Understanding the past helps us navigate the present and future. When you read this text, you will not only learn about American History, you will be exposed to movies and music that tell the stories of American History in addition to the reading material you expect in a college level history book. A highly respected, balanced, and thoroughly modern approach to US History, LIBERTY, EQUALITY, POWER, uses themes in a unique approach to show how the United States was transformed, in a relatively short time, from a land inhabited by hunter-gatherer and agricultural Native American societies into the most powerful industrial nation on earth. This approach helps you understand not only the impact of the notions of liberty and equality, which are often associated with the American story, but also how dominant and subordinate groups have affected and been affected by the ever-shifting balance of power.

"Compared to the five texts which I have used over the past 15 years, the Murrin text presents the most comprehensive overview of more themes than any of the others."

"It is a much better text [than competing texts]. It operates on a higher learning level and has a greater command of scholarship."

"The narrative for LIBERTY, EQUALITY, POWER is clear, balanced, and very interesting. It's written at a level that survey students can understand and find engaging. In a time when many texts promise balance and diversity, this one actually delivers."

"I really like both the History Through Film and the Musical Links to the Past. Bothàare engaging tools for students and also allow instructors another method for bringing the past alive and directly to their students."

John M. Murrin is a specialist in American colonial and revolutionary history and the early republic. He has edited one multivolume series and five books, including two co-edited collections, COLONIAL AMERICA: ESSAYS IN POLITICS AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT, Fifth Edition (2001) and SAINTS AND REVOLUTIONARIES: ESSAYS IN EARLY AMERICAN HISTORY (1984). His own essays on early American history range from ethnic tensions, the early history of trial by jury, the rise of the legal profession, and the political culture of the colonies and the new nation, to the rise of professional baseball and college football in the 19th century. Professor Murrin served as president of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic in 1998-99. He is the author of Chapters 1-6.Paul E. Johnson. A specialist in early national social history, he is also the author of SAM PATCH, THE FAMOUS JUMPER (2003); A SHOPKEEPERS MILLENNIUM: SOCIETY AND REVIVALS IN ROCHESTER, NEW YORK, 1815-1837 (1978); coauthor (with Sean Wilentz) of THE KINGDOM OF MATTHIAS: SEX AND SALVATION IN 19TH-CENTURY AMERICA (1994); and editor of AFRICAN-AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY: ESSAYS IN HISTORY (1994). He has been awarded the Merle Curti Prize of the Organization of American Historians (1980), a National Endowment for the Humanities-American Antiquarian Society Fellowship (1985), a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship (1995), and a Gilder Lehrman Fellowship (2001). He is the author of Chapters 7-12.James M. McPherson is a distinguished Civil War historian, he won the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for his book BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM: THE CIVIL WAR ERA. His other publications include MARCHING TOWARD FREEDOM: BLACKS IN THE CIVIL WAR, Second Edition, (1991); ORDEAL BY FIRE: THE CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION, Third Edition, (2001); ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THE SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION (1991); FOR CAUSE AND COMRADES: WHY MEN FOUGHT IN THE CIVIL WAR (1997), which won the Lincoln Prize for 1998; and HALLOWED GROUND: A WALK AT GETTYSBURG (2003). In addition he is, along with Gary Gerstle, a consulting editor of AMERICAN POLITICAL LEADERS: FROM COLONIAL TIMES TO THE PRESENT (1991) and AMERICAN SOCIAL LEADERS: FROM COLONIAL TIMES TO THE PRESENT (1993). Professor McPherson was president of the American Historical Association (2003-04). He is the author of Chapters 13-19.Gary Gerstle is a historian of the twentieth century United States, with expertise in the history of politics, nationalism, immigration and ethnicity, and labor. He has published four books: WORKING-CLASS AMERICANISM: THE POLITICS OF LABOR IN A TEXTILE CITY, 1914-1960 (1989); THE RISE AND FALL OF THE NEW DEAL ORDER, 1930-1980 (1989); AMERICAN CRUCIBLE: RACE AND NATION IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (2001); and E PLURIBUS UNUM: IMMIGRANTS, CIVIC CULTURE, AND POLITICAL INCORPORATION (2001). His articles have appeared in the American Historical Review, Journal of American History, American Quarterly, and other journals, and he is a consulting editor, along with James M. McPherson, of AMERICAN POLITICAL LEADERS: FROM COLONIAL TIMES TO THE PRESENT (1991) and AMERICAN SOCIAL LEADERS: FROM COLONIAL TIMES TO THE PRESENT (1993). He has been awarded many honors, including the 2001 Saloutos Prize for the best book in immigration and ethnic history, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for University Teachers, and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship. He chairs the Department of History at the University of Maryland. He is the author of Chapters 20-25.

