American Nation, The: A History of the United States, Combined Volume, 13th Edition

The political history of the United States is intimately tied with its social, economic and cultural development. Co-authors Mark Carnes and John Garraty explore this relationship and show how it took the voices and actions of many peoples to produce this singular political structure - The United States of America. Long renowned for its elegant narrative style, The American Nation in this Thirteenth Edition retains its most significant strength—its rich and memorable prose.

Maps and Graphs 

Features

       American Lives

       Re-Viewing the Past

       Mapping the Past

       Debating the Past

Preface 

About the Authors

PROLOGUE

Beginnings 

First Peoples 

The Demise of the Big Mammals 

The Archaic Period: A World Without Big Mammals

The First Sedentary Communities

The Maize Revolution  

The Diffusion of Corn 

Population Growth After 800 

Cahokia: The Hub of Mississippian Culture 

The Collapse of Urban Centers 

Eurasia and Africa 

Europe in Ferment 

DEBATING THE PAST

     Who–or What–Killed the Big Mammals? 

Mapping the Past

     Debate over the Earliest Route to the Americas

Chapter 1

Alien Encounters: Europe in the Americas 

Sightings

Columbus’s Great Triumph–and Error

Spain’s American Empire 

Extending Spain’s Empire to the North 

Disease and Population Losses

Ecological Imperialism   

Spain’s European Rivals 

The Protestant Reformation  

English Beginnings in America

The Settlement of Virginia 

“Purifying” the Church of England 

Bradford and Plymouth Colony 

Winthrop and Massachusetts Bay Colony 

Troublemakers: Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson 

Other New England Colonies 

French and Dutch Settlements 

Maryland and the Carolinas 

The Middle Colonies 

Cultural Collisions

Cultural Fusions 

DEBATING THE PAST

     How Many Indians Perished with European Settlement? 

 American Lives

     Tisquantum 

Chapter 2

American Society in the Making 

Settlement of New France

Society in New Mexico, Texas, and California 

The English Prevail on the Atlantic Seaboard

The Chesapeake Colonies 

The Lure of Land 

“Solving” the Labor Shortage: Slavery 

Prosperity in a Pipe: Tobacco 

Bacon’s Rebellion 

The Carolinas 

Home and Family in the South 

Georgia and the Back Country 

Puritan New England 

The Puritan Family 

Visible Puritan Saints and Others 

Democracies Without Democrats 

The Dominion of New England 

Salem Bewitched 

Higher Education in New England 

A Merchant’s World 

The Middle Colonies: Economic Basis 

The Middle Colonies: An Intermingling of Peoples 

“The Best Poor Man’s Country” 

The Politics of Diversity 

Becoming Americans 

Re-Viewing the Past

     The Crucible 

DEBATING THE PAST

     Were Puritan Communities Peaceable?  

Chapter 3

America in the British Empire 

The British Colonial System 

Mercantilism 

The Navigation Acts 

The Effects of Mercantilism 

The Great Awakening 

The Rise and Fall of Jonathan Edwards 

The Enlightenment in America 

Colonial Scientific Achievements 

Repercussions of Distant Wars 

The Great War for the Empire 

Britain Victorious: The Peace of Paris 

Burdens of an Expanded Empire 

Tightening Imperial Controls 

The Sugar Act 

American Colonists Demand Rights 

The Stamp Act: The Pot Set to Boiling 

Rioters or Rebels? 

Taxation or Tyranny? 

The Declaratory Act 

The Townshend Duties 

The Boston Massacre 

The Pot Spills Over 

The Tea Act Crisis 

From Resistance to Revolution 

American Lives

     Eunice Williams/Gannenstenhawi 

DEBATING THE PAST

     Do Artists Depict Historical Subjects Accurately?  

Chapter 4

The American Revolution 

“The Shot Heard Round the World” 

The Second Continental Congress 

The Battle of Bunker Hill 

The Great Declaration 

1776: The Balance of Forces 

Loyalists  

The British Take New York City  

Saratoga and the French Alliance 

The War Moves South 

Victory at Yorktown 

Negotiating a Favorable Peace 

National Government Under the Articles of Confederation  

Financing the War  

State Republican Governments 

Social Reform 

Effects of the Revolution on Women 

Growth of a National Spirit  

The Great Land Ordinances 

National Heroes 

A National Culture 

Re-Viewing the Past

     The Patriot 

DEBATING THE PAST

     Was the American Revolution Rooted in Class Struggle?  

