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As Americans anxiously watch the stock market’s daily fluctuations, the rising unemployment rate, housing foreclosures and the scandals that have rocked the financial world, the fear of another Great Depression hovers in our minds....

Modern headlines often carry news of scandals, crimes, corruption, and violence. When historians study this darker side of life, they hope to use the events as windows on a particular era, shedding light on its cultural and religious...

In 1763 Americans toasted their King and their Mother Country. Twenty years later, they celebrated their independence from both. The story of the birth of our nation is a fascinating one—complex, surprising, triumphant and tragic. It...

In the decades immediately following the War of 1812, the face of America changed. Population grew and young Americans far outnumbered their parents. For many the West beckoned, and settlers poured into the region west of the original...

Americans love their sports. Many of us watch the year flow by, not from month to month, but from baseball to soccer to basketball to football season—until spring training rolls around and the cycle begins once more. Over our morning...

In recent months, our newspapers, cable shows, blogs and even You Tube have been filled with articles and commentary on the American economy. From optimistic reassurances that American capitalism and its institutions are basically...

Teachers responsible for a class in early American history often find themselves asking: When does American history begin? What does "America" include? Is this a story only of the English colonies, or is it the story of the settlement...

In this final issue of 2010, History Now offers readers a selection of the latest interpretations of the Civil War era by four leading historians. These essays remind us that this critical moment in the history of our nation continues...

Many of us who grew up in the decades of the Cold War have memories of participating in air raid drills in school, watching Joseph McCarthy and his anti-communist hearings on the grainy black and white of our televisions, waiting...

Everything that American children of my generation knew—or thought they knew—about Indians, or Native Americans, came from Saturday afternoon cowboy and Indian movies. We knew that they talked funny; they all lived in teepees; they...