An Outline of American History

by Francis Whitney

Publisher:

United States Information Agency

, 1994

Overview

One of the longest-running publications of the United States Information Agency, this work provides a clear introduction to United States history, beginning with pre-colonial America and covering all the way up to the twenty-first century.

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Key Features

• Provides an overview of United States history
• Covers pre-colonial America all the way up to the twenty-first century
• Includes a reading list in American history

Contents

• Acknowledgments
• Early America
• The Colonial Period
• The Road to Independence
• The Formation of a National Government
• Westward Expansion and Regional Differences
• Sectional Conflict
• Growth and Transformation
• Discontent and Reform
• War, Prosperity, and Depression
• The New Deal and World War
• Postwar America
• Decades of Change
• Toward the twenty-first Century
• Brief Reading List in American History

Top Highlights

“But here the Crown came into conflict with the interests of the colonies. Fast increasing in population, and needing more land for settlement, various colonies claimed the right to extend their boundaries as far west as the Mississippi River.” (source)

“The last of the measures inaugurating the new colonial system sparked the greatest organized resistance. Known as the ‘Stamp Act,’ it provided that revenue stamps be affixed to all newspapers, broadsides, pamphlets, licenses, leases or other legal documents, the revenue (collected by American customs agents) to be used for ‘defending, protecting and securing’ the colonies.” (source)

“What began as a harmless snowballing of British soldiers degenerated into a mob attack. Someone gave the order to fire. When the smoke had cleared, three Bostonians lay dead in the snow. Dubbed the ‘Boston Massacre,’ the incident was dramatically pictured as proof of British heartlessness and tyranny.” (source)

“On May 12 General Benjamin Lincoln surrendered the city and its 5,000 troops, the greatest American defeat of the war.” (source)

“In January 1776, Thomas Paine, a political theorist and writer who had come to America from England in 1774, published a 50-page pamphlet, Common Sense. Within three months, 100,000 copies of the pamphlet were sold. Paine attacked the idea of hereditary monarchy, declaring that one honest man was worth more to society than ‘all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.’ He presented the alternatives—continued submission to a tyrannical king and an outworn government, or liberty and happiness as a self-sufficient, independent republic. Circulated throughout the colonies, Common Sense helped to crystallize the desire for separation.” (source)

Product Details

• Title: An Outline of American History
• Author: Howard Cincotta
• Publisher: United States Information Agency
• Publication Date: 1998