Cover: America's History: Concise Edition, Volume 2, 10th Edition by Rebecca Edwards; Eric Hinderaker; Robert Self; James Henretta

America's History: Concise Edition, Volume 2

Tenth Edition  ©2021 Rebecca Edwards; Eric Hinderaker; Robert Self; James Henretta Formats: 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

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"

CHAPTER 15 Conquering a Continent, 1860–1890

Why and how did the United States build a continental empire, and how did this affect people living in the West?

The Republican Vision

The New Union and the World

Integrating the National Economy

Incorporating the West

Mining Empires

From Bison to Cattle on the Plains

Homesteaders

The First National Park

A Harvest of Blood: Native Peoples Dispossessed

The Civil War and Indians on the Plains

Grant’s Peace Policy

The End of Armed Resistance

Strategies of Survival

Western Myths and Realities

SUMMARY

CHAPTER 15 REVIEW

Comparing Interpretations How Rational Were the Great Railroad Empires?

Thinking Like a Historian Representing Indians

PART 6 Industrializing America: Upheavals and Experiments, 1877–1917

CHAPTER 16 Industrial America: Corporations and Conflicts, 1877–1911

Why did large corporations emerge and thrive in late nineteenth century America and how did they reshape trade, work, and politics ?

The Rise of Big Business

Innovators in Enterprise

The Corporate Workplace

On the Shop Floor

Immigrants, East and West

Newcomers from Europe

Asian Americans and Exclusion

Labor Gets Organized

The Emergence of a Labor Movement

The Knights of Labor

Farmers and Workers: The Cooperative Alliance

Another Path: The American Federation of Labor

SUMMARY

CHAPTER 16 REVIEW

Thinking Like a Historian Poverty and Food

America in the World Emigrants and Destinations, 1881–1915

CHAPTER 17 Making Modern American Culture, 1880–1917

Why and how did Americans’ identities, beliefs, and culture change in the early industrial era?

Science and Faith

Darwinism and Its Critics

Religion: Diversity and Innovation

Realism in the Arts

Commerce and Culture

Consumer Spaces

Masculinity and the Rise of Sports

The Great Outdoors

Women, Men, and the Solitude of Self

Changing Families

Expanding Opportunities for Education

Women’s Civic Activism

SUMMARY

CHAPTER 17 REVIEW

America in the World Christianity in the United States and Japan

Thinking Like a Historian WCTU Women "Do Everything"

CHAPTER 18 "Civilization’s Inferno": The Rise and Reform of Industrial Cities, 1880–1917

Why and how did the rise of big cities shape American society and politics?

The New Metropolis

The Landscape of the Industrial City

Newcomers and Neighborhoods

City Cultures

Governing the Great City

Urban Political Machines

The Limits of Machine Government

Crucibles of Progressive Reform

Fighting Dirt and Vice

The Movement for Social Settlements

Cities and National Politics

SUMMARY

CHAPTER 18 REVIEW

Thinking Like a Historian The Power and appeal of the Ward Boss

Comparing Interpretations How Did Urban Progressive Reformers Approach Environmentalism?

CHAPTER 19 Whose Government? Politics, Populists, and Progressives, 1880–1917

Why and how did Progressive Era reformers seek to address the problems of industrial America, and to what extent did they succeed?

Reform Visions, 1880–1892

Electoral Politics After Reconstruction

The Populist Program

The Political Earthquakes of the 1890s

Depression and Reaction

Democrats and the "Solid South"

Republicans Retake National Control

Reform Reshaped, 1901–1912

Theodore Roosevelt as President

Diverse Progressive Goals

The Election of 1912

Wilson’s Reforms, 1913–1917

Economic Reforms

Progressive Legacies

SUMMARY

CHAPTER 19 REVIEW

Thinking Like a Historian Making Modern Presidents

Comparing Interpretations Were the "Gilded Age" and "Progressive Era" Separate Periods?

PART 7 Global Ambitions and Domestic Turmoil, 1890–1945

CHAPTER 20 An Emerging World Power, 1890–1918

Why did the United States become a major power on the world stage by the 1910s, and what impact did this have at home and abroad?

