Updates

2026

The text of the 2026 “Second Edition” of the American Yawp is now available for preview on a separate place-holder site. On July 1, the main website (americanyawp.com) will be refreshed to feature this new updated edition. The previous edition will be archived and will continue to be accessible on a separate webpage. Current chapter URLs will continue to function. As for the updates:

After a decade of minor annual updates, the American Yawp enlisted dozens of new contributors to craft a substantial update of the text. These changes include, for the first time since its launch as a tentative “beta” text in the fall of 2014, major structural changes. Although the American Yawp has been a living text with annual updates, to consolidate years of minor edits as well as to reflect the scale of new edits and restructurings, we are releasing the 2026 edition of the American Yawp as a “second edition.” Those changes are outlined below:

Most significantly, based on instructor feedback and solicited polling, we have compressed the original fifteen-chapter volumes down to fourteen-chapter volumes. We hope this better serves instructors who struggled to account for introductory weeks, half weeks, and other obstacles that necessitated doubling up on material. Furthermore, second-half instructors who incorporate Reconstruction (which continues to be included in Volume I online but is available in both print editions) will now have a maximum of fifteen chapters to cover.

Volume I has undergone a number of substantive changes and updates.

Chapter 1 is now entirely focused on Indigenous history. As we make clear in the final sentence of this new chapter, European arrival “began the second—not the first—chapter in the long American yawp.” The chapter has been renamed accordingly from “The New World,” which used European language even while trying to critique it, to “American Origins” which centers Indigenous perspectives. The new chapter devotes considerably more time to Indigenous creation stories, migration traditions, the political economy of Indigenous life, and Indigenous memory. The new chapter includes a more developed discussion of gender and women’s authority and demonstrates the depth and complexity of Indigenous systems of governance. New figures discussed range from Luther Standing Bear and the Lady of Cofitachequi to Haudenosaunee leaders such as Peacemaker, Hiawatha, and Jigonhasse. The revised chapter also introduces places such as White Sands, Watson Brake, Anaem Omot, and Haida Gwaii, alongside practices like the Eastern Agricultural Complex, Hohokam irrigation, and diverse Indigenous land management systems. Scholarly advances rooted in Western scientific authority are also explored, including the work of anthropologist David Graeber and archaeologist David Wengrow as well as those of anthropologist Eleanor Leacock. The chapter also devotes more attention to things only briefly discussed in the first edition, including the Indigenous communities at Poverty Point, Cahokia, and the Pacific Northwest.

The second chapter, now titled “Making an Atlantic World” draws on content from the first edition’s first two chapters but also includes substantially more information on Africa, European imperialism, the American Southwest, gender dynamics in colonialism, and a treatment of the Pacific World. While the first edition of the Yawp focused more narrowly on the European colonization of the Americas, the second edition frames Spanish and Portuguese exploration within a wider history of empire and capitalism. New people, places, and processes include the Polynesian settlement of Hawai’i, the voyages of Chinese explorer Zheng He, Swahili trade networks, and Islamic commerce in the Indian Ocean and Africa. The treatment of Africa introduces the Mali and Sonhay empires, the intellectual world of Timbuktu, the wealth and influence of Mansa Musa, Kongo-Portuguese diplomacy, and Islam in West Africa. This discussion enables a deeper discussion of the rise of the transatlantic slave trade. Another major addition to the second edition is a richer discussion of the Southwest and Borderlands. These discussions expand treatments of Cabeza de Vaca’s travels and introduce considerable new material on Timucua and Apalachee diplomacy, Coronado’s entrada, and Spanish encounters in California. Deeper analytical focus is spent on issues of gender and race, including Pueblo women’s authority, Iberian patriarchy, criollos, and the casta system. The second chapter also more accuately reflects the limits of Spanish conquest and enduring Indigenous resistance. This chapter attempts to more deeply engage the scholarship of Andrés Reséndez, Ramón A. Gutiérrez, John K. Thornton, and Camilla Townsend.

