The Pursuit of Liberty: A History of the American People : To 1877 (001)

The Pursuit of Liberty takes a unique approach to the material traditionally taught in the American History survey course. Each chapter consists of two parts. The first part is a discussion of a specific episode: the witchcraft hysteria in Salem Village in 1692, for example; or the massacre of Sioux people at Wounded Knee Creek in the Dakotas in 1890. The second part places the episode in historical context through a narrative discussion of the relevant era. This episode-narrative approach engages student interest through the emphasis on story and then shows students how the particular stories relate to the larger fabric of American history. The third edition features increased coverage of non-English colonies, a chronologically organized overview of the colonial period, and new Episodes on the Spanish colonies and Native Americans, Edisto Island, and the Rodney King incident.