Highly respected for its impeccable scholarship and elegant writing style, Alan Brinkley's provides students and instructors with a broad, comprehensive approach to the American past. It offers not only a scrupulous account of American political and diplomatic history, but also a deep exploration of the many other fields that are central to a critical understanding of the nation's past: social, cultural, economic, and urban history, including the histories of the South and the West, the environment, science and technology, race, ethnicity, gender, and the global context of the American experience.