1. WHEN OLD WORLDS COLLIDE: CONTACT, CONQUEST, CATASTROPHE. Peoples in Motion. Europe and the World in the 15th Century. Spain, Columbus, and the Americas. The Emergence of Complex Societies in the Americas. Contact and Cultural Misunderstanding. Conquest and Catastrophe. Explanations: Patterns of Conquest, Submission, and Resistance. 2. THE CHALLENGE TO SPAIN AND THE SETTLEMENT OF NORTH AMERICA. The Protestant Reformation and the Challenge to Spain. New France. The Dutch and Swedish Settlements. The Challenge from Elizabethan England. The Swarming of the English. The Chesapeake and West Indian Colonies. The New England Colonies. The English Civil Wars. The First Restoration Colonies. Brotherly Love: The Quakers and America. 3. ENGLAND DISCOVERS ITS COLONIES: EMPIRE, LIBERTY, AND EXPANSION. The Atlantic Prism and the Spectrum of Settlement. The Beginnings of Empire. Indians, Settlers, Upheaval. Crisis in England and the Redefinition of Empire. The Glorious Revolution. Contrasting Empires: Spain and France in North America. An Empire of Settlement: The British Colonies. 4. PROVINCIAL AMERICA AND THE STRUGGLE FOR A CONTINENT. Expansion versus Anglicization. Expansion, Immigration, and Regional Differentiation. Anglicizing Provincial America. The Great Awakening. Political Culture in the Colonies. The Renewal of Imperial Conflict. The War for North America. 5. REFORM, RESISTANCE, REVOLUTION. Imperial Reform. The Stamp Act Crisis. The Townshend Crisis. Internal Cleavages: The Contagion of Liberty. The Last Imperial Crisis. The Improvised War. 6. THE REVOLUTIONARY REPUBLIC. Hearts and Minds: The Northern War, 1776 & 1777. The Campaigns of 1777 and Foreign Intervention. The Reconstitution of Authority. The British Offensive in the South. A Revolutionary Society. A More Perfect Union. 7. COMPLETING THE REVOLUTION, 1789-1815. Establishing the National Government. The Republic in a World at War, 1793 & 1797. The Crisis at Home, 1798 & 1800. The Jeffersonians in Power. The Republic and the Napoleonic Wars, 1804 & 1815. 8. NORTHERN TRANSFORMATIONS, 1800-1830. Postcolonial Society, 1790-1815. From Backcountry to Frontier: The Northwest. The Decline of Patriarchy. Transportation Revolution, 1815-1860. Northeastern Farms, 1815-1860. The Northwest. Farm Families. The Beginnings of The Industrial Revolution. 9. THE OLD SOUTH, 1790 -1850. Old Farms: The Southeast. New Farms: The Rise of The Deep South. The Southern Yeomanry. The Private Lives of Slaves. A Balance Sheet: The Plantation and Southern Growth. 10. TOWARD AN AMERICAN CULTURE. The Democratization of Culture. The Northern Middle Class. The Plain People of the North. A New Popular Culture. Family, Church, and Neighborhood: The White South. Race. Citizenship. 11. DEMOCRATS AND WHIGS. The American System. 1819. Republican Revival. Adams Versus Jackson. Jacksonian Democracy and the South. Jacksonian Democracy and the Market Revolution. The Second American Party System. 12. WHIGS, DEMOCRATS, AND THE REMAKING OF SOCIETY. Constituencies. The Politics of Economic Development. The Politics of Social Reform. Excursus: The Politics of Alcohol. The Politics of Race. The Politics of Gender and Sex. 13. MANIFEST DESTINY: AN EMPIRE FOR LIBERTY—OR SLAVERY? Growth as the American Way. The Mexican War. The Election of 1848. The Compromise of 1850. Filibustering. 14. THE GATHERING TEMPEST, 1853 & 1860. Kansas and the Rise of the Republican Party. Immigration and Nativism. Bleeding Kansas. The Election of 1856. The Economy in the 1850s. The Impending Crisis. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates. 15. SECESSION AND CIVIL WAR, 1860 & 1862. The Election of 1860. The Lower South Secedes. Choosing Sides. The Balance Sheet of War. Navies, the Blockade, and Foreign Relations. Campaigns and Battles, 1861 & 1862. Confederate Counteroffensives. 16. A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM, 1862 & 1865. Slavery and the War. A Winter of Discontent. Blueprint for Modern America. The Confederate Tide Crests and Recedes. Black Men in Blue. The Year of Decision. Lincoln's Reelection and the End of the Confederacy. 17. RECONSTRUCTION, 1863 & 1877. Wartime Reconstruction. Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction. The Advent of Congressional Reconstruction. The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson. The Grant Administration. The Retreat from Reconstruction. 