These United States: The Question of Our Past, Volume II, Since 1865, Concise Edition

by Unger, Irwin

• ISBN13: 9780130978042
• ISBN10: 0130978043
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-01-01
• Publisher: Pearson College Div

Summary

For survey courses in U.S. History. Written by a Pulitzer Prize winning author, this concise survey explores the many and varied threads of American historysocial, intellectual, cultural political, diplomatic, economic, and militaryfrom the arrival of the first native American inhabitants thousands of years ago through the crisis following the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. Inclusive of all the diverse groups that are and have been part of the American fabric, it shows how the story of America is a human story revealing the imperfections, as well as the triumphs of human endeavor and the human spirit. Using a unique inquiry approach, each chapter is built around a specific question or theme designed to challenge students to consider the complexity of America's past.

Table of Contents

Maps	xi
About the Author	xii
Preface	xiii
Acknowledgments	xv
Reconstruction
What Went Wrong?	1	(32)
The Legacy of War	2	(2)
Issues and Attitudes	4	(2)
Presidential Reconstruction	6	(6)
Congress Takes Over	12	(3)
Congressional Reconstruction	15	(3)
Reconstruction in the South	18	(12)
Conclusions	30	(3)
The Triumph of Industrialism
What Were the Causes, What Were the Costs?	33	(29)
Captains of Industry	34	(6)
The Spoilers	40	(3)
The Intellectual Foundation	43	(2)
The Role of Government	45	(3)
The Wage Earners	48	(4)
Working-Class Protest	52	(8)
Conclusions	60	(2)
Age of the City
What Did Cities Offer? And to Whom?	62	(23)
Immigration	63	(7)
The Urban Environment	70	(5)
City Government	75	(3)
A Better Place to Live	78	(5)
Conclusions	83	(2)
The Trans-Missouri West
Another Colony?	85	(28)
Settlement of the Last West	86	(2)
Native Peoples of the Last West	88	(9)
The Mining Frontier	97	(3)
The Cattle Kingdom	100	(3)
Western Land Policies	103	(2)
Farming in the Last West	105	(2)
Farm Discontent and Western Revolt	107	(3)
The Grangers	110	(1)
Conclusions	111	(2)
The Gilded Age
How ``Gilded'' Was It?	113	(34)
Politics in the Gilded Age	114	(4)
The Bases for Party Affiliation	118	(2)
Party Realignments	120	(7)
Culture in the Age of the Dynamo	127	(18)
Conclusions	145	(2)
The American Empire
Why Did the United States Look Abroad?	147	(21)
The Background	148	(1)
The Beginnings of Overseas Expansion	149	(5)
Hawaii and Venezuela	154	(3)
Cuba Libre	157	(3)
The Spanish-American War	160	(3)
Imperial America	163	(3)
Conclusions	166	(2)
Progressivism
What Were Its Roots and What Were Its Accomplishments?	168	(30)
Uncertainties	169	(4)
The Opinion Makers	173	(2)
Progressivism Enters Politics	175	(6)
Progressivism Goes National	181	(11)
The Wilson Administration	192	(4)
Conclusions	196	(2)
World War I
Idealism, National Interest, or Neutral Rights?	198	(27)
Wilson and the World Order	199	(4)
Neutrality and Public Opinion	203	(2)
Neutral Rights	205	(7)
The War	212	(2)
The War Effort at Home	214	(5)
Making the Peace	219	(4)
Conclusions	223	(2)
The Twenties
Happy Adolescence or Decade of Stress?	225	(24)
The Swing to the Political Right	226	(4)
``New Era'' Prosperity	230	(3)
Old and New America	233	(10)
Confrontation	243	(4)
Conclusions	247	(2)
The New Deal
Too Far or Not Far Enough?	249	(27)
Boom and Bust	250	(6)
Hoover and the Depression	256	(4)
Fdr's New Deal	260	(5)
Friends and Enemies	265	(4)
The Social Welfare State	269	(3)
End of the New Deal	272	(2)
Conclusions	274	(2)
World War II
Blunder, or Decision in the National Interest?	276	(32)
Seeds of Conflict	278	(5)
The Erosion of American Neutrality	283	(7)
The Home Front	290	(6)
The Fighting Fronts	296	(9)
Conclusions	305	(3)
Postwar America
Why So Security Conscious?	308	(37)
The Politics of Dead Center	309	(6)
The Good Life	315	(4)
The Other Half	319	(4)
The Cold War	323	(13)
A Second ``Red Scare''	336	(6)
Conclusions	342	(3)
The Dissenting Sixties
Why Protest in the ``Great Society''?	345	(35)
Politics in Camelot	346	(10)
The Affluent Society	356	(2)
The Johnson Years	358	(4)
The Rise of Dissent	362	(6)
Liberation	368	(3)
Quagmire in Vietnam	371	(3)
The 1968 Election	374	(4)
Conclusions	378	(2)
The Uncertain Seventies
Why Did the Right Fail?	380	(33)
The Nixon Presidency	381	(9)
Watergate	390	(5)
Seventies Discontents	395	(9)
The Energy Crisis and Economic Malaise	404	(3)
The Carter Years	407	(5)
Conclusions	412	(1)
The ``Reagan Revolution''
What Was It? What Did It Accomplish?	413	(26)
The Frist Term	414	(11)
The Second Four Years	425	(11)
Conclusions	436	(3)
A Different America?
Would Diversity and the Cold War's End Change America?	439
The Bush Administration	441	(3)
The Gulf War	444	(5)
The Election of 1992	449	(3)
Clinton's First Term	452	(9)
Race, Gender, and Nationality	461	(17)
The New Economy	478	(6)
Election 2000	484	(3)
Bush and the War Against Terrorism	487	(10)
Conclusions	497
APPENDIX	1	(1)
The Declaration of Independence	1	(4)
The Constitution of the United States of America	5	(13)
Presidential Elections	18	(4)
Chief Justices of the Supreme Court	22	(1)
Presidents, Vice Presidents, and Cabinet Members	23	(7)
Bibliographies	30	(19)
Index	49

