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W. W. Norton & Company : College Books

Essential America

Contents

  • PART ONE: A NEW WORLD
  • Chapter 1 - Discovery and Settlement
    • Pre-Columbian Indian Civilizations
    • First Contacts
    • Exploration and Conquest of the New World
    • Settling the Chesapeake
    • Settling New England
    • Renewed Settlement
    • Thriving Colonies
  • Chapter 2 - Colonial Ways of Life
    • The Shape of Early America
    • Society and Economy in the Southern Colonies
    • Society and Economy in New England
    • Society and Economy in the Middle Colonies
    • Colonial Cities
    • The Enlightenment
    • The Great Awakening
  • Chapter 3 - The Imperial Perspective
    • English Administration of the Colonies
    • The Habit of Self-Government
    • Troubled Neighbors
    • The Colonial Wars
  • Chapter 4 - From Empire to Independence
    • The Heritage of War
    • Western Lands
    • Grenville’s Colonial Policy
    • Fanning the Flames
    • Discontent on the Frontier
    • A Worsening Crisis
    • Shifting Authority
    • Independence
  • PART TWO: BUILDING A NATION
  • Chapter 5 - The American Revolution
    • 1776: Washington’s Narrow Escape
    • American Society at War
    • 1777: Setbacks for the British
    • 1778: Both Sides Regroup
    • The War in the South
    • Negotiations
    • The Political Revolution
    • The Social Revolution
    • Emergence of an American Culture
  • Chapter 6 - Shaping a Federal Union
    • The Confederation
    • Adopting the Constitution
    • "A More Perfect Union"
  • Chapter 7 - The Federalists: Washington and Adams
    • A New Nation
    • Hamilton’s Vision of America
    • The Republican Alternative
    • Crises Foreign and Domestic
    • Land Settlement
    • Transfer of Power
    • The Adams Years
  • Chapter 8 - Republicanism: Jefferson and Madison
    • Jefferson in Office
    • The Jeffersonians in Power
    • War in Europe
    • The War of 1812
  • Chapter 9 - Nationalism and Sectionalism
    • Economic Nationalism
    • Internal Improvements
    • "Good Feelings"
    • Crises and Compromises
    • Judicial Nationalism
    • Nationalist Diplomacy
    • One-Party Politics
  • PART THREE: AN EXPANSIVE NATION
  • Chapter 10 - The Jacksonian Impulse
    • A New Political Culture
    • Jackson Takes Office
    • Nullification
    • Racial Prejudice in the Jacksonian Era
    • The Bank Controversy
    • Van Buren and the New Party System
    • Assessing the Jackson Years
  • Chapter 11 - The Dynamics of Growth
    • Agriculture and the National Economy
    • Transportation and the National Economy
    • The Growth of Industry
    • The Popular Culture
    • Immigration
    • Organized Labor
    • Jacksonian Inequality
  • Chapter 12 - An American Renaissance: Religion, Romanticism, and Reform
    • Rational Religion
    • The Second Great Awakening
    • Romanticism in America
    • The Flowering of American Literature
    • Education
    • Some Movements for Reform
  • Chapter 13 - Manifest Destiny
    • The Tyler Years
    • The Western Frontier
    • Moving West
    • Annexing Texas
    • Polk’s Presidency
    • The Mexican War
  • PART FOUR - A HOUSE DIVIDED AND REBUILT
  • Chapter 14 - The Old South: An American Tragedy
    • Distinctive Features of the Old South
    • White Society in the South
    • Black Society in the South
    • The Culture of the Southern Frontier
    • Antislavery Movements
  • Chapter 15 - The Crisis of Union Slavery in the Territories
    • The Compromise of 1850
    • Foreign Adventures
    • The Kansas-Nebraska Crisis
    • The Deepening Sectional Crisis
    • The Center Comes Apart
  • Chapter 16 - The War of the Union
    • End of the Waiting Game
    • The War’s Early Course
    • Emancipation
    • Women and the War
    • Government During the War
    • The Faltering Confederacy
    • The Confederacy’s Defeat
    • A Modern War
  • Beginning of Volume 2
  • Chapter 17 - Reconstruction: North and South
    • The War’s Aftermath
    • The Battle over Reconstruction
    • Reconstructing the South
    • The Reconstructed South
    • The Grant Years
  • End of Volume 1
  • PART FIVE: GROWING PAINS
  • Chapter 18 - New Frontiers: South and West
    • The New South
    • The New West
  • Chapter 19 - Big Business and Organized Labor