18. A TRANSFORMED NATION: THE WEST AND THE NEW SOUTH, 1865-1900. An Industrializing West. Railroads. Chinese Laborers and the Railroads. The Golden Spike. Cattle Drives and the Open Range. Homesteading and Farming. The Experience of Homesteading . Conquest and Resistance: American Indians in the Trans-Mississippi West . The Dawes Severalty Act and Indian Boarding Schools. The Ghost Dance. Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill: Popular Myths of the West. Industrialization and the New South. Exodusters and Emigrationists. The Emergence of an African American Middle Class. The Rise of Jim Crow. The Politics of Stalemate. 19. THE EMERGENCE OF CORPORATE AMERICA, 1865-1900. An Expansive and Volatile Economy . The Consolidation of Middle-class Culture . The City and Working-class Culture. Emergence of a National Culture. Workers' Resistance to the New Corporate Order. Farmers' Movements. The Rise and Fall of the People's Party. 20. AN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY, 1900 & 1920. Sources of Economic Growth. "Robber Barons" No More . Obsession with Physical and Racial Fitness . Immigration. Building Ethnic Communities. African American Labor and Community . Workers and Unions. The Joys of the City . The New Sexuality and the Rise of Feminism. 21. PROGRESSIVISM. Progressivism and the Protestant Spirit. Muckrakers, Magazines, and the Turn toward "Realism". Settlement Houses and Women's Activism. Socialism and Progressivism. Municipal Reform. Political Reform in the States. Economic and Social Reform in the States. A Renewed Campaign for Civil Rights. National Reform. The Taft Presidency. Roosevelt's Return. The Rise of Woodrow Wilson. The Election of 1912. The Wilson Presidency. 22. BECOMING A WORLD POWER, 1898 & 1917. The United States Looks Abroad. The Spanish-American War. The United States Becomes a World Power. Theodore Roosevelt, Geopolitician. William Howard Taft, Dollar Diplomat . Woodrow Wilson, Struggling Idealist. 23. WAR AND SOCIETY, 1914 & 1920. Europe's Descent into War. American Neutrality. American Intervention. Mobilizing for "Total" War. The Failure of the International Peace. The Postwar Period: A Society in Convulsion. 24. THE 1920s. Prosperity. The Politics of Business. Farmers, Small-Town Protestants, and Moral Traditionalists. Ethnic and Racial Communities. The "Lost Generation" and Disillusioned Intellectuals. 25. THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND THE NEW DEAL, 1929 & 1939. Causes of the Great Depression. Hoover: The Fall of a Self-Made Man. A Culture in Crisis. The Democratic Roosevelt. The First New Deal, 1933 & 1935. Political Mobilization, Political Unrest, 1934 & 1935. The Second New Deal, 1935 & 1937. America's Minorities and the New Deal. The New Deal Abroad. Stalemate, 1937 & 1940. 26. AMERICA DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR. The Road to War: Aggression and Response. Fighting the War in Europe. The Pacific Theater. A New President, The Atomic Bomb, and Japan's Surrender. The War at Home: The Economy. The War at Home: Social Issues and Social Movements. Shaping the Peace. 27. THE AGE OF CONTAINMENT, 1946 & 1953. Creating a National Security State, 1945 & 1949. The Era Of The Korean War, 1949 & 1952. Pursuing National Security At Home . Truman's Fair Deal. Signs of A Changing Culture. From Truman to Eisenhower. 28. AFFLUENCE AND ITS DISCONTENTS, 1953 & 1963. Foreign Policy, 1953 & 1960. The United States and Third-World Politics, 1953-1960. Affluence—A "People of Plenty". Discontents of Affluence. Changing Gender Patterns. The Fight against Discrimination, 1953 & 1960. Debating the Role of Government, 1955-60. The Kennedy Years: Foreign Policy. The Kennedy Years: Domestic Policy. 29. AMERICA DURING ITS LONGEST WAR, 1963 & 1974. The Great Society. Escalation in Vietnam. The War At Home. 1968. The Nixon Years, 1969 & 1974. Foreign Policy Under Nixon And Kissinger. The Wars of Watergate. 30. POWER AND POLITICS: 1974-1992. The Caretaker Presidency of Gerald Ford (1974 & 1977). Jimmy Carter's One-Term Presidency (1977 & 1981). Ronald Reagan (1981 & 1989). Renewing the Cold War. The First Bush Presidency (1989 & 1993). Movement Activism. Race, Ethnicity, and Social Activism. 31. ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN THE LATE 20TH CENTURY. A Changing People. Economic Change. Media and Popular Culture. 32. POLITICS OF HOPE AND FEAR, 1993-2007. The Presidency of Bill Clinton. The Presidency of George W. Bush.