The American Promise: A History of the United States: From 1865

The American Promise is more teachable and memorable than any other U.S. survey text. The balanced narrative braids together political and social history so that students can discern overarching trends as well as individual stories. The voices of hundreds of Americans — from Presidents to pipefitters, and sharecroppers to suffragettes — animate the past and make concepts memorable.

The past comes alive for students through dynamic special features and a stunning and distinctive visual program. Over 775 contemporaneous illustrations — more than any competing text — draw students into the text, and more than 180 full-color maps increase students’ geographic literacy. A rich array of special features complements the narrative, offering more points of departure for assignments and discussion. Longstanding favorites include Documenting the American Promise, Historical Questions, The Promise of Technology, and Beyond America’s Borders, representing a key part of our effort to increase attention paid to the global context of American history.

JAMES L. ROARK (Ph.D., Stanford University) is the Samuel Chandler Dobbs Professor of History at Emory University. He has written or edited four books, including, with Michael P. Johnson, Black Masters: A Free Family of Color in the Old South (1984).

MICHAEL P. JOHNSON (Ph.D., Stanford University) is a professor of history at the Johns Hopkins University. He has written or edited six books, including No Chariot Let Down: Charleston’s Free People of Color on the Eve of the Civil War (1984) and Reading the American Past.

PATRICIA CLINE COHEN (Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley) is professor of history at the University of California at Santa Barbara. She has written three books including The Murder of Helen Jewett: The Life and Death of a Prostitute in Nineteenth-Century New York (1998).

SARAH STAGE (Ph.D., Yale University) is professor of women’s studies at Arizona State University West. She has written three books, including Rethinking Women and Home Economics in the Twentieth Century (1997).

ALAN LAWSON (Ph.D., University of Michigan) is professor of history at Boston College. He has written or edited three books, including From Revolution to Republic (1976).

SUSAN M. HARTMANN (Ph.D., University of Missouri) is professor of history at The Ohio State University. She has written five books, including The Other Feminists: Activists in the Liberal Establishments (1998).