The first theme, particularly salient during the first half of the course, involves the gradual process that transformed a loose confederation of separate states into a tightly knit union. During the first eighty-plus years of American independence, Americans disagreed sharply regarding the precise nature of the union that they had created, an issue ultimately decided by the verdict of a long and costly civil war. As late as 1860, the American people were still overwhelmingly rural, agricultural, Protestant, and of English descent, and they served a government that was severely limited in influence both domestically and internationally. By 1960, however, the trends of industrialization, urbanization, immigration, militarization, secularization, and the expansion of government had dramatically and permanently transformed our nation. Throughout this course, you will gain insight into the American past from two complementary but fundamentally distinct sources of knowledge.
Primary sources are historical artifacts created during the period of the past to be studied.
Historians of antiquity, for example, frequently study coins, statuary, and other archaeological finds to make inferences about past civilizations. Secondary sources, in contrast, are accounts of the past fashioned by historians. The assigned textbook for this course, Alan Brinkley s Unfinished Nation, is a good example. To the fullest feasible extent, I have designed this course to emphasize primary rather than secondary sources. In other words, whenever possible I would prefer that you read the testimony of historical participants rather than of historians.