About This Database

Place Students and Researchers at the Center of the Great Debates in American History

With Issues and Controversies in American History, history comes to life, not as a mere recitation of names and dates, but as a series of turning points where the future hung in the balance and opinions raged on all sides. This educational database builds a deeper understanding of how historical events have shaped the United States by exploring the issues as the key players saw them. Each in-depth exploration delivers dynamic, concise, and balanced coverage that provides the background, outcomes, and contemporary points of view for the major topics in every American history curriculum. Telling the stories partly through carefully chosen primary source documents gives researchers both information and insight. This database is the perfect complement to Issues and Controversies, American History Online, or any other Facts On File history and civics online resources.

Features:

• Issues in American History, updated biweekly, with extensive links to overviews and background articles, touching on crucial topics from Colonial America to the present
• Arguments for and against, giving a framework for understanding and analysis of each issue—as it was seen in its time and as it relates to our own
• Primary source documents, encyclopedia articles, and biographies, instantly accessible from in-depth articles
• Special historical features, including presidential election coverage, timelines, photographs, statistical charts, explanatory diagrams, maps, and cartoons
• Bibliographies and Web sites, guiding further research
• Discussion Questions and Activities, promoting critical-thinking skills and enhancing understanding of the issues
• "Need a Research Topic?" featuring key themes and questions with links to related articles from throughout U.S. history
• Curriculum Tools, featuring assignment and activity suggestions for educators, and a special section on working with primary source documents
• Convenient functions, including persistent record links, save-to-folder, and citation display.