This edition features all of the strengths found in the successful comprehensive text: a compelling narrative, clear organization, and exceptional pedagogy. An attractive four-color design -featuring numerous maps, photos, and timelines engage and assist students in their study of American history.

In the new 7^th edition of America Past and Present, Brief Edition the authors have streamlined the coverage in the contemporary chapters and added a new feature that explores the connections between the past and the present.

This edition features all of the strengths found in the successful comprehensive text: a compelling narrative, clear organization, and exceptional pedagogy. An attractive four-color design -featuring numerous maps, photos, and timelines engage and assist students in their study of American history.

In the new 7th edition of America Past and Present, Brief Edition the authors have streamlined the coverage in the contemporary chapters and added a new feature that explores the connections between the past and the present.

1. New World Encounters.  

Clash of Cultures: The Meaning of Murder in Early Maryland.

Native American Histories Before Conquest. 

A World Transformed.  

West Africa: Ancient and Complex Societies.  

Europe on the Eve of Conquest.  

Imagining a New World.  

French Exploration and Settlement.  

The English New World.  

Rehearsal in Ireland for American Colonization.  

An Unpromising Beginning: Mystery at Roanoke.  

Conclusion: Propganda for Empire.  

2. Conflicting Visions: England's Seventeenth-Century Colonies. 

Profit and Piety: Competing Blueprints for English Settlement.  

Breaking Away.  

The Chesapeake: Dreams of Wealth.  

Reforming England in America.  

Diversity in the Middle Colonies.  

Quakers in America.  

Planting the Carolinas.  

The Founding of Georgia.  

Conclusion: Living with Diversity.  

3. Putting Down Roots: Opportunity and Oppression in Colonial Society.  

Families in an Atlantic Empire.  

Sources of Stability: New England Colonies of the Seventeenth Century.  

The Challenge of the Chesapeake Environment.  

Race and Freedom in British America.  

Rise of a Commercial Empire.  

Colonial Factions Spark Revolt, 1676-1691.  

Conclusion: Local Aspirations Within an Atlantic Empire.  

4. Frontiers of Empire: Eighteenth-Century America.  

Constructing an Anglo-American Identity: The Journal of William Byrd.  

Growth and Diversity.  

Spanish Borderlands of the Eighteenth Century.  

The Impact of European Ideas on American Culture. 

Religious Revivals in Provincial Societies.  

Clash of Political Cultures.  

Century of Imperial War.

Conclusion: Rule Britannia?  

We Americans: Learning to Live with Diversity in the Eighteenth Century: What Is an American?  

5. The American Revolution: From Gentry Protest to Popular Revolt, 1763-1783.  

Rethinking the Meaning of Equality.

Structure of Colonial Society.  

Eroding the Bonds of Empire.  

Steps Toward Independence.  

Fighting for Independence.  

The Loyalist Dilemma.  

Winning the Peace.  

Conclusion: Preserving Independence.  

6. The Republican Experiment.  

A New Moral Order.

Defining Republican Culture.  

Living in the Shadow of Revolution.  

The States: Experiments in Republicanism.  

Stumbling Toward a New National Government.  

Strengthening Federal Authority.  

“Have We Fought for This?” 

Whose Constitution? Struggle for Ratification.  

Conclusion: Success Depends on the People.  

7. Democracy in Distress: The Violence of Party Politics, 1788-1800.  

Partisan Passions.

Principle and Pragmatism: Establishing a New Government.  

Conflicting Visions: Jefferson and Hamilton.  

Hamilton's Plan for Prosperity and Security.  

Charges of Treason: The Battle over Foreign Affairs.  

Popular Political Culture.  

The Adams Presidency.  

The Peaceful Revolution: The Election of 1800. 

Conclusion: Danger of Political Extremism.  

We Americans: Counting the People: The Federal Census of 1790.  

8. Republican Ascendancy: The Jeffersonian Vision.  

Limits of Equality.

Regional Identities in a New Republic.  

Jefferson as President.  

Jefferson's Critics.  

Embarrassments Overseas.  

The Strange War of 1812.  

Conclusion: Republican Legacy.  

9. Nation Building and Nationalism.  

A Revolutionary War Hero Revisits America in 1824.

Expansion and Migration.  

A Revolution in Transportation.

Emergence of a Market Economy.  

The Politics of Nation Building after the War of 1812.  

Conclusion: The End of the Era of Good Feeling.  

10. The Triumph of White Men's Democracy.  

Democratic Space: The New Hotels.

Democracy in Theory and Practice.  

Jackson and the Politics of Democracy.  

The Bank War and the Second Party System.  

Heyday of the Second Party System.  

Conclusion: Tocqueville's Wisdom.  

11. Slaves and Masters.

Nat Turner's Rebellion: A Turning Point in the Slave South.

The Divided Society of the Old South.

The World of Southern Blacks. 

White Society in the Antebellum South. 

Slavery and the Southern Economy.  

Conclusion: Worlds in Conflict.

We Americans: Harriet Jacobs and Maria Norcom: Women of Southern Households. 

12. The Pursuit of Perfection.  

Redeeming the Middle Class.

The Rise of Evangelicalism.  

Domesticity and Changes in the American Family.  

Institutional Reform.  

Reform Turns Radical.  

Conclusion: Counterpoint on Reform.  

13. An Age of Expansionism.  

The Spirit of Young America.

Movement to the Far West.  

Manifest Destiny and the Mexican-American War.  

Internal Expansionism.  

Conclusion: The Costs of Expansion.

We Americans: The Irish in Boston, 1845-1865.  

14. The Sectional Crisis.  

The Brooks-Sumner Brawl in Congress.

The Compromise of 1850.  

Political Upheaval, 1852-1856.  

The House Divided, 1857-1860.  

Conclusion: Explaining the Crisis.  

We Americans: Hispanic America After 1848: A Case Study in Majority Rule.  

15. Secession and the Civil War.  

The Emergence of Lincoln.

The Storm Gathers.  

Adjusting to Total War. 

Fight to the Finish.  

Conclusion: An Organizational Revolution.

16. The Agony of Reconstruction.  

Robert Smalls and Black Politicians During Reconstruction.

The President Versus Congress.  

Reconstructing Southern Society.  

Retreat from Reconstruction.  

Reunion and the New South.  

Conclusion: The “Unfinished Revolution.”

Appendix  A-1.

The Declaration of Independence 

The Articles of Confederation  

The Constitution of the United States of America  

Amendments to the Constitution  

Presidential Elections  

Glossary G-1.

Credits C-1.

Index  I-1.