Don’t know much about….

Yes, an extremely overused lead-in, but it fits.

I have recently undertaken running a Citizenship Test Prep class – which required preparation on my part – which in turn led me to think about American History.

A candidate for naturalization has to answer 6 out of 10 questions correctly. The ten questions are drawn from a list of 100 questions covering the history and government of the United States. Of course, I have been randomly asking my co-workers questions from the list and while nobody (including me) got every question right, we all could probably pass the test.

Here are 10 randomly selected questions from the Citizenship test – can you get six right? The answers are at the very end of this post.

6. What is one right or freedom from the First Amendment?
11. What is the economic system in the United States?
14. What stops one branch of government from becoming too powerful?
17. What are the two parts of the U.S. Congress?
21. The House of Representatives has how many voting members?
42. Under our Constitution, some powers belong to the states. What is one power of the states?
51. What are two rights of everyone living in the United States?
55. What are two ways that Americans can participate in their democracy?
65. What happened at the Constitutional Convention?
82. Before he was President, Eisenhower was a general. What war was he in?

The problem with questions like these is that they are just random facts out of context – memorizing the answers might get you through the test, but it won’t really get you any further in your understanding of the United States.

With that in mind, here are a few books on American history to help fill in the background.
                                                                                                                                                                   
The Story of American Freedom by Eric Foner 

Freedom: a promised land, a battleground, America's cultural bond and fault line. The Declaration of Independence lists “liberty” among mankind's inalienable rights; the Constitution was framed to secure liberty's blessings. The United States fought the Civil War to bring about a new birth of freedom; World War II for the Four Freedoms; and the Cold War to defend the Free World.

In Eric Foner's stirring history, freedom's story unfolds through aspiration and sacrifice, its meaning shaped not only in congressional debates and political treatises, but on plantations and picket lines, in parlors and bedrooms. Its cast of characters ranges from Thomas Jefferson to Margaret Sanger to Franklin D. Roosevelt; from former slaves seeking to breathe real meaning into emancipation to the union organizers, freedom riders, and women's rights advocates of our time.

This landmark history shows the story of American freedom to be not a mythic saga but a vital, open-ended tale of accomplishment and failure, a record of a people forever contending over the crucial ideas of their political culture.

This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpen Faust

An illuminating study of the American struggle to comprehend the meaning and practicalities of death in the face of the unprecedented carnage of the Civil War. During the war, approximately 620,000 soldiers lost their lives. An equivalent proportion of today's population would be six million. This book explores the impact of this enormous death toll from every angle: material, political, intellectual, and spiritual. Historian Faust delineates the ways death changed not only individual lives but the life of the nation and its understanding of the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. She describes how survivors mourned and how a deeply religious culture struggled to reconcile the slaughter with its belief in a benevolent God, and reconceived its understanding of life after death.--From publisher description.


Wilderness at Dawn: The Settling of the North American Continent by Ted Morgan

This is the biggest, grandest, most sprawling story ever told, filled with battles and hardship, courage, determination, daring voyages into the unknown, and eye-opening discoveries...From the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of FDR, Winston Churchill, and Somerset Maugham, Wilderness At Dawn is the roughhouse epic of the unsung heroes, heroines, and rogues who tamed the rugged continent that became our country. Concentrating on those previously ignored by "polite histories" (ordinary settlers, unknown soldiers, scalawags, pioneer women, slaves, and Native Americans), Morgan uses scenes and dialogue from actual letters, journals, and diaries to recreate the odysseys, adventures, human dramas, and inhuman suffering that shaped America. Beginning with prehistoric man's first forays across the Bering Land Bridge, Morgan unfurls a rich tapestry of lost civilizations and Indian accomplishments; ambitious explorers, would-be politicians and transplanted Europeans confronting the wilderness; scrappy newborn towns and dandified plantation societies; great river navigations and catastrophic explorations; the bloody Indian wars and the birth of the American revolution. All are here - the triumphs, tragedies, battles and intrigues from the Ice Age when Early Man roamed an empty continent to the achievement of the all-American dream of "Land for Every Man." Morgan takes us into the world of the lost Anasazi people, where inventive Indians built houses of 500 rooms, veritable "cities of stone" tucked among the canyon walls. He takes us into the lives of the Indians of the Southwest where a shipwrecked Spanish explorer named Cabeza de Vaca became an indentured servant (and later medicine man) to a tribe of Indian fishermen. We see the arrival of the first Jews in North America, the harsh hierarchies of the Puritans, the intricacies of the rice planter societies of the early 1700s in Carolina. Enriched by Ted Morgan's own visits to most of the sites he describes, enlivened by the actual words of characters such as the circuit-riding minister Charles Woodmason, the freed slave Thomas Jeremiah, the frontiersman Christopher Gist and the plantation manager Eliza Lucas, Wilderness At Dawn is a lively world of rich historical storytelling and adventure.