The greater emphasis on Atlantic and Indigenous history continues in chapter 3. More attention is paid to Native chiefdoms such as the Cofitachequi, Apalachee, Powhatan, and Caddo. Our second edition also reflects more recent scholarship on epidemic disease, explaining how the spread was contingent, regional, and repeated in waves. Relatedly, more attention is paid to Indigenous adaptation to disease. New discussions on gender include explorations of the legal rights of Dutch women, interracial marriage and sexuality in early Virginia, the role of Native headwomen in Florida missions, and the religious life of Kateri Tekakwitha. Additional complexity is given to the rise slavery with more careful treatment of racial formation, the legal codification of slavery, and Indigenous enslavement. New France and the Spanish borderlands receive more attention as does the insights of environmental history on issues like ecological disruption and invasive species. This chapter reflects new scholarly insights from Ned Blackhawk, Robbie Ethridge, Andrés Reséndez, Matthew Kruer, Lisa Brooks, and Alejandra Dubcovsky.

There are fewer changes for the next several chapters as chapters 4-8 largely map onto material from chapters 3-7 in the first edition. Still the repeated emphasis on Indigenous history, gender history, and Borderlands continues. Small changes to these chapters include a deeper portrait of political conceptions of British and emergent American identity; women’s participation in the marketplace; deeper discussions of slavery in the late eighteenth century, the 3/5ths clause, and the Hartford Convention; and finally considerably expanded discussions of Indigenous responses to eighteenth-century European settlement, including Haudenosaunee coalescence, the Covenant Chain, the Natchez War, and enduring Indigenous dominion over most of the continent. These updates are informed by recent scholarship from Jacqueline Beatty, Ned Blackhawk, Lindsay M. Chervinsky, Kathleen DuVal, Lauren Duval, Elizaeth Ellis, Sarah L. H. Gronningsater, Kirsten Silva Gruesz, Michael D. Hattem, Jennifer L. Morgan, Sowande’ M. Mustakeem, Cameron B. Strang, and Serena Zabin.

Chapters 9-11 treat the content that previously existed in chapters 8-12. In our first edition, these chapters on antebellum history thematically covered, in order, economics, politics, religion, the South, and the West. This led to considerable overlap. For example, the Missouri Compromise appeared in four chapters. To make way for additional material, we condensed these chapters into more rigorously chronological narratives. Chapter 9, “Getting Forward,” covers the period of 1815-1828. Chapter 10, “American Democracy” treats 1829-1837. And Chapter 11, “Growth and Conflict” explores 1838-1848. These chapters also are also now informed by recent scholarship from Michael A. Blaakman, Sven Beckert, Daiana Ramey Berry, Emily Conroy-Krutz, Justene Hill Edwards, Vanessa M. Holden, Kellie Carter Jackson, Maria R. Montalvo, Sharon Ann Murphy, Claudio Saunt, Christina Snyder, Whitney Nell Stewart, John Suval, Kevin Waite, Andrew N. Wegmann, Ben Wright, and Cassandra L. Yacovazzi.

Chapter 12 has also changed due to our new chronological structure. Discussions of filibustering, the West, the South, and immigration in the 1850s are now placed here. Similarly, earlier sectional conflicts have been moved to earlier chapters. Altogether these changes follow our attempt to reflect historiographical emphases on gender, Indigenous history, and Borderlands. We also renamed the chapter from “The Sectional Crisis” to “The National Crisis” to reflect historiographical changes. Scholarship that came out since our first edition that informed these changes includes work by Kristen Epps, Stephanie Jones-Rogers, Keanna Keith, James Oakes, and Manisha Sinha.

Chapter 13 now includes extended discussions of the Southwest, Confederate imperial ambitions, Union motivations, the actions of abolitionists during the war, and deeper engagement with Native American history, including the Dakota War, Sand Creek Massacre, and discussions of the Apache. This edition includes new insights from scholars like Richard Carwadine, Frank J. Cirillo, Thavolia Glymph, Andrew F. Lang, and Amy Murrell Taylor.

Chapter 14 has two small additions and one notable reframing. In line with recent scholarship, the chapter moves away from the older historiographical framing about whether Reconstruction was a success or failure and instead highlights the way that Reconstruction was overthrown and undermined by both white Democrats and Republicans. The two additions are discussions of the tragedy of the Freedmen’s Bank and a more robust conversation about Black politics, including greater treatment of Colored Conventions in the era. The chapter now reflects more recent work by Gregory P. Downs, Laura F. Edwards, Justene Hill Edwards, Annette Gordon-Reed, W. Caleb McDaniel, Nicole Myers Turner, and Kidada E. Williams.

