Synopses & Reviews
THE AMERICAN PAGEANT enjoys a reputation as one of the most popular, effective, and entertaining texts in American history. The colorful anecdotes, first-person quotations, and trademark wit bring American history to life. The 14th edition places an even greater emphasis on the global context of American history through a new feature, "Thinking Globally." Revised primary source features excite student interest and help them learn to examine documents the way historians do. Additional pedagogical features make THE AMERICAN PAGEANT accessible to students: part openers and chapter-ending chronologies provide a context for the major periods in American history, while other features present primary sources, scholarly debates, and key historical figures for analysis.
Review
"[The American Pageant] has what I would call a 'macro' and 'micro' approach to history; it presents the American drama both in terms of broad, over-arching themes and through the eyes of the individuals who were the players on its stage. In short, you get to see the forest and the trees!"
Review
"The Thinking Globally features provide students with 'rainbow' type lenses to help discover that history is always about interplay and interaction of different countries and cultures."
About the Author
David M. Kennedy received his Ph.D. from Yale University. He is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History Emeritus and co-director of The Bill Lane Center for the Study of the North American West at Stanford University. His first book, BIRTH CONTROL IN AMERICA: THE CAREER OF MARGARET SANGER, was honored with both the Bancroft Prize and the John Gilmary Shea Prize. He has won numerous teaching awards at Stanford, where he teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses in American political, diplomatic, intellectual, and social history, and in American literature. Dr. Kennedy published a volume in the OXFORD HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, FREEDOM FROM FEAR: THE AMERICAN PEOPLE IN DEPRESSION AND WAR, 1929--1945, for which he was honored with the 2000 Pulitzer Prize. He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Philosophical Society, and he served from 2002--2011 on the board of the Pulitzer Prizes. Lizabeth Cohen received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. She is the Howard Mumford Jones Professor of American Studies in the history department and the Dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. In 2007--2008 she was the Harmsworth Professor of American History at Oxford University. Previously, she taught at New York University and Carnegie Mellon University. The author of many articles and essays, Dr. Cohen was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her first book, MAKING A NEW DEAL: INDUSTRIAL WORKERS IN CHICAGO, 1919--1939, for which she later won the Bancroft Prize and the Philip Taft Labor History Award. She authored A CONSUMERS' REPUBLIC: THE POLITICS OF MASS CONSUMPTION IN POSTWAR AMERICA (2003), and is currently writing SAVING AMERICA'S CITIES: ED LOGUE AND THE STRUGGLE TO RENEW URBAN AMERICA IN THE SUBURBAN AGE, on urban renewal in American cities after World War II. At Harvard, she has taught courses in 20th century American history, with particular attention to the intersection of social and cultural life and politics. She now oversees the Radcliffe Institute, a major center for scholarly research, creative arts, and public programs.
Table of Contents
Part I: FOUNDING THE NEW NATION C. 33,000 B.C.E.-1783 C.E. 1. New World Beginnings 33,000 B.C.E.-1769 C.E. 2. The Planting of English America 1500-1733. 3. Settling the Northern Colonies 1619-1700. 4. American Life in the Seventeenth Century 1607-1692. 5. Colonial Society on the Eve of Revolution 1700-1775. 6. The Duel for North America 1608-1763. 7. The Road to Revolution 1763-1775. 8. America Secedes from the Empire 1775-1783. Part II: BUILDING THE NEW NATION C. 1776-1860. 9. The Confederation and the Constitution 1776-1790. 10. Launching the New Ship of State 1789-1800. 11. The Triumphs and Travails of the Jeffersonian Republic 1800-1812. 12. The Second War for Independence and the Upsurge of Nationalism 1812-1824. 13. The Rise of a Mass Democracy 1824-1840. 14. Forging the National Economy 1790-1860. 15. The Ferment of Reform and Culture 1790-1860. Part III: TESTING THE NEW NATION 1820-1877. 16. The South and the Slavery Controversy 1793-1860. 17. Manifest Destiny and Its Legacy 1841-1848. 18. Renewing the Sectional Struggle 1848-1854. 19. Drifting Toward Disunion 1854-1861. 20. Girding for War: The North and the South 1861-1865. 21. The Furnace of Civil War 1861-1865. 22. The Ordeal of Reconstruction 1865-1877. Part IV: FORGING AN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 1865-1909. 23. Political Paralysis in the Gilded Age 1869-1896. 24. Industry Comes of Age 1865-1900. 25. America Moves to the City 1865-1900. 26. The Great West and the Agricultural Revolution 1865-1896. 27. Empire and Expansion 1890-1909. Part V: STRUGGLING FOR JUSTICE AT HOME AND ABROAD 1901-1945. 28. Progressivism and the Republican Roosevelt 1901-1912. 29. Wilsonian Progressivism at Home and Abroad 1912-1916. 30. The War to End War 1917-1918. 31. American Life in the "Roaring Twenties 1919-1929. 32. The Politics of Boom and Bust 1920-1932. 33. The Great Depression and the New Deal 1933-1939. 34. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Shadow of War 1933-1941. 35. America in World War II 1941-1945. Part VI: MAKING MODERN AMERICA 1945 TO THE PRESENT. 36. The Cold War Begins 1945-1952. 37. The Eisenhower Era 1952-1960. 38. The Stormy Sixties 1960-1968. 39. The Stalemated Seventies 1968-1980. 40. The Resurgence of Conservatism 1980-1992. 41. America Confronts the Post-Cold War Era 1992-2009. 42. The American People Face a New Century.