Keys to American History - Understanding Our Most Important Historic Documents

If there is one supplementary reference you'll want to have on your shelf when studying American history at the upper level, this is it. This incredible resource contains the text of over 70 original documents spanning 300 years of U.S. History. The documents are divided into eight chapters, including Colonial times, the War for Independence, the young Republic, the pre-Civil War years, the Civil War, Reconstruction and expansion, World War I and II, and modern times (1945-2002). I appreciate the uncomplicated nature of the book. The author, realizing that there are entire books written about many of these documents, has kept simple. Each document is briefly introduced, usually along with a small but full-color reproduction of the document. The text of the document, or the portion that is the most poignant, is then provided in a shaded box. Although some spellings have been modernized for ease in reading, the words themselves have been preserved. After the documents, a short "What They Were Saying" section provides responses to the document from newspapers, speeches, politicians and other people from the time the document was written. These fascinating entries provide us just a little bit of a peek into the window of time to understand the context of the document and the effect that it had on Americans. With such "biggies" contained here such as the Mayflower Compact, the Stamp Act, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Louisiana Purchase Treaty, the Dred Scott Decision, the Constitution of the Confederate States, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Reconstruction Act, the Social Security Act, the Civil Rights Act, and the USA Patriot Act, this book will easily find a use with any U.S. history curriculum you may be using. 224 pgs, pb. Jess