If you are looking for a historic book that focuses mainly on the lack of freedoms for African Americans, Women and Native Americans, this is the right book. It is comprehensive in showing how freedoms were deprived and then established for all. ( )

The textbook for my American History to 1877 class. Quite easy to read for a textbook, I found this to be a good overview of the time period. ( )

Foner's Give Me Liberty! is an excellent U.S. history text. Rather than relying on a straight chronological march, divided up into social, military, and political headings as so many texts do, Foner's work takes a central idea, the American struggle for liberty (not to mention just what that word means), and shows the progression of our history along that line. This makes Give Me Liberty! not only a great textbook of history, but also a good teaching tool for showing students how to make a historical argument and support it with diverse evidence.

By far my favorite to teach from, Give Me Liberty! is an ideal college-level text for the American survey, and I would not hesitate to use it at the high school level as well.