This introductory survey of American history focuses on the first people in America, the age of exploration and conquest, Colonial America, the American Revolution and the early Republic, American expansionism, and the Civil War. Topics will include the prehistoric migration, the creation of early civilizations in the Americas (the Olmec, Maya, Inca, Aztec, and Mississippian civilizations), the Native Americans, the European explorations and the Columbian exchange, slavery, the thirteen colonies, the American Revolution, the new government, the war of 1812, the new American borders, the Mexican American War, North versus South, and the Civil War.  Furthermore, we will also pay attention to the ethics (i.e., values and morals) that shaped American history and the formal and informal systems of belief from multiple viewpoints, including historical viewpoints of marginalized groups of people such as the Native American communities. 
We will focus our attention on the following questions during the course:

1.  What problems do scholars face in reconstructing the history of Native American civilization?
2.  What were some of the main achievements of the Classic period civilizations in Mesoamerica? 
3.  What were the motives for the European voyages of discovery?
4.  Why was the transatlantic trade so economically important?
5.  What was the new sense of liberty that arose from the American Revolution?
6.  Why did slavery become unacceptable in Western society?
7.  How did westward expansion of the colonies lead to tension with both the British and the Native Americans?
8.  What were the causes of the American Civil War?
9.  What was the significance of the Battle of Gettysburg?
10. Who won the American Civil War?

CONTENTS:

Sessions I. - II.
- the first people in America
- the Olmec, Maya, Aztec, and Inca civilizations
-  the Native Americans
- the age of exploration (Portuguese and Spanish expeditions)
- the Conquistadores 
- the Columbian exchange 

Sessions III. - IV.
- the European colonies in the Americas
- the slavery in the Americas
- the African American culture
- the Jamestown settlers

Sessions V. - VI.
- the thirteen colonies
- New England colonies
- Middle Colonies
- Southern Colonies
- the American identity

Sessions VII. - IX.
- the Pre-revolutionary war
- the British Parliament and the American protests
- the First Continental Congress
- Lexington and Concord
- the Second Continental Congress
- the Declaration of Independence
- the American Revolution
- Women in the revolutionary war
- African Americans in the revolutionary war

Sessions X. - XII.
- the Articles of Confederation
- the Constitution
- Federalist and the Anti-Federalists 
- the Articles and the Amendments 
- the American expansion

Sessions XIII. - XV.
-  North versus South
- the election of 1848
- the election of 1856
- the election of 1860 
- the Confederate States of America
- the Civil War