People
Places
Eras
Events
Documents
Concepts
Guides
Home
/
Concepts
Concepts
78 entries
Featured
American Slavery
The institution that built the republic's wealth, defined its politics, and nearly destroyed the nation
Checks and Balances
The constitutional design that prevents any branch of government from becoming supreme
Manifest Destiny
The 19th-century belief that American expansion across the continent was fated and righteous
The Industrial Revolution
The transformation of American labor, production, and daily life, 1820–1900
Browse by Subcategory
Political Movements
24 entries
Ideologies, parties, and political traditions — from Federalism to Progressivism to Populism — that organized American public life.
Economic Systems
9 entries
Capitalism, the New Deal, the regulatory state, and the doctrines that have organized American economic life over time.
Social Issues
20 entries
Race, gender, class, immigration, and the social questions Americans have argued over since the founding — and continue to argue over.
Foreign Policy Doctrines
18 entries
The grand strategies — Monroe Doctrine, containment, détente, manifest destiny — that have framed America's engagement with the world.
Religion & Society
7 entries
The role of faith in American public life — from Puritan New England to evangelical politics, revivals to disestablishment.
All Concepts (A–Z)
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
R
S
T
U
W
Y
A
Abolitionism
The movement to end slavery in America, from moral argument to political force
Affirmative Action
The Six-Decade Legal and Political Battle Over Race-Conscious Remediation
American Dream
The belief that effort and merit guarantee opportunity in America
American Exceptionalism
The conviction that the United States occupies a unique and exemplary place in world history
American Imperialism
The expansion of U.S. power, territory, and influence beyond its continental borders
American Innovation
How a culture of invention turned the United States into the engine of the modern world
American Slavery
The institution that built the republic's wealth, defined its politics, and nearly destroyed the nation
B
Big Stick Diplomacy
Roosevelt's doctrine of speaking softly while projecting American power across the hemisphere
Black Lives Matter
The movement against racism and police violence born of a hashtag
Black Power
A movement demanding Black self-determination, pride, and political independence
C
Capitalism
The economic system that built American prosperity — and its persistent contradictions
Checks and Balances
The constitutional design that prevents any branch of government from becoming supreme
Civil Disobedience
The deliberate, nonviolent refusal to obey unjust laws as a form of moral protest
Containment
America's Cold War strategy to halt the spread of Soviet communism
The Counterculture of the 1960s
The cultural rebellion that challenged postwar conformity and permanently altered American life
D
Dollar Diplomacy
Taft's strategy of substituting American investment for military force — with mixed results
The Domino Theory
The Cold War premise that communist takeover in one country would trigger a regional chain reaction
Due Process
The constitutional guarantee that government cannot deprive citizens of life, liberty, or property without fair procedures
Détente
Nixon and Kissinger's strategy of easing Cold War tensions through direct diplomacy
E
Electoral College
The constitutional mechanism for electing presidents — and the perpetual argument about it
The Environmental Movement
From Theodore Roosevelt's conservation to Rachel Carson's alarm to the unresolved politics of climate
Equal Protection
The Fourteenth Amendment guarantee that government must treat similarly situated people equally under the law
Evangelical Christianity
The faith of revivals, reform movements, and the most durable political coalition in modern American history
Executive Order
The presidential tool the Constitution never named — and no president has stopped using
F
Federalism
The division of power between national and state governments that defines American governance
First Great Awakening
The 1730s–1740s religious revival that made Americans a people before they were a nation
The Frontier Thesis
The argument that the American frontier made America — and what happened when it closed
G
Gerrymandering
The art of drawing district lines to choose your voters before they choose you
The Great Society
Lyndon Johnson's legislative program to end poverty and expand opportunity
I
Immigration
The continuous movement of people that built, transformed, and defined the United States
The Industrial Revolution
The transformation of American labor, production, and daily life, 1820–1900
Isolationism
