Surveys United States history from Pre-Columbian America through the Civil War. Focuses on the ideas and issues that shaped the emergence of the United States including institutional development, cultural transformation, and political evolution. Themes examined include: exploration and colonization, early America's relations with the British empire; the American Revolution; establishing the new republic, Jacksonian Democracy, the technological and economic development of the young nation, social and cultural life, westward expansion, the sectional crisis, and the Civil War. Introduces techniques of historical research and critical writing about the early history of the United States.