something that strikes me as a very obvious issue with the american pageant (14th edition) is that when discussing post-secessionary america, it is doing so entirely from the perspective of the halls of power, in terms of conflict between an emergent two-party system; it leaves me wondering where The People themselves figure into all this
(this is also necessarily centering white property-owning men extremely hard. what’s been happening in enslaved america? where do the women fit in? where do free black americans fit in? it’s literally just not even talked about for entire chapters)
the indigenous peoples get some mentioning, but in the context of war against america, or when they collaborate or interfere with western expansion. they are not the subjects of the narrative
very low bar but to its credit, this textbook is pretty uncompromising in its summary of the trail of tears
i don’t think this is surprising to anybody