Chapter 5

The Federalist Era: Nationalism Triumphant 

Inadequacies of the Articles of Confederation   

Daniel Shays’s “Little Rebellion” 

To Philadelphia, and the Constitution 

The Great Convention 

The Compromises That Produced the Constitution 

Ratifying the Constitution 

Washington as President 

Congress Under Way 

Hamilton and Financial Reform 

The Ohio Country: A Dark and Bloody Ground 

Revolution in France 

Federalists and Republicans: The Rise of Political Parties  

1794: Crisis and Resolution 

Jay’s Treaty 

1795: All’s Well That Ends Well 

Washington’s Farewell 

The Election of 1796 

The XYZ Affair  

The Alien and Sedition Acts 

The Kentucky and Virginia Resolves  

      Mapping the Past

     Depicting History with Maps

      DEBATING THE PAST

     What Ideas Shaped the Constitution?  

Chapter 6

Jeffersonian Democracy 

Jefferson Elected President 

The Federalist Contribution  

Thomas Jefferson: Political Theorist  

Jefferson as President 

Jefferson’s Attack on the Judiciary 

The Barbary Pirates 

The Louisiana Purchase 

The Federalists Discredited 

Lewis and Clark 

The Burr Conspiracy 

Napoleon and the British 

The Impressment Controversy 

The Embargo Act 

Jeffersonian Democracy 

Mapping the Past

     A Water Route to the Pacific?

DEBATING THE PAST

     Did Thomas Jefferson Father a Child by His Slave?  

Chapter 7

National Growing Pains 

Madison in Power 

Tecumseh and Indian Resistance 

Depression and Land Hunger  

Opponents of War 

The War of 1812 

Britain Assumes the Offensive 

“The Star Spangled Banner”  

The Treaty of Ghent 

The Hartford Convention 

The Battle of New Orleans 

Victory Weakens the Federalists 

Anglo-American Rapprochement 

The Transcontinental Treaty 

The Monroe Doctrine 

The Era of Good Feelings 

New Sectional Issues 

New Leaders 

The Missouri Compromise 

The Election of 1824 

John Quincy Adams as President 

Calhoun’s Exposition and Protest

The Meaning of Sectionalism 

Mapping the Past

     North—South Sectionalism Intensifies 

DEBATING THE PAST

     How Did Indians and Settlers Interact?  

Chapter 8

Toward a National Economy 

Gentility and the Consumer Revolution 

Birth of the Factory 

An Industrial Proletariat? 

Lowell’s Waltham System: Women as Factory Workers 

Irish and German Immigrants 

The Persistence of the Household System 

Rise of Corporations 

Cotton Revolutionizes the South 

Revival of Slavery 

Roads to Market 

Transportation and the Government 

Development of Steamboats 

The Canal Boom 

New York City: Emporium of the Western World 

The Marshall Court  

Mapping the Past

     The Making of the Working Class 

DEBATING THE PAST

     Did a “Market Revolution” Transform Early Nineteenth-Century America?  

Chapter 9

Jacksonian Democracy 

“Democratizing” Politics 

1828: The New Party System in Embryo 

The Jacksonian Appeal 

The Spoils System 

President of All the People  

Sectional Tensions Revived 

Jackson: “The Bank . . . I Will Kill It!” 

Jackson’s Bank Veto 

Jackson Versus Calhoun 

Indian Removals 

The Nullification Crisis 

Boom and Bust 

Jacksonianism Abroad 

The Jacksonians 

Rise of the Whigs 

Martin Van Buren: Jacksonianism Without Jackson 

The Log Cabin Campaign 

American Lives

     Horace Greeley 

DEBATING THE PAST

     For Whom Did Jackson Fight?  