    • The Rise of Big Business
    • Entrepreneurs
    • Labor Conditions and Organization
    • A Nation Transformed
  • Chapter 20 - The Emergence of Urban America
    • America’s Move to Town
    • The New Immigration
    • Popular Culture
    • Education and the Professions
    • Realism in Thought, Culture, and Literature
    • The Social Gospel
    • Early Efforts at Urban Reform
  • Chapter 21 - Gilded-Age Politics and Agrarian Revolt
    • Paradoxical Politics
    • Corruption and Reform
    • The Farm Problem and Agrarian Protest Movements
    • The Economy and the Silver Solution
    • A New Era
  • PART SIX: MODERN AMERICA
  • Chapter 22 - An American Empire Toward the New Imperialism
    • Expansion in the Pacific
    • The Spanish-American War
    • Imperial Rivalries in East Asia
    • Roosevelt’s Big Stick Diplomacy
  • Chapter 23 - The Progressive Era
    • Elements of Reform
    • The Main Features of Progressivism
    • Roosevelt’s Progressivism
    • Roosevelt’s Second Term
    • From Roosevelt to Taft
    • Wilson’s Progressivism
    • The Limits of Progressivism
  • Chapter 24 - America and the Great War
    • Wilson and Foreign Affairs
    • An Uneasy Neutrality
    • America’s Entry into the War
    • ’The Decisive Power’
    • The Fight for the Peace at Home and Abroad
    • Lurching from War to Peace
  • Chapter 25 - The Modern Temper
    • Reaction in the Twenties
    • The Roaring Twenties
    • The Culture of Modernism
  • Chapter 26 - Republican Resurgence and Decline
    • "Normalcy"
    • The New Era
    • President Hoover, the Engineer
  • Chapter 27 - New Deal America
    • From Hooverism to the New Deal
    • Recovery through Regulation
    • The Second New Deal
    • Culture in the Thirties
    • Roosevelt’s Second Term
    • The Legacy of the New Deal
  • Chapter 28 - From Isolation to Global War
    • Postwar Isolationism
    • War Clouds
    • The Storm in Europe
    • The Storm in the Pacific
  • Chapter 29 - The Second World War
    • America’s Early Battles
    • Mobilization at Home
    • Social Effects of the War
    • The Allied Drive toward Berlin
    • Leapfrogging to Tokyo
    • A New Age Is Born
    • The Final Ledger
  • PART SEVEN: THE AMERICAN AGE
  • Chapter 30 - The Fair Deal and Containment
    • Demobilization Under Truman
    • The Cold War
    • Harry Gives ’Em Hell
    • The Cold War Heats Up
  • Chapter 31 - Through the Picture Window: Society and Culture, 1945–1960
    • People of Plenty
    • A Conforming Culture
    • Cracks in the Picture Window
    • A Paradoxical Era
  • Chapter 32 - Conflict and Deadlock: The Eisenhower Years
    • "Time for a Change"
    • Eisenhower’s "Hidden-Hand" Presidency
    • Foreign Intervention
    • Reelection and Foreign Crises
    • Festering Problems Abroad
    • The Early Civil Rights Movement
    • Assessing the Eisenhower Years
  • Chapter 33 - New Frontiers: Politics and Social Change in the 1960s
    • The New Frontier
    • Expansion of the Civil Rights Movement
    • Foreign Frontiers
    • Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society
    • From Civil Rights to Black Power
    • The Tragedy of Vietnam
    • Sixties Crescendo
  • Chapter 34 - Rebellion and Reaction in the 1960s and 1970s
    • The Roots of Rebellion
    • Nixon and Vietnam
    • Nixon and Middle America
    • Nixon Triumphant
    • Watergate
    • An Unelected President
    • The Carter Interregnum
  • Chapter 35 - Conservative Insurgency
    • The Reagan Revolution
    • Reagan’s First Term
    • Reagan’s Second Term
    • The Bush Years
  • Chapter 36 - Cultural Politics
    • America’s Changing Face
    • Cultural Conservatism
    • Bush to Clinton
    • Domestic Issues
    • Republican Insurgency
    • Economic and Social Trends
    • Foreign Policy Challenges
    • Fin-de-SiËcle America
  • Appendix
    • The Declaration of Independence
    • Articles of Confederation
    • The Constitution of the United States
    • Presidential Elections
    • Admission of States
    • Population of the United States
    • Immigration to the United States, Fiscal Years 1820–1990
    • Immigration by Region and Selected Country of Last Residence, Fiscal Years 1820–1989
    • Presidents, Vice-Presidents, and Secretaries of State
    • Chronology of Significant Events