

Hamilton’s Financial Program

Jefferson’s Agrarian Vision

The French Revolution Divides Americans

The Rise of Political Parties

A Republican Empire Is Born

Sham Treaties and Indian Lands

Migration and the Changing Farm Economy

The Jefferson Presidency

Jefferson and the West

The War of 1812 and the Transformation of Politics

Conflict in the Atlantic and the West

The War of 1812

The Federalist Legacy

SUMMARY

CHAPTER 7 REVIEW

Thinking Like a Historian The Social Life of Alcohol

America in the World The Haitian Revolution and the Problem of Race

PART 4 Overlapping Revolutions, 1800–1848

CHAPTER 8 Economic Transformations, 1800–1848

Why and how did the economic transformations of the first half of the nineteenth century reshape northern and southern society and culture?

Foundations of a New Economic Order

Credit and Banking

Transportation and the Market Revolution

The Cotton Complex: Northern Industry and Southern Agriculture

The American Industrial Revolution

Origins of the Cotton South

The Cotton Boom and Slavery

Technological Innovation and Labor

The Spread of Innovation

Wageworkers and the Labor Movement

The Growth of Cities and Towns

New Social Classes and Cultures

Inequality in the South

The Northern Business Elite

The Middle Class

Urban Workers and the Poor

SUMMARY

CHAPTER 8 REVIEW

Thinking Like a Historian The Entrepreneur and the Community

Comparing Interpretations Did the Market Revolution Expand Opportunities for Women?

CHAPTER 9 A Democratic Revolution, 1800–1848

Why did Andrew Jackson’s election mark a turning point in American politics?

The Rise of Popular Politics

The Decline of the Notables and the Rise of Parties

Racial Exclusion and Republican Motherhood

The Missouri Crisis, 1819–1821

The Election of 1824

The Last Notable President: John Quincy Adams

"The Democracy" and the Election of 1828

Jackson in Power, 1829–1837

Jackson’s Agenda: Rotation and Decentralization

The Tariff and Nullification

The Bank War

Indian Removal

Jackson’s Impact

Class, Culture, and the Second Party System

The Whig Worldview

Labor Politics and the Depression of 1837–1843

"Tippecanoe and Tyler Too!"

SUMMARY

CHAPTER 9 REVIEW

COMPARING INTERPRETATIONS Was Indian Removal Humanitarian or Racist?

Thinking Like a Historian Becoming Literate: Public Education and Democracy

CHAPTER 10 Religion, Reform, and Culture, 1820–1848

Why did new intellectual, religious, and social movements emerge in the early nineteenth century, and how did they change American society?

Spiritual Awakenings

The Second Great Awakening and Reform

Transcendentalism

Utopian Communities and New Religious Movements

Urban Cultures and Conflicts

Sex in the City

Urban Entertainments

Popular Fiction and the Penny Press

African Americans and the Struggle for Freedom

Free Black Communities, South and North

The Rise of Abolitionism

The Women’s Rights Movement

Origins of the Women’s Rights Movement

From Antislavery to Women’s Rights

SUMMARY

CHAPTER 10 REVIEW

Thinking Like a Historian Dance and Social Identity in Antebellum America

America in the World Women’s Rights in France and the United States, 1851

CHAPTER 11 Imperial Ambitions, 1820–1848

Why did the ideology of Manifest Destiny unite Americans and shape United States politics?

The Expanding South

Planters, Small Freeholders, and Poor Freemen

The Settlement of Texas

The Politics of Democracy

The World of Enslaved African Americans

Forging Families and Communities

Working Lives

Contesting the Boundaries of Slavery

Manifest Destiny, North and South

The Push to the Pacific

The Plains Indians

The Fateful Election of 1844

The U.S.-Mexico War, 1846–1848

The Mexican North

Polk’s Expansionist Program

American Military Successes

SUMMARY

CHAPTER 11 REVIEW

Thinking Like a Historian Claiming the Oregon Country

America in the World Financing War

PART 5 Consolidating a Continental Union, 1844–1877

CHAPTER 12 Sectional Conflict and Crisis, 1844–1861

Why did the new Republican Party arise, and what events led to Democratic division and southern secession?

Consequences of the U.S.-Mexico War, 1844–1850

"Free Soil" in Politics

California Gold and Racial Warfare

1850: Crisis and Compromise

An Emerging Political Crisis, 1850–1858

The Abolitionist Movement Grows

Pierce and Expansion

Immigrants and Know-Nothings

The West and the Fate of the Union

Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Triumph, 1858–1860

Lincoln’s Political Career

The Union Under Siege

The Election of 1860

Secession Winter, 1860–1861

SUMMARY

CHAPTER 12 REVIEW

Comparing Interpretations Did Slavery Have a Future in the West?

Thinking Like a Historian The Irish in America

CHAPTER 13 Bloody Ground: The Civil War, 1861–1865

Why and how did the Union win the Civil War?

War Begins, 1861–1862

Early Expectations

Campaigns East and West

Antietam and Its Consequences

Toward "Hard War," 1863

Politics North and South

The Impact of Emancipation

Citizens and the Work of War

Vicksburg and Gettysburg

The Road to Union Victory, 1864–1865

Grant and Sherman Take Command

The Election of 1864 and Sherman’s March

The Confederacy Collapses

The World the War Made

SUMMARY

CHAPTER 13 REVIEW

Comparing Interpretations How Divided Was the Confederate Public?