Chapter 10

The Making of Middle-Class America 

Tocqueville: Democracy in America 

The Family Recast  

The Second Great Awakening 

The Era of Associations 

Backwoods Utopias 

The Age of Reform 

“Demon Rum” 

The Abolitionist Crusade 

Women’s Rights

The Romantic View of Life 

Emerson and Thoreau 

Edgar Allan Poe 

Nathaniel Hawthorne 

Herman Melville 

Walt Whitman 

Reading and the Dissemination of Culture 

Education for Democracy

The State of the Colleges 

Mapping the Past

     Small Families in the Northeast, Large Families in the Frontier  

DEBATING THE PAST

     Did the Antebellum Reform Movement Improve Society?  

Chapter 11

Westward Expansion 

Tyler’s Troubles 

The Webster-Ashburton Treaty 

The Texas Question 

Manifest Destiny  

Life on the Trail 

California and Oregon 

The Election of 1844 

Polk as President 

War with Mexico 

To the Halls of Montezuma 

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo  

The Fruits of Victory: Further Enlargement of the United States 

Slavery: Storm Clouds Gather 

The Election of 1848 

The Gold Rush 

The Compromise of 1850 

Mapping the Past

     The Political Geography of Slavery  

DEBATING THE PAST

     Did the Frontier Change Women’s Roles?  

Chapter 12

The Sections Go Their Ways 

The South 

The Economics of Slavery 

Antebellum Plantation Life  

The Sociology of Slavery 

Psychological Effects of Slavery 

Manufacturing in the South 

The Northern Industrial Juggernaut 

A Nation of Immigrants 

How Wage Earners Lived 

Progress and Poverty  

Foreign Commerce 

Steam Conquers the Atlantic 

Canals and Railroads 

Financing the Railroads 

Railroads and the Economy 

Railroads and the Sectional Conflict 

The Economy on the Eve of Civil War 

American Lives

     Sojourner Truth 

DEBATING THE PAST

     Did Slaves and Masters Form Emotional Bonds?  

Chapter 13

The Coming of the Civil War 

The Slave Power Comes North 

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Diversions Abroad: The “Young America” Movement 

Stephen Douglas: “The Little Giant” 

The Kansas-Nebraska Act 

Know-Nothings, Republicans, and the Demise of the Two-Party System 

“Bleeding Kansas” 

Senator Sumner Becomes a Martyr for Abolitionism 

Buchanan Tries His Hand 

The Dred Scott Decision 

The Proslavery Lecompton Constitution 

The Emergence of Lincoln 

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 

John Brown’s Raid 

The Election of 1860 

The Secession Crisis 

 Mapping the Past

     Runaway Slaves: Hard Realities 

DEBATING THE PAST

     Was the Civil War Avoidable?  

Chapter 14

The War to Save the Union 

Lincoln’s Cabinet 

Fort Sumter: The First Shot 

The Blue and the Gray 

The Test of Battle: Bull Run 

Paying for the War 

Politics as Usual 

Behind Confederate Lines 

War in the West: Shiloh 

McClellan: The Reluctant Warrior 

Lee Counterattacks: Antietam 

The Emancipation Proclamation 

The Draft Riots 

The Emancipated People 

African American Soldiers 

Antietam to Gettysburg 

Lincoln Finds His General: Grant at Vicksburg 

Economic and Social Effects, North and South 

Women in Wartime 

Grant in the Wilderness 

Sherman in Georgia 

To Appomattox Court House 

Winners, Losers, and the Future 

Re-Viewing the Past

     Glory 

Re-Viewing the Past

     Cold Mountain 

DEBATING THE PAST

     Why Did the South Lose the Civil War?  

Chapter 15

Reconstruction and the South 

The Assassination of Lincoln  

Presidential Reconstruction 

Republican Radicals 

Congress Rejects Johnsonian Reconstruction 

The Fourteenth Amendment 

The Reconstruction Acts 

Congress Supreme 

The Fifteenth Amendment 

“Black Republican” Reconstruction: Scalawags and Carpetbaggers 

The Ravaged Land 

Sharecropping and the Crop-Lien System 

The White Backlash 

Grant as President 

The Disputed Election of 1876 

The Compromise of 1877 

Mapping the Past

     The Politics of Reconstruction 

DEBATING THE PAST

     Were Reconstruction Governments Corrupt?  