A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn

"With a new introduction by Anthony Arnove, this edition of the classic national bestseller chronicles American history from the bottom up, throwing out the official narrative taught in schools--with its emphasis on great men in high places-- to focus on the street, the home, and the workplace. Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People's History of the United States is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of--and in the words of--America's women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers. As historian Howard Zinn shows, many of our country's greatest battles--the fights for a fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women's rights, racial equality--were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance. Covering Christopher Columbus's arrival through President Clinton's first term, A People's History of the United States, which was nominated for the American Book Award in 1981, features insightful analysis of the most important events in our history."-- Provided by publisher.

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dynbar-Ortiz

2015 Recipient of the American Book Award

The first history of the United States told from the perspective of indigenous peoples.

Today in the United States, there are more than five hundred federally recognized indigenous nations comprising nearly three million people, descendants of the fifteen million native people who once inhabited this land. The centuries-long genocidal program of the US settler-colonial regimen has largely been omitted from history. Now, for the first time, acclaimed historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz offers a history of the United States told from the perspective of indigenous peoples and reveals how Native Americans, for centuries, actively resisted expansion of the US empire.

With growing support for movements such as the campaign to abolish Columbus Day and replace it with Indigenous Peoples' Day and the Dakota Access Pipeline protest led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States is an essential resource providing historical threads that are crucial for understanding the present. Dunbar-Ortiz adroitly challenges the founding myth of the United States and shows how policy against the indigenous peoples was colonialist and designed to seize the territories of the original inhabitants, displacing or eliminating them. As Dunbar-Ortiz reveals, this policy was praised in popular culture, through writers like James Fenimore Cooper and Walt Whitman, and in the highest offices of government and the military. Shockingly, as the genocidal policy reached its zenith under President Andrew Jackson, its ruthlessness was best articulated by US Army general Thomas S. Jesup who, in 1836, wrote of the Seminoles: "The country can be rid of them only by exterminating them."

Spanning more than four hundred years, this classic bottom-up peoples' history radically reframes US history and explodes the silences that have haunted our national narrative.

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States is the winner of the 2015 PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature.

These Truths: A History of the United States by Jill Lepore

"In the most ambitious one-volume American history in decades, award-winning historian Jill Lepore offers a magisterial account of the origins and rise of a divided nation. The American experiment rests on three ideas--"these truths," Jefferson called them--political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. And it rests, too, "on a dedication to inquiry, fearless and unflinching," writes Jill Lepore in a groundbreaking investigation into the American past that places truth itself at the center of the nation's history. In riveting prose, These Truths tells the story of America, beginning in 1492, to ask whether the course of events has proven the nation's founding truths, or belied them. "A nation born in contradiction, liberty in a land of slavery, sovereignty in a land of conquest, will fight, forever, over the meaning of its history," Lepore writes, finding meaning in those very contradictions as she weaves American history into a majestic tapestry of faith and hope, of peril and prosperity, of technological progress and moral anguish. A spellbinding chronicle filled with arresting sketches of Americans from John Winthrop and Frederick Douglass to Pauli Murray and Phyllis Schlafly, These Truths offers an authoritative new history of a great, and greatly troubled, nation"-- Provided by publisher.

Leadership in Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin

"In this culmination of five decades of acclaimed studies in presidential history, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin offers an illuminating exploration into the early development, growth, and exercise of leadership. Are leaders born or made? Where does ambition come from? How does adversity affect the growth of leadership? Does the man make the times or do the times make the man? In Leadership in Turbulent Times, Goodwin draws upon four of the presidents she has studied most closely--Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson (in civil rights)--to show how they first recognized leadership qualities within themselves, and were recognized by others as leaders. No common pattern describes the trajectory of leadership. Although set apart in background, abilities, and temperament, these men shared a fierce ambition and a deep-seated resilience that enabled them to surmount uncommon adversity. At their best, all four were guided by a sense of moral purpose. At moments of great challenge, they were able to summon their talents to enlarge the opportunities and lives of others. This seminal work provides an accessible and essential road map for aspiring and established leaders in every field. In today's polarized world, these stories of authentic leadership in times of apprehension and fracture take on a singular urgency."--Provided by publisher.