Meanwhile, several major reorganizations have reshaped parts of volume II.

First, we removed redundancies in the coverage of the rise of industrial capitalism across the former chapters 16 (“Capital and Labor”) and 18 (“Life in Industrial America”), consolidating all such material in what is now chapter 15 (“Capital and Labor”), which has been bolstered to better capture the business side of “capital” and the radical alternatives of “labor.” Chapter 18 (“Life in Industrial America”), which is now chapter 17, has been retitled “New Lives” to better reflect its strengthened emphasis on late-nineteenth-century American culture life, including histories of race, immigration, gender and sexuality, consumerism, and urban amusements.

Better reflecting historiographies that view histories of the American West, American imperialism, and the U.S-Mexico borderlands as connected narratives, we have merged the former chapters 17 (“The West”) and 19 (“American Empire”) into the new chapter 16, which has been titled “Geographies of Empire.” Pre-Reconstruction histories of the American West, which occupied much of the former chapter 17, have been moved into volume I (especially chapter 13).

The remaining chapters of Volume II, especially from Chapter 18 (“the Progressive Era,” formerly chapter 20) to Chapter 26 (“The Unraveling,” formally chapter 28) have largely retained their original structure. Discussions of the immediate aftermath of World War II have been consolidated in our World War II chapter (chapter 22), postwar America discussions of the Cuban Missile Crisis have been moved from chapter 25 (“The Sixties”) to Chapter 23 (“The Cold War”), and split discussions of Jimmy Carter have been consolidated in chapter 26 (“The Unraveling”). Otherwise the chronological scope of these chapters remains largely unchanged.

To account for the more than twelve years of history that have elapsed since this project first began, the former chapter 30 (“Recent History”) has had its starting point moved up from 1990 to September 11, 2001, now extending twenty-five years up to the present. Chapter 27 (“The Triumph of the Right,” formerly chapter 29), now includes the 1990s as well as the 1980s, and redundant material on the 1970s has been consolidated in chapter 26 (“The Unraveling”).

Otherwise, edits to volume 2 aimed to better reflect contemporary scholarship. “The Triumph of the Right” includes new histories of feminism after the “sex wars” of the 1960s and 1970s. “The Cold War” better reflects American interventions in Latin America and the rest of the world. Native American history now peppers the twentieth century, rather than falling off after “The West” and reappearing briefly in the 1960s. Our World War II chapter focuses less on European and Pacific histories and more on the American experience. Multiple chapters better reflect Mexican-American and borderlands histories, LGBTQ histories, and histories of disability.

As we disclaim atop each chapter, however, The American Yawp is an evolving, collaborative text. We believe this round of changes will allow us to continue reflecting the best of recent American historical scholarship, but the labor of historians never ends and The American Yawp is never finished. We therefore renew our regular solicitation of feedback, readers reports, and new contributions, with the understanding that this project belongs to the American historical profession.

2022-2023

In response to the feedback of students and instructors collected on the CommentPress open review platform, We have made the following updates for the 2020-2021 academic year:

Volume I:

