It’s time to take history personally. This unique text takes a personal approach to American history to get readers excited about their own roles in making history and empower them to make changes for the betterment of their country.

Making History: A Personal Approach to Modern American History begins with the important point that while most standard textbooks refer to events that have shaped America, these events didn’t happen to America - they happened to individual Americans. It is individuals who give their lives in armed conflicts and lose their homes during financial downturns.

With this perspective in mind, students are prepared to read and think differently about post-Civil War history, including industrialization, the Spanish-American War and World Wars, the Depression, the Cold War, the Civil Rights Era, Vietnam, the rise of modern conservatism, and the country’s current state of decline. This edition features a new chapter on reconstruction and an assessment of the Obama presidency and the 2016 presidential election. The first history textbook to include comic book pages, Making History features artwork by comic book artist Gary Dumm of American Splendor.

With its non-traditional take on events and their impacts, Making History is a fresh alternative for survey courses in American history and historiography or classes in American civilization or popular culture.