From Expansion to Imperialism

Foundations of Empire

The War of 1898

Spoils of War

A Power Among Powers

The Open Door in Asia

The United States and Latin America

The United States in World War I

From Neutrality to War

"Over There"

War on the Home Front

Catastrophe at Versailles

The Fate of Wilson’s Ideas

Congress Rejects the Treaty

SUMMARY

CHAPTER 20 REVIEW

America in the World The Human Cost of World War I

Thinking Like a Historian German Americans in World War I

CHAPTER 21 Unsettled Prosperity: From War to Depression, 1919–1932

Why did cultural and political conflict erupt in the 1920s, and what factors lead to the Great Depression?

Resurgent Conservatism

The Red Scare

Racial Backlash

American Business at Home and Abroad

Government Businesses Entangled

Making a Modern Consumer Economy

Postwar Abundance

Consumer Culture

The Automobile and Suburbanization

The Politics and Culture of a Diversifying Nation

Women in a New Age

Culture Wars

The Harlem Renaissance

The Coming of the Great Depression

From Boom to Bust

The Depression’s Early Years

SUMMARY

CHAPTER 21 REVIEW

Thinking Like a Historian The Automobile Transforms America

Comparing Interpretations How Did Immigrants Experience America at the Turn of the Century?

CHAPTER 22 Managing the Great Depression, Forging the New Deal, 1929–1938

What new roles did the American government take on during the New Deal, and how did these roles shape the economy and society?

Early Responses to the Depression, 1929–1932

Enter Herbert Hoover

Rising Discontent

The 1932 Election

The New Deal Arrives, 1933–1935

Roosevelt and the First Hundred Days

The New Deal Under Attack

The Second New Deal and the Redefining of Liberalism, 1935–1938

The Welfare State Comes into Being

From Reform to Stalemate

The New Deal and American Society

A People’s Democracy

Reshaping the Environment

The New Deal and the Arts

The Legacies of the New Deal

SUMMARY

CHAPTER 22 REVIEW

America in the World Economic Nationalism in the United States and Mexico

Thinking Like a Historian The New Deal and Public Works

CHAPTER 23 The World at War, 1937–1945

How did World War II transform the United States domestically and change its relationship with the world?

The Road to War

The Rise of Fascism

War Approaches

The Attack on Pearl Harbor

Organizing for a Global War

Financing the War

Mobilizing the American Fighting Force

Workers and the War Effort

Politics in Wartime

Life on the Home Front

"For the Duration"

Migration and the Wartime City

Japanese Removal

Fighting and Winning the War

Wartime Aims and Tensions

The War in Europe

The War in the Pacific

The Atomic Bomb and the End of the War

The Toll of the War

SUMMARY

CHAPTER 23 REVIEW

America in the World The Scales of War: Losses and Gains During World War II

Thinking Like a Historian Mobilizing the Home Front

PART 8 The Modern State and the Age of Liberalism, 1945–1980

CHAPTER 24 Cold War America, 1945–1963

In the first two decades of the Cold War, how did competition on the international stage and a climate of fear at home affect politics, society, and culture in the United States?

Containment in a Divided Global Order

Origins of the Cold War

The Containment Strategy

Containment in Asia

Cold War Liberalism

Truman and the End of Reform

Red Scare: The Hunt for Communists

The Politics of Cold War Liberalism

Containment in the Postcolonial World

The Cold War and Colonial Independence

John F. Kennedy and the Cold War

Making a Commitment in Vietnam

SUMMARY

CHAPTER 24 REVIEW

Comparing Interpretations Why Was There a Cold War?

Thinking Like a Historian The Global Cold War

CHAPTER 25 Triumph of the Middle Class, 1945–1963

Why did consumer culture become such a fixture of American life in the postwar decades, and how did it affect politics and society?

Postwar Prosperity and the Affluent Society

Economy: From Recovery to Dominance

A Nation of Consumers

Youth Culture

Religion and the Middle Class

The American Family in the Era of Containment

The Baby Boom

Women, Work, and Family

Challenging Middle-Class Morality

A Suburban Nation

The Postwar Housing Boom

Rise of the Sunbelt

Two Societies: Urban and Suburban

SUMMARY

CHAPTER 25 REVIEW

Thinking Like a Historian The Suburban Landscape of Cold War America

America in the World Postwar Capitalism

CHAPTER 26 Walking into Freedom Land: The Civil Rights Movement, 1941–1973

How did the civil rights movement evolve over time, and how did competing ideas and political alliances affect its growth and that of other social movements?

