The American Promise: A Concise History is a brief, inexpensive narrative with a clear political, chronological narrative that makes teaching and learning American history a snap. Streamlined by the authors themselves to create a truly concise book, the fifth edition is nearly 15 percent shorter than the fourth compact edition, yet it includes more primary sources than ever—including a new visual sources feature. It is also enhanced by LearningCurve, our easy-to-assign adaptive learning system that will ensure students come to class prepared.
American Military History provides the United States Army-in particular, its young officers, NCOs, and cadets-with a comprehensive but brief account of its past. The Center of Military History first published this work in 1956 as a textbook for senior ROTC courses. Since then it has gone through a number of updates and revisions, but the primary intent has remained the same. Support for military history education has always been a principal mission of the Center, and this new edition of an invaluable history furthers that purpose. The history of an active organization tends to expand rapidly as the organization grows larger and more complex. The period since the Vietnam War, at which point the most recent edition ended, has been a significant one for the Army, a busy period of expanding roles and missions and of fundamental organizational changes. In particular, the explosion of missions and deployments since 11 September 2001 has necessitated the creation of additional, open-ended chapters in the story of the U.S. Army in action. This first volume covers the Army's history from its birth in 1775 to the eve of World War I. By 1917, the United States was already a world power. The Army had sent large expeditionary forces beyond the American hemisphere, and at the beginning of the new century Secretary of War Elihu Root had proposed changes and reforms that within a generation would shape the Army of the future. But world war-global war-was still to come. The second volume of this new edition will take up that story and extend it into the twenty-first century and the early years of the war on terrorism and includes an analysis of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq up to January 2009.
The American Promise has long been a course favorite. Students value The American Promise for its readability, clear chronology, and lively voices of ordinary Americans, while instructors rely upon the rich content, the many documents and features, and the overall support for teaching their class their way. The American Promise provides superior formats for every use--the print book allows for a seamless reading experience while LaunchPad provides the right space for active learning assignments and dynamic course management tools that measure and analyze student progress. LaunchPad comes with a wealth of primary sources and special critical thinking activities to help students progress toward achieving learning outcomes; LearningCurve, the adaptive learning tool that students love to use to test their understanding of the text and instructors love to assign to prepare students for class; and a suite of instructor resources from videos to test banks that make teaching simpler and more effective.
A supplemental textbook for middle and high school students, Hoosiers and the American Story provides intimate views of individuals and places in Indiana set within themes from American history. During the frontier days when Americans battled with and exiled native peoples from the East, Indiana was on the leading edge of America’s westward expansion. As waves of immigrants swept across the Appalachians and eastern waterways, Indiana became established as both a crossroads and as a vital part of Middle America. Indiana’s stories illuminate the history of American agriculture, wars, industrialization, ethnic conflicts, technological improvements, political battles, transportation networks, economic shifts, social welfare initiatives, and more. In so doing, they elucidate large national issues so that students can relate personally to the ideas and events that comprise American history. At the same time, the stories shed light on what it means to be a Hoosier, today and in the past.
Emancipating Lincoln seeks a new approach to the Emancipation Proclamation, a foundational text of American liberty that in recent years has been subject to woeful misinterpretation. These seventeen hundred words are Lincoln's most important piece of writing, responsible both for his being hailed as the Great Emancipator and for his being pilloried by those who consider his once-radical effort at emancipation insufficient and half-hearted. Harold Holzer, an award-winning Lincoln scholar, invites us to examine the impact of Lincoln's momentous announcement at the moment of its creation, and then as its meaning has changed over time. Using neglected original sources, Holzer uncovers Lincoln's very modern manipulation of the media-from his promulgation of disinformation to the ways he variously withheld, leaked, and promoted the Proclamation- in order to make his society-altering announcement palatable to America. Examining his agonizing revisions, we learn why a peerless prose writer executed what he regarded as his 'greatest act' in leaden language. Turning from word to image, we see the complex responses in American sculpture, painting, and illustration across the past century and a half, as artists sought to criticize, lionize, and profit from Lincoln's endeavor. Holzer shows the faults in applying our own standards to Lincoln's efforts, but also demonstrates how Lincoln's obfuscations made it nearly impossible to discern his true motives. As we approach the 150th anniversary of the Proclamation, this concise volume is a vivid depiction of the painfully slow march of all Americans-white and black, leaders and constituents-toward freedom. -- Publisher description.
Within months of Lincoln’s 1860 election, the Confederate states seceded and the Civil War began. In his inaugural address Lincoln vowed not to interfere with slavery and even endorsed a constitutional amendment to protect it. Yet two years later Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves in the rebellious states, transforming the goals of the war, and setting the stage for national emancipation. In this volume Michael Vorenberg reveals the complexity of the process by which African-Americans gained freedom and explores the struggle over its meaning. The introduction summarizes the history and national debate over slavery from the country’s founding through the Civil War and beyond, and more than 40 documents and images give voice to the range of actors who participated in this vital drama — Lincoln and Douglass, slaves and slaveholders, black and white men and women working for abolition, and northern and southern editorialists. In addition, essays by contemporary historians Ira Berlin and James McPherson argue the question of who freed the slaves. Document headnotes, a chronology, questions for consideration, and a selected bibliography encourage student learning.
African American history is the part of American history that looks at the past of African Americans or Black Americans. Of the 10.7 million Africans who were brought to the Americas until the 1860s, 450 thousand were shipped to what is now the United States. Most African Americans are descended from Africans who were brought directly from Africa to America and became slaves. The future slaves were originally captured in African wars or raids and transported in the Atlantic slave trade. Our collection includes the following works: Narrative Of The Life by Frederick Douglass. The impassioned abolitionist and eloquent orator provides graphic descriptions of his childhood and horrifying experiences as a slave as well as a harrowing record of his dramatic escape to the North and eventual freedom. Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs. Powerful by portrayal of the brutality of slave life through the inspiring tale of one woman's dauntless spirit and faith. Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington. Washington rose to become the most influential spokesman for African Americans of his day. He describes events in a remarkable life that began in slavery and culminated in worldwide recognition. The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois. W. E. B. Du Bois was an American sociologist, socialist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author, writer and editor. Contents: 1. Frederick Douglass: Narrative Of The Life 2. Harriet Ann Jacobs: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl 3. Booker Taliaferro Washington: Up From Slavery 4. W. E. B. Du Bois: The Souls of Black Folk
