What does it mean to be informed? To know our history? This course encourages students to develop a critical understanding of the history of our nation. United States History II covers the chronological history of the United States from Reconstruction through the beginning of the twenty-first century and introduces key forces and major developments that together form the US experience, providing a balanced approach that considers the people, events, and ideas that have shaped the United States from both the top down (politics, economics, diplomacy) and bottom up (eyewitness accounts, lived experience), with particular attention paid to issues of race, class, and gender.

This text comes almost entirely from OpenStax U.S. History, but is supplemented with primary source readings from The American Yawp Reader. There are other minor additions and enhancements made by Lumen Learning or other faculty.

About Lumen

Lumen Learning’s mission is to make great learning opportunities available to all students, regardless of socioeconomic background.

We do this by using open educational resources (OER) to create well-designed and low-cost course materials that replace expensive textbooks. Because learning is about more than affordability and access, we also apply learning science insights and efficacy research to develop learning activities that are engineered to improve subject mastery, course completion and retention.

If you’d like to connect with us to learn more about adopting this course, please Contact Us.

You can also make an appointment for OER Office Hours to connect virtually with a live Lumen expert about any question you may have.