David E. Shi

George Brown Tindall

Tells the story of America's history, focusing on the individuals and groups that shaped it

A Narrative History

America

Looking across more than three centuries of want and prosperity, war and peace, Shi introduces a rich cast of practitioners and proponents of the simple life, among them Thomas Jefferson, Henry David Thoreau, Jane Addams, Scott and Helen Nearing, and Jimmy Carter.

Plain Living and High Thinking in American Culture

The Simple Life

A book students love, now more streamlined and accessible. America has sold more than 1.8 million copies over the past eight editions because it’s a book that students enjoy reading. Effective storytelling, colorful anecdotes, and biographical sketches make the narrative absorbing and the material more memorable. The Ninth Edition includes refreshed and updated coverage of African American history and has been streamlined from 37 to 34 chapters.

America: A Narrative History (Ninth Edition) (Vol. One-Volume)

Our current less-is-more impulse may have contemporary trappings, says David E. Shi, but the underlying ideal has been around for centuries. From Puritans and Quakers to Boy Scouts and hippies, our quest for the simple life is an enduring, complex tradition in American culture. Looking across more than three centuries of want and prosperity, war and peace, Shi introduces a rich cast of practitioners and proponents of the simple life, among them Thomas Jefferson, Henry David Thoreau, Jane Addams, Scott and Helen Nearing, and Jimmy Carter. In the diversity of their aspirations and failings, Shi finds that nothing is simple about our mercurial devotion to the ideal of plain living and high thinking. "Difficult choices are the price of simplicity," he writes in the book's revised epilogue. Although we may hedge a bit in the practice of simple living, and are now and then driven by motives no deeper than nostalgia, Shi stresses that our efforts to avoid anxious social striving and compulsive materialism have been essential to the nation's spiritual health. Book jacket.

Looking across three centuries of want and prosperity, war and peace, this work introduces a cast of practitioners and proponents of the simple life, among them Thomas Jefferson, Scott and Helen Nearing, Jimmy Carter and Jane Addams. It finds that nothing is simple about our mercurial devotion to the ideal of plain living and high thinking. Though we may hedge a bit in practice and are now and then driven by motives no deeper than nostalgia, this work stresses that the diverse efforts to avoid anxious social striving and compulsive materialism have been essential to the nation's spiritual health.

With more than two million copies sold, America remains the leading narrative history survey text because it's a book that students enjoy reading. The Tenth Edition is both more relevant, offering increased attention to the culture of everyday life, and more accessible, featuring a reduced number of chapters and a streamlined narrative throughout.

The president of Furman University reflects on a variety of subjects.

Reflections on Learning and Living

The Bell Tower and Beyond

The best-selling storytelling approach with tools that develop history skills.

The Essential Learning Edition of America's celebrated narrative offers a unique pedagogical program built around core objectives. In-chapter features guide reading, source activities guide analysis, and digital resources reinforce the reading and skill development, all providing a clear path for student success. The Second Edition has been made even more accessible and engaging with a streamlined narrative, expanded visuals, added coverage on the culture of daily life, and NEW History Skills Tutorials.

America: The Essential Learning Edition

Dějiny Spojených států amerických

Shi provides the most comprehensive history to date of the rise of realism in American culture, vividly capturing the character and sweep of this all-encompassing movement that ranges from Winslow Homer to the rise of the Ash Can school, from Whitman to Henry James to Theodore Dreiser.

David E. Shi

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