This concise historical narrative by a prize-winning Cold War historian covers the entire Cold War period from the Yalta conference of 1945 to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The book analyzes the Cold War as the primary event and framework that dominated American thought and action for half a century.

The Vietnam War, which dominated American life during the 1960s, helped to create, radicalize, and alter social and political life in the US.

For students with no prior knowledge of the New Deal era, Ronald Edsforth presents a wide-ranging introduction to the sweeping political and economic changes that occurred in the first half of the 20th Century. Devoting a good portion of the book to the events that led to the New Deal, he presents the Great Depression as a prolonged economic crises that generated widespread human suffering but led to enormous creativity in the political culture and restored faith in the government.

The United States and Imperialism uses concepts of civilization, identity, the civilizing mission, and cooperation to explain the role of imperialism throughout American history. Ninkovich's original analysis of America as an empire shows how imperialism, anti-imperialism, and geopolitics have all played a role in how the United States made decisions when seeking new territories.