1. The Americas, Europe, and Africa before 1492: Introduction
1.1 The Americas
1.2 Europe on the Brink of Change
1.3 West Africa and the Role of Slavery
Key Terms
Critical Thinking Questions
2. Early Globalization: The Atlantic World, 1492–1650: Introduction
2.2 Religious Upheavals in the Developing Atlantic World
2.4 New Worlds in the Americas: Labor, Commerce, and the Columbian Exchange
Summary
Review Questions
Critical Thinking Questions
3. Creating New Social Orders: Colonial Societies, 1500–1700: Introduction
3.1 Spanish Exploration and Colonial Society
3.2 Colonial Rivalries: Dutch and French Colonial Ambitions
Access the entire text of Mary Rowlandson’s captivity narrative at the Gutenberg
Summary
4.1 Charles II and the Restoration Colonies
Key Terms
Summary
Review Questions
5. Imperial Reforms and Colonial Protests, 1763–1774: Introduction
Key Terms
Summary
Review Questions
Critical Thinking Questions
6.3 War in the South
6.4 Identity during the American Revolution
Summary
Review Questions
Critical Thinking Questions
7. Creating Republican Governments, 1776–1790: Introduction
Read more about religion and state governments at the Religion and the Founding
7.4 The Constitutional Convention and Federal Constitution
Key Terms
Summary
Critical Thinking Questions
8. Growing Pains: The New Republic, 1790–1820: Introduction
8.2 The New American Republic
8.3 Partisan Politics
8.4 The United States Goes Back to War
Review Questions
Critical Thinking Questions
9. Industrial Transformation in the North, 1800–1850: Introduction
9.4 A New Social Order: Class Divisions
Summary
Review Questions
Critical Thinking Questions
10. Jacksonian Democracy, 1820–1840: Introduction
10.4 Indian Removal
Key Terms
Summary
Review Questions
Critical Thinking Questions
11. A Nation on the Move: Westward Expansion, 1800–1860: Introduction
Access a collection of primary documents relating to the Missouri Compromise, in
11.3 Independence for Texas
11.4 The Mexican-American War, 1846–1848
Summary
Review Questions
Critical Thinking Questions
12.1 The Economics of Cotton
Read through several narratives at “Born in Slavery,” part of the American Memor
12.4 The Filibuster and the Quest for New Slave States
Key Terms
13. Antebellum Idealism and Reform Impulses, 1820–1860: Introduction
13.2 Antebellum Communal Experiments
13.4 Addressing Slavery
13.5 Women’s Rights
Summary
14.1 The Compromise of 1850
14.3 The Dred Scott Decision and Sectional Strife
Key Terms
Summary
Review Questions
15. The Civil War, 1860–1865: Introduction
15.3 1863: The Changing Nature of the War
Critical Thinking Questions
« Previous
Reading progress:
98%
Next »
Critical Thinking Questions
Critical Thinking Questions
20. What were some of the social and cultural beliefs that became widespread during the Age of Jackson? What lay behind these beliefs, and do you observe any of them in American culture today?
21. Were the political changes of the early nineteenth century positive or negative? Explain your opinion.
22. If you were defending the Cherokee and other native nations before the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1830s, what arguments would you make? If you were supporting Native American removal, what arguments would you make?
23. How did depictions of Native Americans in popular culture help to sway popular opinion? Does modern popular culture continue to wield this kind of power over us? Why or why not?
24. Does Alexis de Tocqueville’s argument about the tyranny of the majority reflect American democracy today? Provide examples to support your answer.