  • Clarified the discussion of Aztec agricultural and engineering innovation.
  • Explained the timing of the Treaty of Tordesillas
  • Refined the discussion of the Spanish Armada.
  • Distinguished more differences between the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies.
  • Acknowledged the warfare in Ireland that resulted from the Glorious Revolution.
  • Noted that eighteenth century Britons were subjects, not citizens.
  • Corrected the incorrect claim that rabbis participated in celebrations of the Constitution (contemporary accounts incorrectly identified Jewish leaders as rabbis. The first rabbi did not arrive in the United States until well into the nineteenth century.)
  • Added specifics on the timing of Tecumseh’s defeat at Moraviantown.
  • Clarified that William Henry Harrison’s territorial governorship was in Indiana.
  • Adopted more inclusive language when discussing the illegal economy in the antebellum era.
  • Highlighted Henry Clay’s role in passing the Missouri Compromise.
  • Added specificity about the Whig Party, including its electoral struggles following the Tyler administration and the coalitions it drew from and later inspired.
  • Mentioned Indian Removal in the section on Andrew Jackson and point readers to the extended discussion in chapter twelve.
  • Added detail to the contested election of 1824 and the “corrupt bargain” that resolved it.
  • Clarified a comment from Charles Graddison Finney regarding revivals in the region he termed “the burned over district.”
  • Adopted more sensitive language around Joseph Smith and the creation of sacred rituals.
  • Used more precise language to reflect fluctuations in land prices in the cotton South.
  • Clarified changes in southern fashion that deemphasized practical function in favor of signaling status.
  • Added greater specificity on the discovery of gold in 1848 California.
  • Removed inconsequential material from the postbellum era in order to maintain greater consistency of periodization.
  • Clarified the origins of the Free Soil Party as drawing on elements of the former Liberty Party, Conscience Whigs, and Barnburner Democrats.
  • Highlighted the collapse of democratic norms in Kansas
  • Specified how the Dred Scott decision eroded states’ rights in favor of enslaver-friendly federal power.
  • Explained Lincoln’s arguments in the Lincoln-Douglas debates
  • Defined habeas corpus and explained Lincoln’s revocation of it in Maryland.
  • Introduced the terms carpetbaggers and scalawags.

Volume II:

  • Chapter 16: Tempered treatment of the Populists’ electoral gains in 1894.
  • Chapter 17: Updated terminology surrounding Indigenous peoples
  • Chapter 20: Added discussion of the Black women’s club movement.
  • Chapter 20: Better specified the precise work of the WCTU
  • Chapter 24: Clarified the nature of wartime atrocities in the Pacific Theater
  • Chapter 26: Added discussion on the role of Joanne Robinson and other activists in launching the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
  • Chapter 26: Highlighted the work of Ralph Abernathy, Ella Baker, Septima Clark, and Fred Shuttlesworth in the formation and operation of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
  • Chapter 27: Added discussion of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (the Hart-Celler Act).
  • Chapter 27: Added discussion of Fannie Lou Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, including their boycott of the 1964 Democratic National Convention.
  • Chapter 27: Added discussion of Ella Baker and shifts in the civil rights movement, including the work of younger activists such as Julian Bond, Stokely Carmichael, Diane Nash, and John Lewis.
  • Chapter 30: Added discussion of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan.
  • Chapter 30: Carried forward the progress of the Covid-19 pandemic, including updated mortality figures.
  • Chapter 30: Included the Dobbs v. Jackson (2022) decision.
  • Chapter 30: Included discussion of transgender rights and sexual politics surrounding gender identity.

2021-2022

We have made the following updates for the 2020-2021 academic year:

Conforming to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) (or “full accessibility” or something to convey that we met some kind of standard).

To ensure the accessibility of our materials for all students, we employed the web’s leading accessibility checker, the WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool, to assess all of our content. This tool was developed by the Web Accessibility In Mind (WebAIM) initiative at the Institute for Disability, Research, Policy, and Practice at Utah State University. It applies the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG) to measure whether web content is accessible based on four criteria: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust (POUR). WCAG lists three levels of accessibility, level 1, 2, and 3. Full compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act requires web material to reach level 2. Working through all of our content using WebAIM’s WAVE tool helped us make dozens of small changes that, while often invisible to most readers, will ensure that our content is accessible to all of our students.

The growth of digital history has produced countless exciting project, but too many are not fully accessible. We encourage instructors to download the WAVE tool themselves and ensure that all of their assigned resources, not just The American Yawp, meet the WCAG standards. And our project remains a collaborative one. We encourage instructors with expertise in accessibility to email the editors to flag any additional accessibility issues they might encounter.

Keeping Chapter 30, “The Recent Past,” up to date

The digital nature of The American Yawp allows our text to capture the very latest historical developments. Our final chapter now includes discussions of the COVID-19 pandemic, the murder of George Floyd, the 2020 presidential election, and the January 6 insurrection.

