Long-positioned and long-respected as a bestseller for the U.S. history survey course that focuses on political history as its framework, this textbook's most significant strength is its rich and distinctive prose. For this Eleventh Edition, co-authors Mark Carnes of Barnard College at Columbia University and John Garraty have collaborated to retell the story of Americas past.

For the Eleventh Edition, the authors have written a new prologue on pre-Columbian America and the continents earliest human inhabitants, revised each chapter to incorporate recent research and scholarship, integrated more social and cultural history, selected many new illustrations and written informative new captions to engage students visually, introduced two new features, and updated the final chapter (33) to carry the story through the election of 2000, the beginnings of the Bush administration, and the events and aftermath of September 11, 2001, which have profoundly changed the American nation and its people.