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The History of the United States, 2nd Edition
By: The Great Courses, Allen C. Guelzo, Gary W. Gallagher, Patrick N. Allitt
Narrated by: Allen C. Guelzo, Gary W. Gallagher, Patrick N. Allitt
Series: The Great Courses: Modern History
Length: 43 hrs and 23 mins
Lecture
Release date: 08-07-2013
Language: English
Publisher: The Great Courses
4.8 out of 5 stars4.8 (51 ratings)
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Publisher's Summary
This comprehensive series of 84 lectures features three award-winning historians sharing their insights into this nation's past - from the European settlement and the Revolutionary War through the Civil War, 19th-century industrialization, two world wars, and the present day.
While American history spans not much more than two centuries, it is filled with a wealth of leaders, wars, movements, inventions, and ideas - each of which contributed in its own unique way to America's transformation from 13 disparate colonies on the east coast of North America into a global superpower.
These lectures give you the opportunity to grasp the different aspects of our past that combine to make us distinctly American, and to gain the knowledge so essential to recognizing not only what makes this country such a noteworthy part of world history, but the varying degrees to which it has lived up to its ideals.
The lectures chart the five predominant themes that run throughout the chronicle of U.S. history:The American passion for freedom-including religious, political, and economic freedom.
The pursuit of education, which has been the quintessential way for Americans to invent (and reinvent) themselves.
The unquestioned faith in the value of popular government.
The willingness of Americans to experiment with and adapt to new environments and situations.
The belief that the United States is a "city on the hill," a country the likes of which the world has never seen before.
Placing familiar historical events in the context of these overarching themes will help you see American history less as a series of separate events and more as a mosaic in which everything is interconnected.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2003 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2003 The Great Courses
Americas
Course Overview
This is the story of a country in which immigrants of the late 19th and early 20th centuries huddled in cramped tenement apartments lit by hazardous kerosene lamps. And a country that, little more than a half-century later, renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith described as "The Affluent Society."
This is the chronicle of a nation that enslaved a race of people. And of a nation that fought a Civil War that freed its slaves, and outlawed segregation and discrimination.
This is history shaped by Revolutionary War and Vietnam, Thomas Jefferson and William Jefferson Clinton, Puritanism and Feminism, Booker T. Washington and Martin Luther King, Jamestown and Disneyland, Harpers Ferry and Henry Ford, oil wells and Orson Welles.
This is a review of the extraordinary blend of people, ideas, inventions, and events that comprise The History of the United States. In this seven-part, 84-lecture series, three noted historians and lecturers—two of whom teach other popular Teaching Company courses—present the nation's past through their areas of special interest.
Three Outstanding Instructors in this Sweeping Series
This comprehensive presentation is provided by three award-winning professors:
- Dr. Allen C. Guelzo is Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Era, Professor of History at Gettysburg College, and former Dean of Templeton Honors College at Eastern University. He examines the beginnings of European settlement through the Great Compromise of 1850. His teaching awards include the Dean's Award for Distinguished Graduate Teaching from the University of Pennsylvania. His most recent book, Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President , won the Lincoln Prize and the Book Prize of the Abraham Lincoln Institute of the Mid-Atlantic.
- Dr. Gary W. Gallagher is the John L. Nau III Professor in the History of the American Civil War at the University of Virginia and a top Civil War expert. He presents the pre-Civil War period through Reconstruction. His teaching, which includes personal guided tours of major battlefields, has consistently won high praise from students, and he is a frequent lecturer and author. He also teaches the Great Course The American Civil War.
- Dr. Patrick N. Allitt, Professor of History at Emory University, discusses 19th-century industrialization through the early 21st century. In 2000 he was appointed to the National Endowment for the Humanities/Arthur Blank Professorship of Teaching in the Humanities, and recently received the Emory Center for Teaching and Curriculum's Excellence in Teaching Award. He also teaches The Great Courses Victorian Britain and American Religious History.