Chapter 16

The Conquest of the West  

The West After the Civil War 

The Plains Indians 

Indian Wars 

The Destruction of Tribal Life 

The Lure of Gold and Silver in the West 

Big Business and the Land Bonanza 

Western Railroad Building 

The Cattle Kingdom 

Open-Range Ranching 

Barbed-Wire Warfare  

American Lives

     Nat Love 

DEBATING THE PAST

     Was the Frontier Exceptionally Violent?  

Chapter 17

An Industrial Giant 

Essentials of Industrial Growth 

Railroads: The First Big Business 

Iron, Oil, and Electricity 

Competition and Monopoly: The Railroads 

Competition and Monopoly: Steel 

Competition and Monopoly: Oil 

Competition and Monopoly: Retailing and Utilities 

American Ambivalence to Big Business 

Reformers: George, Bellamy, Lloyd  

Reformers: The Marxists 

The Government Reacts to Big Business: Railroad Regulation 

The Government Reacts to Big Business: The Sherman Antitrust Act 

The Labor Union Movement 

The American Federation of Labor 

Labor Militancy Rebuffed 

Whither America, Whither Democracy? 

Mapping the Past

     Were the Railroads Indispensable to Economic Growth? 

DEBATING THE PAST

     Were the Industrialists “Robber Barons” or Savvy Entrepreneurs?  

Chapter 18

American Society in the Industrial Age 

Middle-Class Life 

Skilled and Unskilled Workers 

Working Women 

Farmers 

Working-Class Family Life 

Working-Class Attitudes 

Working Your Way Up 

The “New” Immigration 

New Immigrants Face New Nativism 

The Expanding City and Its Problems 

Teeming Tenements 

The Cities Modernize  

Leisure Activities: More Fun and Games 

Christianity’s Conscience and the Social Gospel 

The Settlement Houses  

Civilization and Its Discontents 

Mapping the Past

     Cholera: A New Disease Strikes the Nation 

DEBATING THE PAST

     Did Immigrants Assimilate?  

Chapter 19

Intellectual and Cultural Trends 

Colleges and Universities 

Revolution in the Social Sciences 

Progressive Education 

Law and History 

Realism in Literature 

Mark Twain  

William Dean Howells  

Henry James  

Realism in Art 

The Pragmatic Approach 

The Knowledge Revolution 

Re-Viewing the Past

     Titanic 

DEBATING THE PAST

     Did the Frontier Engender Individualism and Democracy?  

Chapter 20

Politics: Local, State, and National 

Congress Ascendant 

Recurrent Issues

Party Politics: Sidestepping the Issues 

Lackluster Presidents: From Hayes to Harrison 

Blacks in the South After Reconstruction

Booker T. Washington: A “Reasonable” Champion for Blacks

City Bosses 

Crops and Complaints 

The Populist Movement  

Showdown on Silver  

The Depression of 1893 

The Election of 1896 

The Meaning of the Election 

Mapping the Past

     The Election of 1896 

DEBATING THE PAST

     Were City Governments Corrupt and Incompetent?  

Chapter 21

The Age of Reform 

Roots of Progressivism 

The Muckrakers 

The Progressive Mind 

“Radical” Progressives: The Wave of the Future 

Political Reform: Cities First 

Political Reform: The States  

State Social Legislation 

Political Reform: The Woman Suffrage Movement 

Political Reform: Income Taxes and Popular Election of Senators 

Theodore Roosevelt: Cowboy in the White House 

Roosevelt and Big Business 

Roosevelt and the Coal Strike 

TR’s Triumphs 

Roosevelt Tilts Left 

William Howard Taft: The Listless Progressive, or More Is Less 

Breakup of the Republican Party 

The Election of 1912 

Wilson: The New Freedom 

The Progressives and Minority Rights 

Black Militancy 

American Lives

     Emma Goldman 

DEBATING THE PAST

     Were the Progressives Forward-Looking?  

Chapter 22

From Isolation to Empire 

Isolation or Imperialism? 