Changes to Chapter 23, “The Great Depression”

We are thrilled to integrate substantial changes to this chapter based on the contributions of the historian Eric Rauchway. Under the guidance of Professor Rauchway, we have made substantial improvements, including a richer discussion of President Hoover’s response to the Depression, clearer details about the social costs of the Depression, clarifications and greater discussion of individual New Deal programs, and a greater overall depth to our coverage. Additional improvements suggested by Professor Rauchway, such as greater attention to the global financial system and the impacts of an aggressive American nationalism on economic policy, will be addressed in future editions. And, as always, we encourage additional feedback to improve this chapter

Unlocked PDFS

Many students and instructors informed us that the PDFs of the text were locked, preventing note-taking and editing. We have uploaded unlocked pdfs which are currently linked on the front page.

Minor Adjustments, primarily based on helpful feedback offered by scholars and instructors through our CommentPress open review platform

  • Recognizing the increasing evidence for pre-Clovis settlement in North America.
  • Expanding and nuancing our discussion of slaving in Africa.
  • Dozens of very small language tweaks to improve clarity. Including distinguishing between the Dutch and English East India Companies, the location of the New Haven colony, relabeling eighteenth-century Jewish leaders as such and not rabbi’s (who were not present in the United States until the 1830s), referring to the party of Jefferson as the Democratic-Republicans rather than Republicans, explaining that the admission of free alongside slave states was particularly important for balancing power in the United States Senate.
  • Added citations on a variety of issues, including understandings of gender in pre-Columbian America, the size and grandeur of Tenochtitlan, and Andrew Jackson’s Bank War.
  • We worked to include a few key phrases suggested by instructors that were described, but not explicitly named, including salutary neglect.
  • Eliminated the claim that some Aztecs may have seen Hernan Cortes as the god Quetzalcoatl. As a helpful comment from Eric Rodrigo Meringer noted, Camilla Townsend’s article in the American Historical Review has shown that the evidence for this interpretation is both scant and the claim is best understood as a Eurocentric myth.1
  • Adjusted the mortality rate of the Bubonic Plague.
  • Replaced an image about the 1860 election due to unnecessary profanity in the former image.
  • Included clearer definitions of terms such as “Gilded Age and “Containment”
  • Updated casualty numbers for the Korean War
  • Included additional discussions of specific acts of mass violence against Black Americans, including the 1898 Wilmington Coup and the 1921 Tulsa Massacre.
  • Added discussion about the environmental consequences of postwar suburbanization.
  • Included additional context for the August 26, 1970 “Women’s Strike for Equality,” particularly noting the link between women’s activism in the 1960s and 1970s to the earlier suffrage movement.

2020-2021

We have made the following updates for the 2020-2021 academic year:

  1. Retitled chapters 1 and 17 – Chapter 1 is now “Indigenous America” and Chapter 17 is now “The West.”
  2. Light revisions to chapter 17 – With the help of Lindsay Stallones Marshall (University of Illinois), we began the process of revising this chapter. But more work is yet to be done and we are eagerly soliciting contributors to help us with more substantial revisions.
  3. New Terms and New Capitalizations – Language and terminology evolve, and, as with all matters, we think of our text as much as a place to begin discussions as to find answers. In addition to explanations of our changes, we include links to scholarly reflections on these issues.
    1. Terms: We prefer Native Americans or Indigenous peoples to American Indian and give precedence to tribal affiliation whenever possible. We now also exclusively use enslaved people or enslaved laborers instead of slaves; and enslavers instead of masters, slaveowners, or slaveholders. Similarly, fugitives and runaways are now described as freedom-seekers. For discussion of the terms of slavery, see the National Park Service, Bridget L. Hylton, and this summary from Katy Waldman, including dissenting opinions from Eric Foner. See also P. Gabrielle Foreman, et al. “Writing about Slavery/Teaching About Slavery: This Might Help,” a community-sourced document on terminology produced by slavery scholars.
    2. Capitalizations: The American Yawp now capitalizes Black and Indigenous when referring to African descended peoples. We continue not to capitalize white. For arguments for capitalizing Black but not capitalizing white, see the New York Times, Associated Press, and Columbia Journalism Review. For dissenting opinions, see Kwame Anthony Appiah and the Center for the Study of Social Policy.
  4. Expanded Discussion Questions: With the help of Julia Bernier (University of North Alabama), we expanded our list of discussion questions for each chapter. We now offer five questions for each chapter. You can see these, as well as suggested syllabi, course readings, key terms, quizzes, essay assignments, and exams on our Teaching Materials Page. Like our text, these materials are licensed openly (CC-BY-SA) and you are encouraged to use them, download them, distribute them, and modify them as you see fit.
  5. PDFs for the Reader (Volume I & Volume II): To maximize accessibility, allow for easy printing, and guard against unexpected technical issues, we can now offer PDFs for both the text and the primary source reader. These carry the same open license as the rest of the project and can be printed and distributed, as well as modified, as you see fit.

