Main problems in American history. Vol. 1

The exciting clashes of issues which make history the fascinating discipline it is are presented by thirt-two noted scholars in this revised two-volume edition of Main Probiens in American History. Three centuries are spanned in these provocative interpretations of significant problems. The analyses and interpretations of the authors are not intended to serve as a point of departure, but rather to offer direction to thought and discussion. Appended to each essay is a small group of documents which are related to points raised in the essay. In this way, those documents which by themselves might be dull and unimportant become alive and meaningful. An extensive list of further readings completes each selection.

Volume I commences with an analysis of Puritan thought in the context of the 17th century. Titles which follow include Roger H. Brown's The Federalists and Public Order, Edward Pessen's Jacksonian Democracy, John G. Sproat's The Causes of the Civil War, and finally, Reconstruction, the Uncompleted Era, by Henry F. Bedford.