What Every American Should Know About American History

Collection of 200 important historical events that impacted American history from Leif Ericson exploring Vinland to the Cold War ends.

The What Every American Should Know series returns with a timely guide to the region Americans need to understand the most (and know the least) The latest edition of Melissa Rossi's popular What Every American Should Know series gives a crash course on one of the most complex and important regions of the world. In this comprehensive and engaging reference book, Rossi offers a clear analysis of the issues playing out in the Middle East, delving into each country's history, politics, economy, and religions. Having traveled through the area over the past year, she exposes firsthand the U.S.'s geopolitical moves and how our presence has affected the region's economic and political development. Topics include: · Why Iran is viewed as a threat by most Middle East countries · What resource is more important than petroleum in regional power plays · What's really behind the fighting between Sunni and Shia · How Saudi Arabia inadvertently feeds the violence in Iraq and beyond · How monarchies like those in Jordan and Qatar are more open and progressive than the so-called republics With answers that will surprise many Americans, and covering a vast history and cultural complexity that will fascinate any student of the world, What Every American Should Know About the Middle East is a must-read introduction to the most critical region of the twenty-first century.

A must-read for parents and teachers, this major bestseller reveals how cultural literacy is the hidden key to effective education and presents 5000 facts that every literate American should know. In this forceful manifesto Professor E. D. Hirsch, Jr., argues that children in the United States are being deprived of the basic knowledge that would enable them to function in contemporary society. They lack cultural literacy: a grasp of background information that writers and speakers assume their audience already has. Even if a student has a basic competence in the English language, he or she has little chance of entering the American mainstream without knowing what a silicon chip is, or when the Civil War was fought. An important work that has engendered a nationwide debate on our educational standards, Cultural Literacy is a required reading for anyone concerned with our future as a literate nation.

Covers the principal events of United States history; lists causes, effects, and other key points; and provides information about the Constitution and the federal government. Original.

Confused about the news? Slip out of the room when friends talk current events? Now you can keep up with ease and learn to talk like a diplomat. Among the things you’ll soon be able to slip into everyday conversation: What is the difference between Kurdistan and Kazakhstan? Why did North Korea’s leader kidnap his favorite actress? Why is Osama bin Laden so mad? Which countries still have slaves? Why is Kashmir “the most dangerous place in the world?” What country has the most Muslims? Why are they fighting in Chechnya? What little box prompted Hutus to kill Tutsis? Who is Prince Turki and how did his hunting trip change history? How are cows fueling the fighting between India's Muslims and Hindus? Which country drew maps that have resulted in the most intractable wars? What is controversial UN Resolution 242? What makes Qatar stand out? What country does Sumatran coffee come from? What country’s fakes forced the US to redesign the $100 bill? Who is the FARC and why have they been fighting for decades? An entertaining guide to political science, current events, foreign affairs, and history, What Every American Should Know about the Rest of the World gives you the vocabulary and background you need to decipher the modern world in a simple-to-understand format.

“Nothing short of a masterpiece.” —NPR Books A New York Times Bestseller and a Washington Post Notable Book of the Year In the most ambitious one-volume American history in decades, award-winning historian Jill Lepore offers a magisterial account of the origins and rise of a divided nation. Widely hailed for its “sweeping, sobering account of the American past” (New York Times Book Review), Jill Lepore’s one-volume history of America places truth itself—a devotion to facts, proof, and evidence—at the center of the nation’s history. The American experiment rests on three ideas—“these truths,” Jefferson called them—political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. But has the nation, and democracy itself, delivered on that promise? These Truths tells this uniquely American story, beginning in 1492, asking whether the course of events over more than five centuries has proven the nation’s truths, or belied them. To answer that question, Lepore wrestles with the state of American politics, the legacy of slavery, the persistence of inequality, and the nature of technological change. “A nation born in contradiction… will fight, forever, over the meaning of its history,” Lepore writes, but engaging in that struggle by studying the past is part of the work of citizenship. With These Truths, Lepore has produced a book that will shape our view of American history for decades to come.

From Anne Hutchinson to Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Betty Friedan, American women have been at the forefront of the battle to extend the right of liberty to all Americans. The 200 key events featured in this book extend from colonial times to our own century and covers such issues as social reform, work, family life, and the struggle for equal rights.