Course Title:  United States History
 
2 Semesters – 10 Credits – 5 Class periods per week
 

Course Objectives:
Central to discussion in this course will be the Biblical Core which emphasizes various Core Biblical Truths (CBTs).  The foundation of these CBTs provides the launching pad for studies into the various events and people who have shaped American History.  God’s sovereignty and faithfulness forms the first basis from which the students examine the turn of events and how His hand has shaped them for His purposes.  The students will also analyze how man’s depravity corrupted the flow of history, but they will also discover that man’s depravity will never overcome God’s will.  They will learn to discern Truth from historical revisionism as they look at what recorded history really said verses what even their own textbook holds to be truth.  They will have the ability to see that all Truth is God’s Truth and it is the basis for any true study of history, ours inlcuded.
 
In this year-long course, students will begin with a quick over-view of historical events leading up to and including the foundation of the American colonies, the American Revolution, the Civil War and Reconstruction.  With that foundation laid, students will spend the remainder of the year concentrating on important people and events that shaped the United States up to the beginning of the 21^st Century.  Students will be required to read historical documents, text assignments and other pertinent articles.  They will complete homework assignments as well as projects (both individual and group) and various papers and essays, along with taking tests to assess understanding of materials.
 
Course Description:
Because the emphasis of this course is a study of the 20^th Century, the discovery of the New World, the formation of the Colonies, the American Revolution, the establishment of the Nation, the Civil War leading to the Reconstruction is taught in an abbreviated fashion.  After this review unit, students will examine the Progressive Era and the changes brought to the nation following Reconstruction: economic changes; reform movements; the growth of industry; the rapidly changing moral standards; the advent of Evolution and its impact on the world.  During the course of the Progressive Era, the students will also examine political changes such as the advancement of parties, political machines, “the Spoils System” and its “remedy” the Pendleton Act.  As the century turns from the 19^th to the 20^th, an examination of two wars ensues and the impact of those wars on the nation.  Following the horrors of these two conflicts, the nation “lets its hair down” and the Roaring 20s begin.  The advances and the excesses of this era are examined both providing the backdrop to the nation’s next monumental calamity, the Great Depression.  With the crash of the Stock Maraket in 1929, students examine the poor economic decisions by people in the United States and the failed attempts of Hoover to stem the economic “blood flow.”  They will examine the staggering unemployment, foreclosures, lost savings, farms, etc. and how these served to decimate both the nation’s economy and morale.  They will then analyze the attempts of the newly elected “hero” F.D. Roosevelt and his New Deal; did it bring relief, recovery or reform?  Once more the nation will be plunged into a horrific war with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and students will discuss the causes (both long term and immediate), the lust for power and conquest, various battles and the consequences (both immediate and long term) of the unleashing of the world’s most horrifying weapon, the Atomic Bomb.  With the completion of World War II, the nation finds itself thrust into a new type of war, the Cold War.  A war not of physical weapons and battles, but of ideologies, words and tensions.  The students will discuss the impact of the Cold War on American and the Military Industrial Complex.  They will also discover that Cold War can become “hot war” when the battle between the spread of Communism will heat up into two wars testing the foreign policy of the US and our desire to stop Communism’s spread, Korea and Vietnam.  Both wars will cost thousands of lives and millions of dollars, but neither will come to a satisfactory conclusion.  Students will discover how American deals with these “defeats” and how they change the complexion of America.  They will see, however, the triumphs of space exploration and putting a man on the moon as more positive outcomes from the Cold War, despite their insidious undertones.  As the year draws to a close, the fall of Communism as an economic and political system will be discussed.  But just as it seems that the United States has vanquished its greatest foe, students will discover a new foe and its challenge to the United States, not on political grounds, however, but on religious ones.  Students will discuss how the US walking away from our Biblical foundations has led to the infiltration of tolerance of forces detrimental to the sanctity of our moral basis.  As students go back and review the Biblical roots, they will analyze how the abandonment of those roots has led American into embracing “differences” that have eaten away at our foundational core.  The forces against democracy have now led the US into “jihad” against Islamic extremists who bombed Marine barracks in Lebanon, the World Trade Center in New York, attack the sovereign nation of Kuwait and sent planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  They will examine the resilence of the American people, but also see how the lack of connection to our “roots” have left us without any true guide to follow.  As the year concludes, students will be challenged to take up their shields of faith and re-establish the foundations once established by the Framers of the Nation.
 
Textbook:
The Bible
 
The Americans: Reconstruction through the 20^th Century.  Danzer, Klor de Alva, Wilson.  McDougall-Littel: 2002.
 
 
Prerequisites:
Students are to have completed World History and have at least junior standing.