America Past and Present, Brief Edition, Single Volume Edition (6th Edition)

Rating:
Summary: Basic text abridged
Review: America: Past and Present, Brief 6th edition by Robert A. Divine, T. H. Breen, George M. Frederickson, R. Hal Williams, Ariela J. Gross, H. W. Brands, Randy Roberts (Pearson Longman Publishers) America Past and Present, Brief Sixth Edition, is de-rived from the full-length America Past and Present, Seventh Edition. The Brief Sixth Edition shares the goal of its parent text: to present a clear, relevant, and balanced history of the United States as an unfolding story of national development, from the days of the earliest inhabitants to the present. The goal of the abridgement is to produce a condensation true to the original in all its dimensions-a miniaturized replica or bonsai, as it were-retaining the style and tone, and the interpretations, with their nuances and subtleties intact. This Brief Sixth Edition contains about two-thirds of the text of the full-length book, more than one-half of the maps, charts, and figures, and a commensurate proportion of the illustration program.

Presenting American history as the story of a nation in flux, America Past and Present, Brief Sixth Edition, goes beyond recounting the major events that have helped to shape the nation-the wars fought, the presidents elected, the treaties signed. The impact of change on human lives adds a vital dimension to the understanding of history. How did the American Revolution affect the lives of ordinary citizens? What was it like for both blacks and whites to live in a plantation society? How did the shift from an agrarian to an industrial economy affect men and women alike? What impact did technology, in the form of the auto-mobile and the computer, have on patterns of life in the twentieth century? As the narrative explores answers to these and other questions, it blends the excitement and drama of the American experience with in-sights about the social, political, economic, and cultural issues that underlie it.
America Past and Present, Brief Sixth Edition, espouses no particular ideology or point of view; instead the text encourages readers to explore the American past and reach their own conclusions about its significance in their lives. And yet the text does not avoid examining controversial issues but seeks to offer balanced and reasoned judgments on such morally charged subjects as the nature of slavery and the use of nuclear weapons. Although history may rarely repeat itself, the story of the American past is relevant to the problems and dilemmas facing the American nation and the American people today.
TEXT REVISIONS
The principal revisions in America Past and Present, Brief Sixth Edition, have been undertaken with the goals of clarifying the prose and sharpening the analysis, taking account of new scholarship, and offering new perspectives. As in previous editions, the roles that women and minority groups have played in the nation's development merit particular attention. These people appear not as passive witnesses to the historical narrative but as active participants in its evolution. New and expanded material throughout the chapters includes the following:
•Chapter 1, expanded coverage of Native Americans before encounter with Europeans.
•Chapter 6, new opening vignette highlighting the search for balance between public morality and private freedom in the new republic; additional coverage of political and social reform.
•Chapter 9, expanded discussion of treaties negotiated with Great Britain following the War of 1812.
•Chapter 11, revised and reorganized to enhance and emphasize coverage of the lives and lifestyles of slaves and their experience of slavery.
•Chapter 12, expanded discussion of black abolitionists and women's rights reformers.
•Chapter 16, restructured and revised to devote greater attention to lives of former slaves during Reconstruction; includes new sections on Black Codes and Jim Crow laws.
•Chapter 17, new opening vignette exploring a Native American's experience of conquest and exploitation of the American West.
•Chapter 26, new opening vignette highlighting personal experiences of hardship during the Great Depression; revised discussion of the stock market crash of 1929.
•Chapter 30, expanded discussion of the student protest movement of the 1960s.
•Chapter 31, shifts in the labor movement in the 1970s, including the rise of public employee unions; the changing American family at the turn of the century.
Chapter 33, revised and restructured to concentrate on the shifting economy of the 1990s to the present and the role of government policy in shaping American economy; updated with new discussion of foreign policy and homeland defense post-September 11, including new sections on the war on terrorism and war in Iraq.
FORMAT AND FEATURES
The more spacious page design of America Past and Present, Brief Sixth Edition, allows for larger maps and figures as well as the addition of marginal definitions of key terms in each chapter.
America Past and Present, Brief Sixth Edition, includes eight essays entitled "We Americans," each focusing on some aspect of diversity or multiculturalism in America. Some of the "We Americans" essays explore the roles different ethnic groups have played in shaping the nation; others examine change and constancy in the American population and national ethos. The eight "We Americans" essays are:
•Learning to Live with Diversity in the Eighteenth Century: What Is an American? (Chapter 4)
•Counting the People: The Federal Census of 1790 (Chapter 7)
•Women of Southern Households (Chapter 11) The Irish in Boston, 1845-1865 (Chapter 13)
•Hispanic America After 1848: A Case Study in Majority Rule (Chapter 14)
•Blacks in Blue: The Buffalo Soldiers in the West (Chapter 17)
•Ellis Island: Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears (Chapter 19)
•Unintended Consequences: The Second Great Migration (Chapter 30)
A second feature in America Past and Present, Brief Sixth Edition, is the "A Look at the Past" photographs. These illustrations of material culture artifacts show students some of the variety of materials historians use to learn about and interpret the past. Captions with the photographs include critical thinking questions that encourage students to reflect on the historical purpose and significance of the object pictured.