US History Since 1877

Examines the political, social, and economic transformations of the Reconstruction era, including the constitutional amendments that redefined citizenship and the forces that ultimately dismantled Black political power in the South.

Explores the explosive economic growth of the Gilded Age, examining how industrialization transformed American society, generated vast inequality, and sparked the first major labor conflicts and reform impulses in U.S. history.

Surveys the Progressive movement's multi-front campaign to regulate corporate power, expand democracy, and address social ills — examining who drove reform, who was excluded, and how much actually changed.

Traces America's transformation from reluctant neutral to global power through WWI, then examines the contradictions of the 1920s — prosperity and poverty, cultural flowering and racial terror, democratic idealism and political repression.

Examines the causes and human toll of the Great Depression, then evaluates FDR's New Deal as a political and economic response — exploring what it accomplished, what it left undone, and how it permanently reshaped the relationship between government and citizens.

Examines America's road to World War II, the massive mobilization of the home front, and the moral complexities of the conflict — from the internment of Japanese Americans to the decision to use atomic weapons against Japan.

Examines the origins and early escalation of the Cold War — the ideological conflict between the United States and Soviet Union that reshaped global politics, militarized American society, suppressed domestic dissent, and defined everyday life in postwar America.

Examines the struggle for racial equality from Brown v. Board of Education through the landmark legislation of 1964 and 1965, including the strategies, sacrifices, and ideological debates within the movement.

Traces American involvement in Vietnam from the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution through withdrawal, examining the military conflict alongside the domestic antiwar movement and counterculture that fractured American society.

Surveys the constellation of liberation movements that remade American society — women's liberation, Chicano movement, American Indian Movement, gay rights, and environmentalism — examining their origins, tactics, and lasting impact.

Examines the rise of modern conservatism from Watergate through the Reagan Revolution, including supply-side economics, the religious right, and the end of the Cold War as the Berlin Wall fell.

Analyzes the United States in the 1990s — the Gulf War, Clinton's domestic agenda, NAFTA, the tech boom, and deepening culture wars — as America navigated a world without the organizing framework of Cold War competition.

Examines how the September 11 attacks transformed American foreign policy, domestic security, and civil liberties, and traces the country through the Iraq War, 2008 financial crisis, the Obama presidency, and the emergence of social media as a political force.

Examines the forces shaping contemporary America — political polarization, the pandemic, racial reckoning, immigration debates, economic inequality, and the challenge of maintaining democratic institutions in the digital age.