With its careful balance of the social and political dimensions of the American past, America Past and Present, Sixth Edition, Volume One helps readers grasp the scope and the complexity of American history to 1877. This book integrates political, diplomatic, social, cultural and economic history into one rich narrative that tells the story of all Americans-whites, blacks, Native Americans, Hispanics, women, politicians, business leaders, and the everyday person on the street. For anyone interested in American history to 1877.
* All new essays are asterisked below.
1. New World Encounters.
Native American Histories Before Conquest.
The Indians Discover a New World.
West Africa: Ancient and Complex Societies.
Europe on the Eve of Conquest.
Making Sense of a New World.
The French Claim Canada.
The English Enter the Competition.
Irish Background for American Settlement.
An Unpromising Beginning.
Feature Essay: Ecological Revolution.
2. England's Colonial Experiments: The Seventeenth Century.
Leaving Home.
The Chesapeake: Dreams of Wealth.
Reinventing England in America.
Diversity in the Middle Colonies.
Quakers in America.
Planting the Carolinas.
The Founding of Georgia.
Rugged and Laborious Beginnings.
Feature Essay: Capital Punishment in Early America: A Kind of Moral Theater?
3. Putting Down Roots: Families in an Atlantic Empire.
Sources of Stability: New England Colonies of the Seventeenth Century.
The Planters' World.
Race and Freedom in British America.
Commercial Blueprint for Empire.
Colonial Gentry in Revolt, 1676-1691.
Common Experiences, Separate Cultures.
Feature Essay: Anthony Johnson: A Free Black Planter on Pungoteague Creek.
Law and Society I: Witches and the Law: A Problem of Evidence in 1692.
4. Frontiers of Empire: Eighteenth-Century America.
Experiencing Diversity.
Forced Migration.
Ethnic Cultures of the Backcountry.
Spanish Borderlands of the Eighteenth Century.
British Colonies in an Atlantic World.
Religious Revivals in Provincial Societies.
Clash of Political Cultures.
Century of Imperial War.
Rule Britannia?
* Feature Essay: 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.
Contested Meanings of Empire.
Challenge and Resistance: Eroding the Bonds of Empire.
Decision for Independence.
Fighting for Independence.
The Loyalist Dilemma.
Winning the Peace.
Post-Colonial Challenge.
Feature Essay: Popular Culture and Revolutionary Ferment.
6. The Republican Experiment.
Defining a New Political Culture.
Living in a Revolutionary Society.
The States: The Lessons of Republicanism.
Stumbling Toward a New National Government.
Strengthening Federal Authority.
“Have We Fought for This?”
Whose Constitution? Struggle for Ratification.
A New Beginning.
Feature Essay: The Elusive Constitution: Search for Original Intent.
Law and Society II: The Strange Ordeal of Quok Walker: Slavery on Trial in Revolutionary Massachusetts.
7. Democracy in Distress: The Violence of Party Politics, 1788-1800.
Power of Public Opinion.
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.
Danger of Political Extremism.
* Feature Essay: Counting the People: The Federal Census of 1790.
8. Jeffersonian Ascendancy: Theory and Practice of Government.
Defining Identity in a New Republic.
Republicans in Power.
Jefferson's Critics.
Embarrassments Overseas.
The Strange War of 1812.
Republican Legacy.
Feature Essay: Entrepreneurs of the Early Republic: Promise of Technology in American Life.
9. Nation Building and Nationalism.
Expansion and Migration.
Transportation and the Market Economy.
The Politics of Nation Building After the War of 1812.
Feature Essay: The Evolution of a “Mill Girl” .
10. The Triumph of White Men's Democracy.
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.
Tocqueville's Wisdom.
Feature Essay: On the Hustings in Michigan.
11. The Pursuit of Perfection.
The Rise of Evangelicalism.
Domesticity and Changes in the American Family.
Institutional Reform.
Reform Turns Radical.
Feature Essay: Spiritualism.
12. An Age of Expansionism.
Movement to the Far West.
Manifest Destiny and the Mexican-American War.
Internal Expansionism.
* Feature Essay: Hispanic America After 1848: A Case Study in Majority Rule.
13. Masters and Slaves.
Slavery and the Southern Economy.
The Slaveholding Society.
The Black Experience Under Slavery.
A Divided Society.
Feature Essay: Plantation Women—White and Black.
14. The Sectional Crisis.
The Compromise of 1850.
Political Upheaval, 1852-1856.
The House Divided, 1857-1860.
Explaining the Crisis.
* Feature Essay: The Enigma of John Brown.
* Law and Society III: The Case of Dred and Harriet Scott: Blurring the Borders of Politics and Justice.
15. Secession and the Civil War.
The Storm Gathers.
Adjusting to Total War.
Fight to the Finish.
Feature Essay: Soldiering in the Civil War.
16. The Agony of Reconstruction.
The President Versus Congress.
Reconstruction in the South.
The Age of Grant.
Reunion and the New South.
Feature Essay: Changing Views of Reconstruction.
Law and Society IV: The Beecher-Tilton Adultery Trial: Public Image Versus Private Conduct.
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