With their guidance you will follow, as they unfold over time, the factors that have enabled the United States to become the largest, wealthiest, and most powerful democratic republic in history. These factors include its:
- Sense of confidence, national destiny, and exceptionalism
- Religiosity and belief in virtue
- Abundance of natural resources and entrepreneurial talent
- Ability to accept a diverse array of immigrants
- Success in turning the theory of democracy into reality.
What You Will Learn: A Voyage of Discovery
In the opening lecture, Professor Guelzo describes the course as "a voyage of discovery. Not a voyage to another continent or another hemisphere or even a trip to another planet, but to something which may be even stranger, and that is the history of the United States."
You will explore a past America often very different from what you were taught about or have imagined.
You will understand historical fact versus fiction when it comes to figures as diverse as:
Jacques Cartier. As early as 1534, he was "surprised to sight Indians, along what he thought was an unexplored Atlantic coastline, waving furs on sticks as an invitation for the Europeans to come down to the beach and trade."
James Monroe and Robert Livingston . They made the Louisiana Purchase, the greatest real estate deal in history, without approval from then-President Thomas Jefferson (they had no time to tell him). Jefferson, in turn, had no constitutional authority to make the treaty of cession that finalized the purchase. He sent the document to the Senate with the comment, "The less we say about Constitutional difficulties the better."
Carrie Nation. The savvy temperance advocate hired a publicity manager to arrange media coverage before she invaded and smashed up a saloon. She even sold autographed copies of the axes she used.
Isaac Singer. The sewing machine magnate pioneered now universal business techniques such as installment plan payments and nationwide advertising.
You will learn:
- The most influential novel in U.S. history (hint: its female author once met Abraham Lincoln)
- Why the west side became the best place to live in many older U.S. cities (prevailing winds blew smoke and fumes away from you)
- What the book The Wizard of Oz was really about (the election of 1896).
Reading History "Forward"
An additional benefit of this course is that, as they present U.S. history, Professors Guelzo, Gallagher, and Allitt also provide a mini-course on teaching and learning history in general.
They convey a variety of highly useful lessons on how to think about history, place it in a proper perspective, and understand it accurately. These include an emphasis on the social and political context in which vital decisions were made and events took place, and an ability to take both the short-term and long-term views of issues.
In his lectures on the Civil War and Reconstruction, Professor Gallagher warns that the fact that we know how history turned out, that we "read history backward," often distorts our understanding. Repeatedly, he reminds you to "read forward, not backward" to try to understand how people of the times experienced events as they unfolded.
Successes too Often Taken for Granted
Professor Allitt reflects on the aspects of U.S. history that make it unique and noteworthy, and that indicate the degree the nation has lived up to its ideals. He notes that America may fall short of its own high standards, "but compared to the other nations of the world, America was far more impressive for its successes than for its failings."
Some of these successes, Professor Allitt adds, are so obvious that we often fail to recognize them. The United States has achieved an exceptional degree of political stability and internal civil peace for a very long time. "We're so familiar with it that it's easy to forget how rare it is," Professor Allitt notes.
This is one of the many vital and often overlooked aspects of U.S. history that this course will help you to appreciate. Throughout the nation's existence, even during the Civil War, democracy has always worked. Elections have always taken place, the losers have always accepted that they have lost and left office, and the military has never tried to overthrow the civilian government.
Perhaps this is a legacy of the most popular and revered American ever, George Washington.
At the end of the Revolutionary War, some of Washington's officers suggested that the Continental Army should take over the country and make him the first King of America. Washington flatly rejected the offer, resigned his commission, and rode off to his home in Mount Vernon.
The notion that anyone could refuse power in this manner shocked Britain's King George III. "If this is true," the king said, "then he is the greatest man of the age."
