| Introduction | |
| Essay I. | A World of Their Own: The Americas to 1500 |
| Essay II. | Contact: Europe and America Meet, 1492-1620 |
| Essay III. | The Founding of New Societies, 1607-1763 |
| Essay IV. | What Was The American Revolution? 1760-1836 |
| Essay V. | The Ambiguous Democracy, 1800-1848 |
| Essay VI. | "Now We Are Engaged in a Great Civil War," 1848-1880 |
| Essay VII. | "What, Then, Is This American?" 1865-1900 |
| Essay VIII. | Waves of Reform, 1880-1921 |
| Essay IX. | Boom and Bust, 1921-1933 |
| Essay X. | The Age of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933-1945 |
| Essay XI. | Leader of the Free World, 1945-1975 |
| Essay XII. | A Nation in Quandary, 1975- |