The American Experience A Concise History

[This book] focuses on events, personalities, and movements that have figured prominently in the shaping of the nation and that have proved to be enduring ingredients of the introductory course in United States history at the college level. Particular attention is paid to the formation, transformation, interaction, and disintegration of national, regional, ethnic, and economic communities. [This book] addresses the roles of commerce and religion in the development of colonies; the forces and circumstances leading to the American Revolution; the contours of republicanism; the origins and development of slavery; the evolution of political parties and the two-party system; Manifest Destiny and continental expansion; events leading up to and through the Civil War and Reconstruction ... [The book] also incorporate[s] significant contributions of the new social history, especially those relating to gender, everyday life, and the role of groups such as African Americans and Native Americans ... Throughout [the authors] describe and analyze the forces that have contributed to both conflict and continuity in American society.-Pref.