Origins of the Large Policy: Coveting Colonies 

Toward an Empire in the Pacific  

Toward an Empire in Latin America 

The Cuban Revolution 

The “Splendid Little” Spanish-American War 

Developing a Colonial Policy 

The Anti-Imperialists 

The Philippine Insurrection 

Cuba and the United States 

The United States in the Caribbean and Central America 

The Open Door Policy 

The Panama Canal 

Imperialism Without Colonies 

American Lives

     Frederick Funston 

DEBATING THE PAST

     Did the United States Acquire an Overseas Empire for Economic Reasons?  

Chapter 23

Woodrow Wilson and the Great War 

Wilson’s “Moral” Diplomacy 

Europe Explodes in War 

Freedom of the Seas 

The Election of 1916 

The Road to War 

Mobilizing the Economy 

Workers in Wartime 

Paying for the War 

Propaganda and Civil Liberties 

Wartime Reforms 

Women and Blacks in Wartime 

Americans: To the Trenches and Over the Top 

Preparing for Peace 

The Paris Peace Conference and the Versailles Treaty 

The Senate Rejects the League of Nations 

Demobilization 

The Red Scare 

The Election of 1920 

American Lives

     Harry S Truman

DEBATING THE PAST

     Did a Stroke Sway Wilson’s Judgment?  

Chapter 24

Postwar Society and Culture: Change and Adjustment 

Closing the Gates to New Immigrants 

New Urban Social Patterns 

The Younger Generation 

The “New” Woman 

Popular Culture: Movies and Radio 

The Golden Age of Sports 

Urban—Rural Conflicts: Fundamentalism 

Urban—Rural Conflicts: Prohibition 

The Ku Klux Klan 

Sacco and Vanzetti 

Literary Trends 

The “New Negro” 

Economic Expansion 

The Age of the Consumer 

Henry Ford 

The Airplane 

Re-Viewing the Past

     Chicago 

DEBATING THE PAST

     Was the Decade of the 1920s One of Self-Absorption?  

Chapter 25

The New Era: 1921—1933 

Harding and “Normalcy” 

“The Business of the United States Is Business” 

The Harding Scandals 

Coolidge Prosperity 

Peace Without a Sword 

The Peace Movement 

The Good Neighbor Policy 

The Totalitarian Challenge 

War Debts and Reparations 

The Election of 1928 

Economic Problems 

The Stock Market Crash of 1929 

Hoover and the Depression 

The Economy Hits Bottom 

The Depression and Its Victims 

The Election of 1932 

Mapping the Past

     FDR’s Political Revolution 

DEBATING THE PAST

     What Caused the Great Depression?  

Chapter 26

The New Deal: 1933—1941 

The Hundred Days 

The National Recovery Administration (NRA) 

The Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) 

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) 

The New Deal Spirit 

The Unemployed 

Literature in the Depression 

Three Extremists: Long, Coughlin, and Townsend

The Second New Deal 

The Election of 1936 

Roosevelt Tries to Undermine the Supreme Court

The New Deal Winds Down 

Significance of the New Deal 

Women as New Dealers: The Network 

Blacks During the New Deal 

A New Deal for Indians 

The Role of Roosevelt 

The Triumph of Isolationism 

War Again in Europe 

A Third Term for FDR 

The Undeclared War 

Re-Viewing the Past

     Cinderella Man 

DEBATING THE PAST

     Did the New Deal succeed?  

Chapter 28

War and Peace 

The Road to Pearl Harbor 

Mobilizing the Home Front 

The War Economy 

War and Social Change 

Minorities in Time of War: Blacks, Hispanics, and Indians 

The Treatment of German and Italian Americans 

Internment of the Japanese 

Women’s Contribution to the War Effort 

Allied Strategy: Europe First 

Germany Overwhelmed 

The Naval War in the Pacific 

Island Hopping 

Building the Atom Bomb 

Wartime Diplomacy 

Allied Suspicion of Stalin 

Yalta and Potsdam 

 Re-Viewing the Past

     Saving Private Ryan 

DEBATING THE PAST

     Should the United States Have Used Atomic Bombs Against Japan?

Chapter 28

The American Century 

Truman Becomes President  

The Postwar Economy 

The Containment Policy 

The Atom Bomb: A “Winning” Weapon? 

