American Identities: An Introductory Textbook

American Identities is a dazzling array of primary documents and critical essays culled from American history, literature, memoir, and popular culture that explore major currents and trends in American history from 1945 to the present. The book charts the rich multiplicity of American identities through the different lenses of race, class, and gender, and shaped by common historical social processes such as migration, families, work, and war; includes editorial introductions for the volume and for each reading, and study questions for each selection; and, enables students to engage in the history-making process while developing the skills crucial to interpreting rich and enduring cultural texts. It is accompanied by an instructor’s guide containing reading, viewing, and listening exercises, interview questions, bibliographies, time-lines, and sample excerpts of students’ family histories for course use.