The foreign policy doctrine that kept America out of two world wars — until it didn't
J
Jim Crow Laws
The system of racial segregation that governed the South from Reconstruction to the 1960s
Judaism in America
From a 1654 landing in New Amsterdam to the largest Jewish diaspora community in history
Judicial Review
The power of courts to strike down laws that violate the Constitution
K
Keynesian Economics
The Theory That Government Spending Could Save a Failing Economy
The Knights of Labor
The first great American union — and its rise and sudden fall
L
The Labor Movement
The century-long fight by American workers for fair wages, safe conditions, and human dignity
The Lost Cause
The Confederate mythology that rewrote the Civil War — and shaped a century of American race relations
M
Machine Politics
The urban political organizations that traded services for votes and ran American cities for a century
Manifest Destiny
The 19th-century belief that American expansion across the continent was fated and righteous
McCarthyism
The anti-communist witch hunt that suppressed dissent and defined postwar American politics
The Middle Passage
The brutal Atlantic crossing that carried millions into American slavery
Military-Industrial Complex
Eisenhower's Warning About the Alliance Between Defense Industry and Government Power
Mormonism
The only major religion born in America — and the only one expelled from multiple states at gunpoint
Muckraking
The Progressive Era journalism that exposed America's hidden costs of industrial prosperity
N
Nativism
The recurring American belief that immigrants threaten the national character
NATO
The alliance that deterred a war for 40 years — and redefined itself when that war never came
The New Deal
Franklin Roosevelt's 1933–1939 legislative program to combat the Great Depression
O
The Open Door Policy
America's turn-of-the-century bid for equal access to China
P
Populism
The agrarian movement that challenged corporate power and reshaped American democracy
Puritanism
The theology that named America a chosen nation — and what survived when the faith faded
R
Red Scare
Two Episodes of Anti-Communist Hysteria That Reshaped American Civil Liberties
S
The Second Great Awakening
The religious revival that reshaped American faith, reform, and politics, 1800–1840
Sectionalism
The regional rivalry between North and South that drove America toward Civil War
Segregation
The Legal and Social System That Enforced Racial Separation Across American Life
Separation of Church and State
The constitutional principle Jefferson named, the courts refined, and America has been arguing about ever since
Separation of Powers
The constitutional division of government authority among three independent branches
Social Darwinism
The Gilded Age ideology that dressed inequality in the language of natural law
Sports in America
How games became one of the nation's great stages for race, money, and identity
States' Rights
The constitutional doctrine that shaped — and shadowed — American history
Suburbanization
How Postwar America Built a New Geography — and Who It Left Out
T
Temperance Movement
The campaign against alcohol that reshaped American social and political life
Transcendentalism
The New England movement that gave America its philosophy of individual conscience
Truman Doctrine
The Cold War Policy That Committed America to Containing Communism
Trust-Busting
The Progressive Era campaign to break up industrial monopolies and restore competition
U
U.S.–Britain Relations
From the empire America rebelled against to its closest ally — two centuries from war to the "special relationship"
U.S.–China Relations
From Open Door to trade war — the relationship that will define the 21st century
U.S.–France Relations
The ally that won America its independence, sold it a third of a continent, and gave it the Statue of Liberty
U.S.–Mexico Relations
A 1,954-mile border, a war that one side calls an invasion, and two centuries of inseparable entanglement
U.S.–Soviet Relations
Allies for four years, adversaries for 46 — the rivalry that defined the 20th century
U.S.–Spain Relations
From the empire that colonized half the continent to the war that ended its American reach
Underground Railroad
The secret network of routes and safe houses that carried enslaved people to freedom
United Nations
The institution America built, funds, defies, and cannot replace
Urbanization
The great demographic transformation that moved America from a rural to an urban nation
W
Westward Expansion
The century-long process by which the United States spread from the Atlantic to the Pacific
Women's Liberation Movement
The feminist uprising of the 1960s and '70s that transformed American law and culture
Y
Yellow Journalism
The Sensational Press That Helped Start a War and Shaped American Media