84 Lectures
Average 31 minutes each
1
Living Bravely
2
Spain, France, and the Netherlands
3
Gentlemen in the Wilderness
4
Radicals in the Wilderness
5
Traders in the Wilderness
6
An Economy of Slaves
7
Printers, Painters, and Preachers
8
The Great Awakening
9
The Great War for Empire
10
The Rejection of Empire
11
The American Revolution—Politics and People
12
The American Revolution—Howe's War
13
The American Revolution—Washington's War
14
Creating the Constitution
15
Hamilton's Republic
16
Republicans and Federalists
17
Adams and Liberty
18
The Jeffersonian Reaction
19
Territory and Treason
20
The Agrarian Republic
21
The Disastrous War of 1812
22
The "American System"
23
A Nation Announcing Itself
24
National Republican Follies
25
The Second Great Awakening
26
Dark Satanic Mills
27
The Military Chieftain
28
The Politics of Distrust
29
The Monster Bank
30
Whigs and Democrats
31
American Romanticism
32
The Age of Reform
33
Southern Society and the Defense of Slavery
34
Whose Manifest Destiny?
35
The Mexican War
36
The Great Compromise
37
Sectional Tensions Escalate
38
Drifting Toward Disaster
39
The Coming of War
40
The First Year of Fighting
41
Shifting Tides of Battle
42
Diplomatic Clashes and Sustaining the War
43
Behind the Lines—Politics and Economies
44
African Americans in Wartime
45
The Union Drive to Victory
46
Presidential Reconstruction
47
Congress Takes Command
48
Reconstruction Ends
49
Industrialization
50
Transcontinental Railroads
51
The Last Indian Wars
52
Farming the Great Plains
53
African Americans after Reconstruction
54
Men and Women
55
Religion in Victorian America
56
The Populists
57
The New Immigration
58
City Life
59
Labor and Capital
60
Theodore Roosevelt and Progressivism
61
Mass Production
62
World War I—The Road to Intervention
63
World War I—Versailles and Wilson's Gambit
64
The 1920s
65
The Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression
66
The New Deal
67
World War II—The Road to Pearl Harbor
68
World War II—The European Theater
69
World War II—The Pacific Theater
70
The Cold War
71
The Korean War and McCarthyism
72
The Affluent Society
73
The Civil Rights Movement
74
The New Frontier and the Great Society
75
The Rise of Mass Media
76
The Vietnam War
77
The Women's Movement
78
Nixon and Watergate
79
Environmentalism
80
Religion in Twentieth-Century America
81
Carter and the Reagan Revolution
82
The New World Order
83
Clinton's America and the Millennium
84
Reflections
Narrator36 Revolutionary Figures of History
America's Founding Fathers
The American Revolution
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Nelson C
11-02-2016
Brilliant!
This is a long course, nearly 44 hrs, but it was one of the best series of lectures I've had the privilege of enjoying. Each lecturer was fantastic and added their own unique skills in the presentation of their respective subject matter. These lectures weren't a dry retelling of historical events, they captured the feel of the time and what was going on behind the scenes. There was a lot of depth added as they looked at the cultural mindset of the various periods, as well by exploring technological advancement, economic change and much more that added that little bit extra in widening one's horizon! The course coverage was much wider than simply the history of the US, it drew connections between the development of humanity in the modern age, of which America was at the forefront. If you like history I could not recommend this series highly enough.
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Ash
19-07-2022
Outstanding
A superb and comprehensive account of American history ranging from the earliest settlers to the turn of the millennium. I especially enjoyed the expertise and 'bottled-enthusiasm' of the lecturers. This work is worthy of a 6 star rating and a special thanks is in order to the Great Courses company for assembling and delivering this body of work; job well done.
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Anonymous User
29-07-2020
EXCELLENT!!!!!
Amazing lectures that will change your perception on many subjects regarding not only the US but the world too.
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Isabella
10-07-2017
Fantastic!
This book is fantastic, incredibly interesting with the right amount of detail to be interesting but not overwhelming. The narration is great. Can't recommend this book highly enough!
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Michelle Bourke
24-04-2016
Insightful, listenable and a marathon!
This was my first intro to US history. The natural speaking and obvious experience of each professor made this extremely listenable and enjoyable. It's hard to imagine a time where I wasn't excited to learn about history when through this it was so immensely interesting.
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