Thinking Like a Historian Military Deaths — and Lives Saved — During the Civil War

CHAPTER 14 Reconstruction, 1865–1877

Why did freedpeople, Republican policymakers, and ex-Confederates all end up dissatisfied with Reconstruction or with its aftermath? To what degree did each group succeed in fulfilling its goals?

The Struggle for National Reconstruction

Presidential Approaches: From Lincoln to Johnson

Congress Versus the President

Radical Reconstruction

Women’s Rights Denied

The Meaning of Freedom

The Quest for Land

Republican Governments in the South

Building Black Communities

The Undoing of Reconstruction

The Republicans Unravel

Counterrevolution in the South

Reconstruction Rolled Back

The Political Crisis of 1877

Lasting Legacies

SUMMARY

CHAPTER 14 REVIEW

America in the World Labor Laws After Emancipation: Haiti and the United States

Thinking Like a Historian The South’s "Lost Cause"

Product Updates

NEW! Achieve, an innovative online learning platform with robust tools. Providing activities for student engagement and analytics for instructor insight, Achieve for America’s History features LearningCurve adaptive quizzing, an integrated companion source reader, an online test bank, map quizzes, tutorials with assessment, and helpful course supplements, such as images and lecture slides. Adopt Achieve on its own or package with the print book.

Enhanced part openers help students focus on the major developments that define each period. To help students focus on why history developed as it did, the three brief thematic essays in the part introductions now begin with headings phrased as questions. New, visual thematic timelines focus on the most important developments of the era and help students see the context and relationship among events. New "Tying the Chapters in This Part Together" questions at the end of each part serve a dual purpose—they are pre-reading tools to focus students as they dive into the chapters and also serve as post-reading assignments that help students reflect on big-picture issues of the period.

Narrative updates incorporate the latest scholarship and highlight the history of capitalism. In addition to highlighting the history of capitalism throughout, the tenth edition also gives revised or expanded coverage of the following: colonial resistance to British reforms after the Seven Years’ War (chapter 5); the relationship between the French Revolution and American politics (chapter 7); organization and labor activism among women working in the Waltham-Lowell mills (chapter 8); Americans’ religious experiences in the Second Great Awakening (chapter 10); free African American communities in the antebellum era (chapter 10); slave resistance, including the 1811 German Coast uprising in Louisiana (chapter 11)eugenic ideas and their real-world consequences (chapter 17); the aftermath of World War I and the devastating worldwide consequences of the Treaty of Versailles (chapter 20); the rise and flourishing of youth culture in the twentieth century (chapter 25); key developments (such as growth of the black middle class and the advent of television) that made the Civil Rights Movement possible (chapter 26); the role of religion in social and political life after the 1970s (chapter 28); environmental and economic crises in the early twenty-first century (chapter 30); and the presidency of Donald Trump (chapter 30).

Enhanced pedagogical aids help students see what is most important and develop their historical thinking skills. New chapter visual timelines help students see how events relate to each other and emphasize the big picture. New Mapping the Past exercises attached to one map per chapter invite close scrutiny of the role of geography in American history. New preview reading questions, appearing after each major heading in the chapter, guide students as they read. These aids, along with Identify the Big Idea chapter-opening questions; marginal reading questions that ask students to practice skills such as "Identify Causes," "Trace Change over Time," and others; plus end-of-chapter Review, Making Connections, and Key Turning Points questions; all add up to unparalleled support for elevating the main points and fostering historical thinking skills.


A revised and expanded set of special features offers fresh options for analyzing primary and secondary sources. New Visual Activity exercises, offered once per chapter, prompt close examination of visuals as primary sources and make connections to the narrative. The Comparing Interpretations secondary source feature and the America in the World primary source feature have been lengthened to provide richer material for analysis. New topics in this edition include the Comparing Interpretations feature "How Rational Were the Great Railroad Empires?" and Thinking Like a Historian features "Claiming the Oregon Country," "The Power and the Appeal of the Ward Boss," and "The Automobile Transforms America."

NOW WITH ACHIEVE!

A brief text that helps students understand not just what happened in America’s history, but why

Praised for its focus on turning points and engines of change, the Concise Edition of America’s History explains the why behind events. The tenth edition presents a greater variety of tools to engage todays students. This edition includes new part opener features to help students study change and continuity in key periods, new coverage of capitalism and the economy, and an enhanced primary and secondary source program designed to develop historical thinking skills.

Available at a steep discount when packaged with the print book, the popular digital assignment options for this text bring skill building and assessment to a new and highly effective level. The greatest active learning options come in LaunchPad, Macmillan’s comprehensive and customizable learning platform, which combines an accessible, full-color e-book with LearningCurve, an adaptive and automatically graded learning tool that—when assigned—helps ensure students read the book; the complete companion reader with quizzes on each source; and many other study and assessment tools. For instructors who want the easiest and most affordable way to ensure students come to class prepared, Achieve Read & Practice pairs LearningCurve adaptive quizzing and our mobile, accessible, two-color Value Edition e-book, in one easy-to-use product.

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