The American Yawp remains freely available online and low-cost Stanford University Press print editions of The American Yawp (Volume I & Volume II) text remain available for purchase.

As always, we are eager to draw upon the whole of the historical profession for this project. In particular, we welcome your input on our main text through our feedback platform, available here. We will be engaging feedback and plan to substantially rework additional material in 2021. If you would like to help make substantial revisions, please contact the editors.

 

2019-2020

2019-2020 updates are now available. We have made three major improvements:

  1. An Expanded Primary Source Reader: We have added 60 new sources to the primary source reader to better reflect the under-represented voices and perspectives of the American past. You can see the new sources on our Reader updates page.
  2. A New Teaching Materials Page: In addition to our text and reader, we have created syllabi, course readings, chapter-by-chapter discussion questions, key terms, quizzes, essay assignments, and exams for both halves of the U.S. history survey. Like our text, they are licensed openly (CC-BY-SA) and you are encouraged to use them, download them, distribute them, and modify them as you see fit.
  3. Professionally Produced PDFs (Volume I & Volume II): To maximize accessibility, allow for easy printing, and guard against unexpected technical issues, we can now offer professionally produced PDF editions of our text, split into two volumes, care of Stanford University Press. These carry the same open license as the rest of the project and can be printed and distributed, as well as modified, as you see fit.

Note that the main text of The American Yawp remains unchanged and low-cost Stanford University Press print editions of The American Yawp (Volume I & Volume II) remain available. As always, we are eager to draw upon the whole of the historical profession for this project. In particular, we welcome your input on our main text through our feedback platform, available here. 

 

2018-2019

The 2018-2021 Stanford University Press edition of The American Yawp is now available. We have partnered with Stanford University Press to provide the project with a formal peer-review, copyediting services, and print editions.

The editorial team has spent the past 18 months reworking the text based on feedback from the Stanford editorial team, anonymous readers, and our open feedback platform. The peer-reviewed text is now live for the 2018-2019 academic year. We will be locking the text for three years–from fall 2018 to spring 2021–to preserve the peer-reviewed version of our text.

Most updates were minor, but returning instructors will notice a few key changes. Chapter 30, “Recent History,” for instance, now offers greater treatment of the early years of the Trump presidency and and recent American social movements.

Beginning in December 2018, Stanford University Press will be providing low-cost print copies of the text. Volume I and Volume II are now available to pre-order from the Stanford University Press site and from Amazon.com. The editions will be ready in time for the start of the spring 2019 semester.

Regular visitors will notice that the main site received a modest makeover. While the fundamental organization and layouts of the various pages remain unchanged, the cosmetic changes were designed to offer a cleaner user experience and better provide for mobile accessibility.

Note that, in 2017, we attempted the integration of Hypothes.is, an annotation and note-taking platform, into the American Yawp. That integration is active for our primary sources but, because it regularly crashed our pages, the plug-in was promptly disabled in our main text. We remain committed to the value of social annotation, and Stanford University Press is busy developing a viable alternative.

We look forward to another year offering students free and open access to the very best of historical scholarship, but the American Yawp remains an evolving, collaborative project. We are eager to continue drawing on the collective expertise of the historical profession, and we welcome your ongoing input through our renewed feedback platform, available here. (Previous years’ feedback can be found here, here and here).

