Synopses & Reviews
AMERICAN PASSAGES COMPACT ADVANTAGE VERSION, SECOND EDITION examines U.S. history the way people live--in the flow of time. Rather than pursuing one topic (such as politics, culture, society, reform, the military, or economics) at a time, each chapter of the text interweaves important themes and issues into one interrelated narrative. Through this method of presentation, students can observe the many ways that events, movements, and groups of people have served to shape history and can learn to make connections between these themes and issues. References to the book's fully integrated Web site and to AMERICAN JOURNEY ONLINE DATABASE--a cross-referenced, hyperlinked library of primary sources that are organized by topic--allow students to experience history from the vantage of those who lived it. The Compact Version is part of the Wadsworth Advantage Series which offers our Comprehensive text in a lower cost format. This black and white version of the text includes 4-8 pages of color map inserts to bring the regions to life. While the compact version includes fewer photos that the comprehensive version, it offers plenty of resources to make the course visual and exciting for students. In addition, students will have access to the Student website that offers quizzing, interactive maps, interactive timelines, simulations and links to over 400 readings to provide direct access to primary source materials.
Review
"The strong narrative style is exceptional, and does not bog the reader down with tedious detail. It is well written and flows easily from topic to topic, weaving the facts together. ' In addition to the obvious careful scholarship and research apparent in this text, I found it to be extremely readable, and often lively in its presentation. This is important for the student who comes reluctantly to the study of history, as well as those who come with a passion for it."
Review
"The narrative cohesion of the various chapters is by far the greatest strength of American Passages. I would recommend this text to a colleague, and in so doing, I would emphasize the engaging nature of the text rendered so by the richness of its narrative. The document and photo features of each chapter are creative and stimulating and effectively compliment narrative content. The book's content organization and chapter layout more-or-less parallel other textbooks'. American Passages, though, links disparate content within and between chapters more lucidly than I have noticed in other texts."
Review
"Quite frankly this is a wonderful text. I have used it in the past and I will definitely use it again. It is one of the best written texts on the market. Students find it easy to read and very understandable. ' It is amazing how the authors can cover such complex issues without making value judgments. It provides the student with a good look at what happened in America and allows the student to make up his or her own mind to whether or not it was a good or bad thing."
Review
"I think [students] will be engaged by the clear narrative style. I think it is written perfectly for my students (who all too often hate to read and seem to look for chances to tune out if confused by the text). Though I didn't find it to be "dumbed down", I thought that my average students will find it much more clear than [another text]."
Synopsis
Throughout its engaging pages and scaled back design that translate to a great low price as part of the Wadsworth Advantage Series, AMERICAN PASSAGES COMPACT EDITION places a unique emphasis on cause and effect relationships over time, allowing students to gain a view of American history as a complete, compelling narrative. Rather than categorizing facets of historical change into ahistorical abstractions, such as "themes" or "topics", this text emphasizes the intertwined nature of three key characteristics of time ? sequence, simultaneity, and contingency. With an unparalleled sense of clarity and purpose, the authors convey how events grow from other events, people's actions, and broad structural changes (sequence), how apparently disconnected events occurred in close chronological proximity to one another and were situated in larger, shared contexts (simultaneity), and how history suddenly pivoted because of events, personalities, and unexpected outcomes (contingency). AMERICAN PASSAGES is available in the following splits: *American Passages, Comprehensive, (Chapters 1?32)
Synopsis
AMERICAN PASSAGES COMPACT ADVANTAGE VERSION, SECOND EDITION examines U.S. history the way people live--in the flow of time. Rather than pursuing one topic (such as politics, culture, society, reform, the military, or economics) at a time, each chapter of the text interweaves important themes and issues into one interrelated narrative. Through this method of presentation, students can observe the many ways that events, movements, and groups of people have served to shape history and can learn to make connections between these themes and issues. References to the book's fully integrated Web site and to AMERICAN JOURNEY ONLINE DATABASE--a cross-referenced, hyperlinked library of primary sources that are organized by topic--allow students to experience history from the vantage of those who lived it. The Compact Version is part of the Wadsworth Advantage Series which offers our Comprehensive text in a lower cost format. This black and white version of the text includes 4-8 pages of color map inserts to bring the regions to life. While the compact version includes fewer photos that the comprehensive version, it offers plenty of resources to make the course visual and exciting for students. In addition, students will have access to the Student website that offers quizzing, interactive maps, interactive timelines, simulations and links to over 400 readings to provide direct access to primary source materials.
