Reading the American Past: Selected Historical Documents, Volume I: To 1877

by Michael P. Johnson

This two-volume primary-source collection provides a wide array of voices from the nation’s past while emphasizing the important social, political, and economic themes of U.S. history courses. Thirty-one new documents (one per chapter) allow for a multiplicity of perspectives on environmental, western, ethnic, and gender history and more global coverage. Edited by one of the authors of The American Promise and designed to complement the textbook, Reading the American Past provides a broad selection of over 150 documents and editorial apparatus to aid students’ understanding of the sources.

Genres: History, School, Nonfiction, Textbooks

352 pages, Paperback

First published October 8, 2004

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Michael P. Johnson (Ph.D., Stanford University) is a professor of history at the Johns Hopkins University. He has written or edited six books, including No Chariot Let Down: Charleston’s Free People of Color on the Eve of the Civil War (1984) and The American Promise.

Reviews

[Zackary · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great set of sources!

[Katelin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a collection of historical documents that were actually pretty entertaining to read. So for that reason, I gave it three stars even though I'm really glad to be done with this book!