PrefacePreface
xxiii“RELEVANT HISTORY”
Many colleges and universities require the study of
American history. The reasons are numerous, ranging
from the need for informed citizens in a democracy to
the centrality of history to other branches of knowledge.
But telling the story of “the American nation” in a
single book—even one as big as this—is no easy matter.
If the “Brief Contents” section can be regarded as a
road map, the journey is long and demanding.
Sometimes, too, the past is a strange land, bearing little
resemblance to the world we know. Readers may ask:
Why make a detour in their busy lives to visit
“Jeffersonian Democracy” (Chapter 6) or “American
Society in an Industrial Age” (Chapter 18)? The past is
past. Why not just move on?
These questions are fair. The answer is simple.
Though we live upon the shores of the present, the
waves of the past, often originating far in the distance,
continuously touch our lives. Sometimes they ebb and
flow so gently we can scarcely perceive them. Sometimes
they form huge breakers that come crashing down on
us. We may ignore history; it will not ignore us.
This book seeks to prove this assertion.
Chapter Openers
To that end, every chapter opens with questions that
pertain to many readers: Chapter 6—on Jeffersonian
Democracy—begins: “Do you have too much debt?”
The essay that follows examines the problem of credit
card debt among college students today and shows how
similar concerns occupied Jefferson and his followers.
Chapter 18, on society and culture during the late nine-
teenth century, opens with: “Have you ever been
kicked out of a mall?” The succeeding paragraphs show
how much more of our lives are played out in public
spaces compared to a century ago.
Other opening questions include:
“Do you rebel against authority?”
“Are you wearing anything made in the United
States?”
“Do you space out during political debates?”
“Do you drink too much?”
“What will happen to you?”
Such questions bridge present and past; they con-
nect our lives to those of our forebears.
Re-Viewing the Past
Because movies on historical themes often figure
prominently in how we think about the past, eleven
of the chapters include Re-Viewing the Pastessays,
which contrast Hollywood’s rendering of history with
what really happened. The selected movies range
from those with obvious “historical” themes, such as
The Alamo and Saving Private Ryan, to popular
movies whose historical themes are less well known,
such as Chicago, a musical based on the actual story
of women who murdered their lovers, and Titanic, a
movie that purports to describe courtship patterns
among rich and poor in the early twentieth century.American Lives
Eleven of the chapters include American Livesessays,
ranging from Eunice Williams, a young girl who was
captured and raised by Indians, to contemporary fig-
ures such as Bill Gates and Barack Obama. These
essays focus on the young adulthood of such figures;
we hope that readers of the same age will in this way
find it easier to relate to them.Artwork
We have also chosen much of the artwork to link
past and present. For example, the discussion of the
slave trade in Chapter 2 includes a photograph of
the Cape Coast Castle in Ghana, which held slaves
before they were shipped to the Americas.
Juxtaposed with this picture is a photograph of
President Barack Obama at the Cape Coast Castle
delivering a speech on race. Chapter 5, on the
American Revolution, shows the famous painting of
Washington crossing the Delaware in a longboat;
juxtaposed is a photograph of modern Americans,
dressed in Patriot garb, struggling to re-enact his
accomplishment more than two hundred years later.
Chapter 13 includes Thomas Noble’s 1867 painting
of Margaret Garner, an escaped slave who, when
captured, killed her daughter rather than return her
to slavery—the story that inspired Toni Morrison’s
Pulitzer-prizewinning Beloved (1987). We chose
many of the pictures not merely to illustrate the past
but also to connect it to the present.