Aspects of American History [Paperback]

Aspects of American Historyexamines major themes, personalities and issues across American history, using topic focused essays. Each chapter focuses on key events and time periods within a broad framework looking at liberty and equality, the role of government and national identity. The volume engages with its central themes through a broad ranging examination of aspects of the American past, including discussions of political history, foreign policy, presidential leadership and the construction of national memory. In each essay, Simon Henderson:

• introduces fresh angles to traditional topics
• consolidates recent research in themed essays
• analyzes views of different historians
• offers an interpretive rather than narrative approach
• gives concise treatment to complex issues.

Including an introduction which places key themes in context, this book enables readers to make comparisons and trace major thematic developments across American history.

1. Nation in Embryo  The Development of Colonial America&nbsp; 2. Reasons for Revolt  The Birth of the United States&nbsp; 3.&nbsp;The Constitution  Makings and Meanings&nbsp; 4.&nbsp;Flawed Heroes  Washington, Jefferson and Slavery&nbsp; 5. Ignoring Washingtons Warning  Antebellum Party Systems&nbsp;&nbsp;6. Slavery and the Causes of the American Civil War&nbsp; 7.&nbsp;Southern and Confederate Nationalism&nbsp; 8. Lincoln and Liberty&nbsp; 9. Reconstruction  The Unfulfilled Promise&nbsp; 10. Civil War Memory and American National Identity&nbsp; 11. Introducing Jim Crow  The Codification of Segregation in the South&nbsp; 12. Prejudice and Paternalism  Assimilation and Native American Identity&nbsp; 13. American Identity and the American West&nbsp; 14. Immigration and Assimilation  Melting Pot or Salad Bowl?&nbsl<