About the Author
Edward L. Ayers is the Hugh P. Kelly Professor of History and Dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Virginia. He was educated at the University of Tennessee and Yale University, where he received his Ph.D. in American Studies. Ayers was named National Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation and the Council for the Support of Education in 2003. His book, IN THE PRESENCE OF MINE ENEMIES: WAR IN THE HEART OF AMERICA, 1859-1863 (2003) won the Bancroft Prize for distinguished work on the history of the United States. THE PROMISE OF THE NEW SOUTH: LIFE AFTER RECONSTRUCTION (1992) won prizes for the best book on the history of American race relations and on the history of the American South. It was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. He is the coeditor of THE OXFORD BOOK OF THE AMERICAN SOUTH (1997) and ALL OVER THE MAP: RETHINKING AMERICAN REGIONS (1996). The World Wide Web version of "The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War," was recognized by the American Historical Association as the best aid to the teaching of history. His latest book is WHAT CAUSED THE CIVIL WAR? REFLECTIONS ON THE SOUTH AND SOUTHERN HISTORY (2005).Lewis L. Gould is Eugene C. Barker Centennial Professor Emeritus in American History at the University of Texas at Austin. After receiving his Ph.D. from Yale University, he taught at Texas for thirty-one years before his retirement in 1998. He was honored for outstanding undergraduate and graduate teaching during his career. His most recent books include THE MODERN AMERICAN PRESIDENCY (2003), GRAND OLD PARTY: A HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICANS (2003), and THE MOST EXCLUSIVE CLUB: A HISTORY OF THE MODERN UNITED STATES SENATE (2005). He has written op-ed essays for The Washington Post, the Austin American-Statesman, and the Dallas Morning News, and has been a frequent commentator on radio and television about modern politics, First Ladies, and Congress.David M. Oshinsky received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University and his doctorate from Brandeis. He is currently Littlefield Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to that he taught for twenty-six years at Rutgers University, where he held the Board of Governors Chair as well as chairman of the History Department. Oshinsky is the author of five books, including A CONSPIRACY SO IMMENSE: THE WORLD OF JOE MCCARTHY (1983), which was voted one of the year's "best books" by the New York Sunday Times Book Review, and won the Hardeman Prize for the best work about the U.S. Congress. His book, WORSE THAN SLAVERY: PARCHMAN FARM AND THE ORDEAL OF JIM CROW JUSTICE (1996), won both the Robert Kennedy Book Award for the year's most distinguished contribution to the field of human rights and the American Bar Association's Scribes Award for distinguished legal writing. Oshinsky's latest book is POLIO: AN AMERICAN STORY (2005).
Oshinsky is a regular contributor to scholarly journals, the Washington Post Book World, New York Sunday Times Book Review, New York Times Op-Ed page, and New York Times Sunday Magazine. He was awarded a senior fellowship by the National Endowment for the Humanities and spent 1999-2000 as a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar.Jean R. Soderlund is Professor of History and Deputy Provost for Faculty Affairs at Lehigh University. She received her Ph.D. from Temple University and was a post-doctoral fellow at the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her book QUAKERS AND SLAVERY: A DIVIDED SPIRIT won the Alfred E. Driscoll Publication Prize of the New Jersey Historical Commission. Soderlund was an editor of three volumes of the PAPERS OF WILLIAM PENN (1981-1983) and co-authored FREEDOM BY DEGREES: EMANCIPATION IN PENNSYLVANIA AND ITS AFTERMATH (1991).
She has written articles and chapters in books on the history of women, African Americans, Native Americans, Quakers, and the development of abolition in the British North American colonies and early United States. She is currently working on a study of the Lenape people within colonial New Jersey society. She is a council member of the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, and she served as a committee chair for the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians.
Table of Contents
PASSAGES: PREHISTORY TO 1763. 1. Contact, Conflict, and Exchange in the Atlantic World to 1590. 2. Colonization of North America, 1590-1675. 3. Crisis and Changes, 1675?1720. 4. The Expansion of Colonial British America, 1720?1763. PASSAGES: 1764 TO 1814. 5. Wars for Independence, 1764?1783. 6. Toward a More Perfect Union, 1783?1788. 7. The Federalist Republic, 1789?1799. 8. The New Republic Faces a New Century, 1800?1815. PASSAGES: 1815 TO 1855. 9. Exploded Boundaries, 1815?1828. 10. The Years of Andrew Jackson, 1829?1836. 11. Panic and Boom, 1837?1845. 12. Expansion and Reaction, 1846?1854. PASSAGES: 1855 TO 1877. 13. Broken Bonds, 1855?1861. 14. Descent Into War, 1861?1862. 15. Blood and Freedom, 1863?1867. 16. Reconstruction Abandoned, 1867?1877. Appendix. Glossary. Index.