A Turning Point in Greece 

The Marshall Plan and the Lesson of History 

Dealing with Japan and China 

The Election of 1948 

Containing Communism Abroad 

Hot War in Korea 

The Communist Issue at Home 

McCarthyism 

Dwight D. Eisenhower 

The Eisenhower-Dulles Foreign Policy 

McCarthy Self-Destructs 

Asian Policy After Korea 

Israel and the Middle East 

Eisenhower and Khrushchev 

Latin America Aroused 

The Politics of Civil Rights 

The Election of 1960 

Re-Viewing the Past

     Good Night, and Good Luck 

DEBATING THE PAST

     Did Truman Needlessly Exacerbate Relations with the Soviet Union?  

Chapter 29

From Camelot to Watergate 

Kennedy in Camelot 

The Cuban Crises 

The Vietnam War 

“We Shall Overcome”: The Civil Rights Movement 

Tragedy in Dallas: JFK Assassinated 

Lyndon Baines Johnson 

The Great Society 

Johnson Escalates the War 

Opposition to the War 

The Election of 1968 

Nixon as President: “Vietnamizing” the War 

The Cambodian “Incursion” 

Détente with Communism 

Nixon in Triumph 

Domestic Policy Under Nixon 

The Watergate Break-in 

More Troubles for Nixon 

The Judgment on Watergate: “Expletive Deleted”

The Meaning of Watergate 

Mapping the Past

     School Segregation After the Brown Decision 

DEBATING THE PAST

     Would JFK Have Sent a Half-Million American Troops to Vietnam? 

Chapter 30

Society in Flux 

A Society on the Move 

The Advent of Television 

At Home and Work 

The Growing Middle Class 

Religion in Changing Times 

Literature and Art 

The Perils of Progress 

New Racial Turmoil  

Native-Born Ethnics 

Rethinking Public Education 

Students in Revolt 

The Counterculture 

The Sexual Revolution 

Women’s Liberation 

Mapping the Past

     Roe v. Wade (1978) and the Abortion Controversy 

DEBATING THE PAST

     Did Mass Culture Make Life Shallow?  

Chapter 31

Running on Empty: The Nation Transformed 

The Oil Crisis 

Ford as President 

The Fall of South Vietnam 

Ford Versus Carter 

The Carter Presidency 

A National Malaise 

Stagflation: The Weird Economy 

Families Under Stress: Defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment 

Cold War or Détente? 

The Iran Crisis: Origins 

The Iran Crisis: Carter’s Dilemma 

The Election of 1980 

Reagan as President 

Four More Years 

“The Reagan Revolution” 

Change and Uncertainty 

AIDS 

The New Merger Movement 

“A Job for Life”: Layoffs Hit Home 

A “Bipolar” Economy, a Fractured Society 

The Iran-Contra Arms Deal 

American Lives

     Bill Gates 

DEBATING THE PAST

     Did Reagan end the Cold War?  

Chapter 32

Misdemeanors and High Crimes 

The Election of 1988 

Crime and Punishment 

“Crack” and Urban Gangs 

George H. W. Bush as President 

The Collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe 

The War in the Persian Gulf 

The Deficit Worsens 

Looting the Savings and Loans 

Whitewater and the Clintons 

The Election of 1992 

A New Start: Clinton 

Emergence of the Republican Majority 

The Election of 1996 

A Racial Divide 

Violence and Popular Culture 

Clinton Impeached 

Clinton’s Legacy 

The Economic Boom and the Internet 

The 2000 Election: George W. Bush Wins by One Vote 

Terrorism Intensifies 

September 11, 2001 

America Fights Back: War in Afghanistan 

The Second Iraq War 

The Election of 2004 

The Imponderable Future 

Mapping the Past

     Twenty Years of Terrorism 

DEBATING THE PAST

     Do Historians Ever Get it Right?  

Appendix 

     The Declaration of Independence  

      The Articles of Confederation  

      The Constitution of the United States of America 

      Amendments to the Constitution 

      Presidential Elections, 1789—2004

Glossary

Picture Credits 

Index