US History: From colonies to today
American history is an argument, carried on for centuries, about who gets to belong and who gets to decide.
Founding as contest
Independence settled sovereignty but not its meaning. Constitution, Jefferson’s agrarian republic versus Hamilton’s market republic: every later era re-litigates the same tension.
Expansion and its costs
Territory grew through purchase, treaty and conquest. Each growth spurt reopened the question the founders deferred, above all slavery, until the Civil War answered it in blood and amendments.
What this course teaches
Nine units trace the arc: colonization and revolution, the early Republic, Civil War, the Gilded Age, the Progressive Era, the Depression and New Deal, World War II, the Cold War, and modern America.
Flashcard
Independence to Constitution
Check your understanding
The Missouri Compromise (1820) temporarily settled: