Designed for America's History, Seventh Edition, this primary-source reader offers a chorus of voices from the past to enrich the study of U.S. history. Document selections written by both celebrated historical figures and ordinary people demonstrate the diverse history of America while putting a human face on historical experience. A broad range of documents, from speeches and petitions to personal letters and diary entries, paints a vivid picture of the social and political lives of Americans, encouraging student engagement with the textbook material. Brief introductions place each document in historical context, and questions for analysis help link the individual primary sources to larger historical themes.

Author Biography

Melvin Yazawa is Professor of History at the University of New Mexico, where he has taught since 1984. He has been the recipient of a Presidential Lectureship, the Snead-Wertheim Lectureship, a Faculty Recognition Award, and the Graduate Students' Teaching Award. A specialist on the American Revolution and the early Republic, he has written Representative Government and the Revolution: The Maryland Constitutional Crisis of 1789 (1975); From Colonies to Commonwealth: Familial Ideology and the Beginnings of the American Republic (1985); The Diary and Life of Samuel Sewall (1998); and numerous journal articles and book chapters. He is currently working on a book on the politics of union and disunion in America, 1776-1815.Kevin J. Fernlund is Professor of History and Education at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, the Executive Director of the Western History Association, and a Fulbright Scholar. He is the author of the biographies Lyndon B. Johnson and Modern America (2009) and William Henry Holmes and the Rediscovery of the American West (2000), as well as editor of The Cold War American West, 1945 to 1989 (1998). His research and teaching interests include the American West and Big History. Fernlund has edited the fifth, sixth, and seventh editions of Bedford/St. Martin's Selected Historical Documents to Accompany America's History, Volume 2: Since 1865. "