Oct 18, 2024  
BC3 Academic Catalog: 2023-2024 
    
BC3 Academic Catalog: 2023-2024 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

HIST 201 - Early United States History

3 Credits: (3 lecture)

Course Description
This course is an introduction to the history of America from pre-Columbian times to 1877. The class will explore how race, geography, gender, class, and culture created competing worlds in America. Students will analyze significant political, socioeconomic, and cultural developments in American history before the Reconstruction era. This course meets the General Education competency of Values, Ethics, and Diverse Perspectives (VE).

 

Text
Shi, David and George Tindall. America: The Essential Learning Edition Vol. 1. 3rd ed. WWNorton, 2022. 

Objectives
The student will be able to: 

 

A. Identify the basic facts and chronology of recent American history prior to the Reconstruction era. 

B. Identify the roots and impact of American expansion, and diplomacy prior to the Civil War. 

C. Exhibit knowledge of American political traditions, economic structures, and cultural legacies. 

D. Assess the history of America’s minority communities, particularly as they relate to our commonality. 

E. Evaluate the impact of ethical problems from a variety of historical perspectives. (VE) 

F. Examine the complexity of global human diversity and the various forces that shape it. (VE) 

Content
A. A review of the Renaissance and Reformation as it is important to the founding of European colonies. 

B. The founding of the British colonies and the struggle for North America. 

C. Independence:  the impact of the Enlightenment and the experiments of a new nation. 

D. Growth and expansion:  the expansion of the United States, westward migration, and political, social, and economic results of expansion. 

E. The sectional conflict:  the slavery controversy that threatened the very status of the Union. 

F. Contributions of America’s Communities to the development of our nation. 

 

Student Evaluation
A-F. Class discussion, written assignments, and objective and essay examinations. 

Bibliography
Anderson, Fred.  Crucible of War:  The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British  

North America, 1754-1766.  Knopf, 2000. 

Ben-Atar, Doron and Barbara B. Oberg.  Federalists Reconsidered. UP of Virginia, 1998. 

Bullock, Steven C.  Revolutionary Brotherhood:  Freemasonry and the Transformation of the  

American Social Order, 1730-1840.  

Bushman, Richard L.  The Refinement of America:  Persons, Houses, Cities. Vintage Books, 1992. 

Butler, Jon. The Huguenots in America: A Refugee People in New World Society. Harvard UP, 1983. 

Clinton, Catherine. Tara Revisited: Women, War, and the Plantation Legend. Abbeville Press, 1995. 

—— The Empire of Reason.  How Europe Imagined and America Realized the Enlightenment. Anchor Books, 1978. 

DeBoer, Clara M.  Be Jubilant My Feet. Garland Publishing Co., 1994. 

Elkins, Stanley and Eric McKitrick. The Age of Federalism. Oxford University Press, 1993. 

Ferling, John.  Setting the World Ablaze:  Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and the American Revolution. Oxford University Press, 2000. 

Glatthaar, Joseph T.  Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers. The Free Press, 1990. 

James, Thomas Flexner.  Washington, The Indispensable Man. Little, Brown and Company, 1974. 

John, Ehle. Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation. Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1988. 

Jones, Howard. Mutiny on the Amistad: The Saga of a Slave Revolt. Anchor Books, Doubleday, 1988. 

LeMay, J. A. Leo (ed.).  Reappraising Benjamin Franklin:  A Bicentennial Perspective. 

University of Delaware Press, 1993. 

Nevin, John.  The Coming of the Civil War, 1837-1861. Harlan Davidson, 1990. 

Peterson, Merrill D.  The Great Triumvirate:  Webster, Clay, and Calhoun. Oxford UP, 1987. 

Phillips, Kevin.  The Cousins’ Wars:  Religion, Politics, and the Triumph of Anglo-America. Basic Books, 1999. 

Remini, Robert V. Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy. Harper and Row, 1984. 

—— The Jacksonian Era.  H. Davidson, 1989. 

Shields, Davis S.  Civil Tongues & Polite Letters in British America. University of North Carolina Press, 1997. 

Stephanson, Anders.  Manifest Destiny:  American Expansionism and the Empire of Right. Hill and Wang, 1995. 

Vernon, Amelia Wallace.  African Americans at Mars Bluff, S. C. Louisiana State UP, 1994.   

Warner, Michael.  The Letters of the Republic:  Publication and the Public Sphere in 

Eighteenth-Century America. Harvard University Press, 1990. 

Wood, Gordon.  The Radicalism of the American Revolution. Knopf, 1992. 

Wright, Esmond. Franklin of Philadelphia. The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1986.