Describe, in Haihn’s article, how black and white violence illustrates the difference of reconstruction.
2. Describe the kind of violence Lucy McMillan experiences via 1871. How does this illustrate the problem of reconstruction?
3. How do the Louisiana Black Codes reinstate a kind of “virtual slavery” in 1865?
4. What kind of tribute does William Howard Day give to President Lincoln?
CHAPTER TWO:
1. Is frontier settlement best understood as the story of competing ethnic, religious, and racial groups, or is it best understood as the place where capitalism left its mark?
2. Was the West truly the place where Americans were most individualistic, democratic, and free, as Turner argued, or was it actually riddled with inequalities?
3. One of the biggest occurrences of the 1870s was Custer’s Last Stand. Discuss the reminiscences of the battle.
4. Why did the Commission of Indian Affairs recommend severalty?
5. What is Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis?
6. Do you accept Worster’s thesis that the frontier was at the forefront of American 19th century capitalism?
CHAPTER THREE:
1. How did immigrants cope with conditions they found in America’s cities?
2. In what ways did workers set the terms of their own experience?
3. What does Lee Chow denounce about prejudice in America?
4. In Greene’s essay, how did music and poetry express immigrant culture?

CHAPTER FOUR:
1. How could a nation with democratic values fight a colonial war?
2. What are the “manly” values of imperialism, according to Teddy Roosevelt?
3. What specifics against imperialism does the American Anti-Imperialist League isolate?
4. How does Twain satirize “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”?
5. Describe the Roosevelt Corollary.
6. Discuss how Kramer describes America’s takeover of the Philippines.
CHAPTER FIVE:
1. To what extent was progressivism an expression of America’s old utopian tendencies and the genuine challenges of the industrial age, and to what extent was it a reaction common to all industrializing nations, regardless of politics?
2. What was the WCTU, and what problems do they say were caused by drinking and smoking?
3. What is civic housekeeping, according to Jane Addams?
4. Do you agree with Michael McGerr that progressivism was a radical movement? If so, they why? If not, then why not?
CHAPTER SIX:
1. How did World War I further the progressivism agenda, and how did the war undermine it?
2. What do you think of Woodrow Wilson’s wartime leadership? Was he a hopeless dreamer who bungled the attempt to restore peace, or was he the prescient architect of a new world order?
3. What do you think of the Espionage Act of 1918? Do you think it was a necessary measure?
CHAPTER SEVEN:
1. Why was there a great debate in the 1920s about the future?
2. Would you characterize this age as the Age of Jazz, or the Age of Prohibition? Why?
3. What is the ‘japanese problem’ as outlined by the Gov. of California in 1920?
4. Discuss and describe the examinations of William Jennings Bryan by Clarence Darrow in 1925.
5. How does the New KKK define Americanism in 1926?
6. Of what import is “petting”?
CHAPTER EIGHT:
1. Who was Franklin Delano Roosevelt? Was he a compassionate man of the people who salvaged and strengthened the American system, or a political opportunist who irresponsibly expanded the power of government to the detriment of society?
2. What were the shortcomings of the New Deal?
3. What, do you think, were the impact of songs like “Brother Can You Spare a Dime”?
4. Do you Agree with Hoover, that a limited government is best?
5. Who is Father Charles Coghlin, and why does he denounce Roosevelt?
CHAPTER NINE:
1. How did the war change American’s expectations of their nation’s role in the world?
2. In what ways did participation in World War II differ from participation in World War I and what were the consequences of these differences?
3. What was the Rape of Nanking?
4. What are Roosevelt’s ‘Four Freedoms’?
5. What was the effect of internment on family unity for Japanese Americans?
6. How does Eisenhower describe the concentration camps in 1945?
CHAPTER TEN:
1. Why was there a Cold War? Did Russian aggression make conflict inevitable, or did the U.S. overreact to the battered Soviet Union’s quest for security?
2. What was the Truman Doctrine?
3. How does McCarthy describe ‘the internal communist menace’ in 1950?
4. Describe how the federal Loyalty-Security Program expelled a postal clerk in 1954.
5. Why did Eisenhower choose to warn us of the military industrial complex in 1961? What dangers did he foresee?
CHAPTER ELEVEN:
1. Were the 50s really “Happy Days” or is the period best described as an era of psychological, social, and political tensions?
2. Why do the 50s prompt such nostalgia for poodle skirts, sock hops, hula hoops, stay at home moms, and fourth of July parades?
3. According to the newspaper survey, are you a conformist or a rebel? What do you think of these distinctions?
4. What is the ‘problem that has no name’?
5. What do you think of Coontz argument that families were never ‘the way they were’?
CHAPTER TWELVE:
1. In the lingo of the civil rights era, how did the “white establishment” advance or hinder the cause of democracy?
2. How does NOW believe equality can be achieved? Is it a conservative vision?
3. What do you think of Star Trek’s use of a multi-racial cast in 1967?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
1. Were the 60s a decade of hedonism, or heightened social responsibility?
2. Which changes initiated in the 60s are still with us today, and who “won” the culture wars?
3. What purpose did folk singers have in the counter cultural revolution?
4. How does Degroot “remember the 60s”?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN:
1. Regarding the Vietnam War, what other choices might American leader have made, considering the range of international problems they faced?
2. How did the war affect the nation’s people and government?
3. What do you think about a White House that creates an enemies list?
4. How does Sam Ervin explain the Watergate crisis?