History is one of those diverse subjects that almost requires taking the time to browse the shelves to see what’s there. You can approach history by period or area or events – it’s all here:

970 History of North America
970 History of North America
971 Canada
972 Mexico, Central America, West Indies, Bermuda
973 United States
974 Northeastern United States (New England & Middle Atlantic states)
975 Southeastern United States (South Atlantic states)
976 South central United States
977 North central United States
978 Western United States
979 Great Basin & Pacific Slope region of United States

But also, don’t forget biography!


Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

A New York Times Bestseller, and the inspiration for the hit Broadway musical Hamilton! "Nobody has captured Hamilton better than Chernow" -- The New York Times Book Review

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Chernow presents a landmark biography of Alexander Hamilton, the Founding Father who galvanized, inspired, scandalized, and shaped the newborn nation.

In the first full-length biography of Alexander Hamilton in decades, Ron Chernow tells the riveting story of a man who overcame all odds to shape, inspire, and scandalize the newborn America. According to historian Joseph Ellis, Alexander Hamilton is "a robust full-length portrait, in my view the best ever written, of the most brilliant, charismatic and dangerous founder of them all."

Few figures in American history have been more hotly debated or more grossly misunderstood than Alexander Hamilton. Chernow's biography gives Hamilton his due and sets the record straight, deftly illustrating that the political and economic greatness of today's America is the result of Hamilton's countless sacrifices to champion ideas that were often wildly disputed during his time. "To repudiate his legacy," Chernow writes, "is, in many ways, to repudiate the modern world." Chernow here recounts Hamilton's turbulent life: an illegitimate, largely self-taught orphan from the Caribbean, he came out of nowhere to take America by storm, rising to become George Washington's aide-de-camp in the Continental Army, coauthoring The Federalist Papers, founding the Bank of New York, leading the Federalist Party, and becoming the first Treasury Secretary of the United States. Historians have long told the story of America's birth as the triumph of Jefferson's democratic ideals over the aristocratic intentions of Hamilton. Chernow presents an entirely different man, whose legendary ambitions were motivated not merely by self-interest but by passionate patriotism and a stubborn will to build the foundations of American prosperity and power. His is a Hamilton far more human than we've encountered before--from his shame about his birth to his fiery aspirations, from his intimate relationships with childhood friends to his titanic feuds with Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Monroe, and Burr, and from his highly public affair with Maria Reynolds to his loving marriage to his loyal wife Eliza. And never before has there been a more vivid account of Hamilton's famous and mysterious death in a duel with Aaron Burr in July of 1804.

Chernow's biography is not just a portrait of Hamilton, but the story of America's birth seen through its most central figure. At a critical time to look back to our roots, Alexander Hamilton will remind readers of the purpose of our institutions and our heritage as Americans.



And if you are studying for the Citizenship Exam – check this out!

Civics and Citizenship Toolkit: A Collection of Educational Resources for Immigrants

The title says it all – a great collection of study aids.




============================================
Answers: 
6. What is one right or freedom from the First Amendment?
▪ Speech
▪ Religion
▪ Assembly
▪ Press
▪ Petition the government

11. What is the economic system in the United States?
▪ Capitalist economy ▪ market economy

14. What stops one branch of government from becoming too powerful?
▪ Checks and balances
▪ Separation of powers

17. What are the two parts of the U.S. Congress?
 ▪ The Senate and House (of Representatives)

21. The House of Representatives has how many voting members?
▪ Four-hundred thirty-five (435)

42. Under our Constitution, some powers belong to the states. What is one power of the states?
▪ Provide schooling and education
▪ Provide protection (police)
▪ Provide safety (fire departments)
▪ Give a driver’s license
▪ Approve zoning and land use

51. What are two rights of everyone living in the United States?
▪ Freedom of expression
▪ Freedom of speech
▪ Freedom of assembly
▪ Freedom to petition the government
▪ Freedom of religion
▪ The right to bear arms

55. What are two ways that Americans can participate in their democracy?
▪ Vote
▪ Join a political party
▪ Help with a campaign
▪ Join a civic group
▪ Join a community group
▪ Give an elected official your opinion on an issue
▪ Call Senators and Representatives
▪ Publicly support or oppose an issue or policy
▪ Run for office
▪ Write to a newspaper

65. What happened at the Constitutional Convention?
▪ The Constitution was written
▪ The Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution

82. Before he was President, Eisenhower was a general. What war was he in?
▪ World War II

- Meg B., West Windsor Branch

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