Excerpts

This is the second edition ofThese United States: Concise Edition.Like its predecessor, it is a compact version ofThese United States: The Questions of Our Pastand is designed to present all the essentials of the larger work in a briefer format to facilitate readability and reduce the price of the work to the student. The condensing process has not, I believe, sacrificed essential material. Rather, redundant examples, overextended treatments, and marginal topics have been eliminated, a process that drew on reviewers' and adopters' evaluations. And to constrain costs, we have also reduced the number of illustrations and maps and removed the "Portraits" from the main body of the text and placed them in a separate booklet. In most significant ways the books' plan remains the same, however. First, unlike virtually every other introductory text, it still has a single author and speaks in a single voice. I hope readers will agree that a book by a single individual has inherent advantages over one composed by a committee. Second, each chapter is still organized around a significant question, each designed to challenge students with the complexity of the past and compel them to evaluate critically different viewpoints. This plan, I believe, makes the learning of history a quest, an exploration, rather than the mere absorption of facts. Yet, at the same time, "the facts" are made available.These United Statesprovides the ample "coverage" of standard texts. The word "standard" here does not mean old-fashioned. ThoughThese United Statesdiscusses political, diplomatic, and military events, it also deals extensively with social, cultural, and economic matters. It concerns itself not only with "events," moreover, but also with people, currents, and themes. It is not old-fashioned in another way: it expands the "canon" to include those who have traditionally been excluded from the American past and seeks to embrace the enormous diversity of the American people. The reader will find in These United States women as well as men; people of color as well as those of European extraction, youths as well as adults; the poor as well as the rich; artists, writers, and musicians as well as politicians, generals, and diplomats. In this newest version of the work, I have added sections on various aspects of social history, particularly on slavery, on the Salem witch trials, and on daily life. I have also extended the story through the events of 2000 and 2001, including the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, the war on terrorism, and the collapse of the "bubble" economy of the 1990s. I hope that, like its precursors, this edition meets with favor among faculty and students and serves both as a successful teaching instrument and an absorbing introduction to the American past. Irwin Unger Department of History, Emeritus New York University