The book provides concise and competent information about the history of the USA from colonial times to the present, as well as the defining developments in modern US historiography. This introduction focuses on the classic themes of American history: cultural contact and conflict with Native Americans, westward expansion, slavery, race relations and ethnic diversity, immigration, religious pluralism, the founding and development of the federal republic, the formation of democracy, the development of modern industrial and consumer society, and the rise of the USA as a global superpower.