HIST 2401 U.S. History I

Fulfills the US History requirement for Majors. Followed in spring semester by HIST2402. This course is an introduction to United States History from the pre-Columbian Era to the end of the Civil War. The principal text will be the first volume of the textbook edition of Jill Lepore'sWe Hold These Truths. After considering the Indigenous settlement of North America, we will proceed through the era of European encounter with and settlement of the continent. Particular attention will be paid to the rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, the emergence of American slaveholding, settler treatment of the Indigenous, and the consequences of the rivalries among European colonizing powers. Study of the English settlers struggle to obtain their rights within the British Empire will lead us into the American Revolution, the writing and implementation of the Constitution, and the struggles of the early American Republic to define itself, struggles which finally led to the fragmentation of the Union followed by its reunification by force of arms in1865. This course is particularly suitable for students associated with the Lynch School of Education, but all are welcome.