The Emerging Civil Rights Struggle, 1941–1957

Life Under Jim Crow

Origins of the Civil Rights Movement

World War II: The Beginnings

Cold War Civil Rights

Mexican Americans and Japanese Americans

Fighting for Equality Before the Law

Forging a Protest Movement, 1955–1965

Nonviolent Direct Action

Legislating Civil Rights, 1963–1965

Beyond Civil Rights, 1966–1973

Black Nationalism

Urban Disorder

Rise of the Chicano Movement

The American Indian Movement

SUMMARY

CHAPTER 26 REVIEW

Comparing Interpretations Was Martin Luther King Jr. a Radical or a Reformer?

Thinking Like a Historian Civil Rights and Black Power: Strategy and Ideology

CHAPTER 27 Uncivil Wars: Liberal Crisis and Conservative Rebirth, 1961–1972

What were liberalism’s social and political achievements in the 1960s, and how did debates over liberal values contribute to conflict at home and reflect war abroad?

Liberalism at High Tide

John F. Kennedy’s Promise

Lyndon B. Johnson and the Great Society

Rebirth of the Women’s Movement

The Vietnam War Begins

Escalation Under Johnson

Public Opinion and the War

The Student Movement

Days of Rage, 1968–1972

War Abroad, Tragedy at Home

The Antiwar Movement and the 1968 Election

The Nationalist Turn

Women’s Liberation and Black and Chicana Feminism

Stonewall and Gay Liberation

Rise of the Silent Majority

Nixon in Vietnam

The Silent Majority Speaks Out

The 1972 Election

SUMMARY

CHAPTER 27 REVIEW

Comparing Interpretations What Are the Origins of 1960s Feminism?

Thinking Like a Historian Debating the War in Vietnam

CHAPTER 28 The Search for Order in an Era of Limits, 1973–1980

How did the legacy of social changes in the 1960s—such as civil rights, shifting gender roles and challenges to the family—continue to reverberate in the 1970s, lead to both new opportunities and political clashes?

An Era of Limits

Energy Crisis

Environmentalism

Economic Transformation

Urban Crisis and Suburban Revolt

Politics in Flux, 1973–1980

Watergate and the Fall of a President

Jimmy Carter: The Outsider as President

Reform and Reaction in the 1970s

Civil Rights in a New Era

The Women’s Movement and Gay Rights

After the Warren Court

The American Family on Trial

Working Families in the Age of Deindustrialization

Navigating the Sexual Revolution

Religion in the 1970s: The New Evangelicalism

SUMMARY

CHAPTER 28 REVIEW

Thinking Like a Historian The Environmental Movement: Reimagining the Human-Earth Relationship

America in the World Economic Malaise in the Seventies

PART 9 Globalization and the End of the American Century, 1980 to the Present

CHAPTER 29 Conservative America in the Ascent, 1980–1991

What factors made the rise of the New Right possible, and what ideas about freedom and citizenship did conservatives articulate in the 1980s?

The Rise of the New Right

Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan: Champions of the Right

Free-Market Economics and Religious Conservatism

The Carter Presidency

The Dawning of the Conservative Age

The Reagan Coalition

Conservatives in Power

Morning in America

The End of the Cold War

U.S.-Soviet Relations in a New Era

A New Political Order at Home and Abroad

SUMMARY

CHAPTER 29 REVIEW

Thinking Like a Historian Personal Computing: A Technological Revolution

Comparing Interpretations How Conservative Was the Reagan Presidency?

CHAPTER 30 Confronting Global and National Dilemmas, 1989 to the Present

How has the post-Cold War era of globalization affected American politics, economics, and society?

America in the Global Economy

The Rise of the European Union and China

A New Era of Globalization

Revolutions in Technology

Politics and Partisanship in a Contentious Era

An Increasingly Plural Society

Clashes over "Family Values"

Bill Clinton and the New Democrats

Post–Cold War Foreign Policy

Into a New Century

The Ascendance of George W. Bush

Violence Abroad and Economic Collapse at Home

Reform and Stalemate in the Obama Years

SUMMARY

CHAPTER 30 REVIEW

Thinking Like a Historian Globalization: Its Proponents and Its Discontents

America in the World Global Trade, 1960–2009

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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