 

2017-2018

The 2017-2018 edition of The American Yawp is now available. After integrating feedback from our open review, our editorial team has made the following improvements to the text. Most updates were minor, but returning instructors will notice a few key changes:

  • We have fully integrated Hypothes.is, an annotation and note-taking platform, into the project. The discreet pop up menu on the right of each page enables students to create free Hypothes.is account that will save their highlighting and note-taking and allow them to see others’ public notes and highlights. Find out more here: https://web.hypothes.is/
  • Each chapter now includes a curated listing of links to relevant primary sources in the American Yawp Reader. You can find each set of links under “Primary Sources” in the table of contents of each chapter.
  • On April 11, Dr. Melanie Newport, a history professor at the University of Connecticut, noted that all fifteen listed works of “recommended reading” on one of our chapters were authored by men. This was a serious flaw. We followed up our discussion of the issue and the feedback we received by redrafting the recommended readings for all of our chapters to better ensure that our text reflects the latest in historical scholarship. We encourage additional feedback on our CommentPress site, and those interested in the issue are encouraged to follow #womenalsoknowhistory on social media.
  • Most chapters were not substantially reworked this year, but we did make notable changes to several chapters based on feedback. For instance, Chapter 3, “British North America,” now includes a brief discussion of the Salem Witch Trials; Chapter 26, “The Affluent Society” has undergone substantial stylistic revision to improve student comprehension; and Chapter 30, “Recent History,” now offers greater treatment of the immediate past including the election of President Donald Trump.
  • For those using or referencing our previous edition, an archive is available.

We look forward to another year offering students free and open access to the very best of historical scholarship, but the American Yawp remains an evolving, collaborative project. We are eager to continue drawing on the collective expertise of the historical profession, and we welcome your ongoing input through our renewed feedback platform, available here. (Previous years’ feedback can be found here and here).

 

2016-2017

The 2016-2017 edition of The American Yawp is now available. After integrating feedback from our open review, our editorial team has made the following improvements to the text. Most updates were minor, but returning instructors will notice a few key changes:

  • The American Yawp Reader has expanded. We now provide material for all thirty chapters. Each chapter now includes a short introduction, five documents, and two pieces of media (mostly images). Note that, owing to copyright law, post-1923 sources rely heavily upon government documents that have been deposited into the public domain.
  • We have partnered with Hypothes.is to enable students to highlight and take notes in the text. The discreet pop-up menu on the right enables students to create a free Hypothes.is account that will save their highlighting and note-taking and allow them to see others’ public notes and highlights. *Note: we intend to beta test this feature in the Reader for the fall and for both the Reader and the main text in the spring.*
  • Our first chapter, “The New World,” now offers greater treatment of the dynamism and diversity of pre-Columbian Native America.
  • Our final chapter, “Recent History,” now offers greater treatment of the immediate past: the constitutional resolution of gay marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), the impact of social media, the Black Lives Matter movement, and more.
  • Each chapter now includes a recommended citation formatted according to the Chicago Manual of Style.
  • The homepages of the text and reader now include a search bar to better find particular names, places, or ideas across the site.
  • For those using or referencing our previous edition, an archive is available.

We look forward to another year offering students free and open access to the very best of historical scholarship, but the American Yawp remains an evolving, collaborative project. We are eager to continue drawing on the collective expertise of the historical profession, and we welcome your ongoing input through our renewed feedback platform, available here.

The American Yawp would not exist without the support and participation of scholars and educators like you. Thank you again.

 

2015-2016

  • A new introduction briefly explores the nature and importance of historical study.
  • The American Yawp Reader, a documentary companion to the main text, is now active for chapters 1-21 (Post-1923 copyright restrictions have delayed the uploading of documents for subsequent chapters). The reader includes five documents for each chapter, ranging from 500-1,000 words each. A short introduction prefaces each document, and citations and links are also provided.
  • Citations have been reinserted for all chapters.
  • Each chapter now contains a supplementary “recommended reading” section that lists relevant scholarly works.
  • “The Old South” is now “The Cotton Revolution,” reflecting recent historiography that has emphasized the relationship between American slavery and American capitalism.
  • To better foreground the major economic changes of the late-nineteenth century, and to achieve greater chronological cohesion across the text, Chapter 16 and Chapter 18 have switched places. Chapter 16 is now “Capital and Labor,” and Chapter 18 is now “Life in Industrial America.”
  • For those using or referencing the beta edition text, an archive is now available.
  1. Camilla Townsend, “Burying the White Gods: New Perspectives on the Conquest of Mexico,” The American Historical Review, Volume 108, Issue 3 (June 2003), 659–687. [↩]