Give Me Liberty!: An American History

Citation

Foner, E., DuVal, K., & McGirr, L. (2025). Give Me Liberty!: An American History (8th ed.). W. W. Norton & Company.

Chapter Summary

This is a survey textbook of United States history in twenty-eight chapters grouped into six parts, from the colonial period to the present. The publisher, W. W. Norton, says the book offers an authoritative and accessible narrative organized around the central theme of freedom, tracing its changing contours and limits for different groups of Americans. In the eighth edition Kathleen DuVal, an expert in early America and lead author of Volume 1, and Lisa McGirr, an expert in twentieth-century America and lead author of Volume 2, join Eric Foner, and the publisher says they have deepened the coverage of women's history, including private and public freedoms from reproductive justice to economic liberty. The book is sold as a Combined Volume (Chapters 1–28), Volume 1 (Chapters 1–15, Beginnings to Reconstruction) and Volume 2 (Chapters 15–28, Reconstruction to the Present), with Seagull and Brief editions listed separately.

Part 1: American Colonies to 1763 (Chapters 1–4)

The first part opens with Chapter 1, "Old Worlds and New", and moves through "European Colonies and Native Nations, 1600–1660" and "The Rise of Anglo-America, 1660–1750" to "Slavery, Freedom, and the Struggle for Empire, to 1763". Its titles place Native nations, the growth of English colonies, slavery and imperial rivalry side by side.

Part 2: A New Nation, 1763–1840 (Chapters 5–10)

Chapter 5, "The American Revolution, 1763–1783", is followed by "The Revolution Within", "Founding a Nation, 1783–1791" and "Securing the Republic, 1791–1815". The part closes with "The Market Revolution, 1800–1840" and "Democracy in America, 1815–1840".

Part 3: Slavery, Freedom, and the Crisis of the Union, 1840–1877 (Chapters 11–15)

This part has "The Peculiar Institution", "An Age of Reform, 1820–1840", "A House Divided, 1840–1861", "A New Birth of Freedom: The Civil War, 1861–1865" and "'What Is Freedom?': Reconstruction, 1865–1877". Chapter 15 is the point at which Volume 1 ends and Volume 2 begins.

Part 4: Toward a Global Presence, 1870–1920 (Chapters 16–19)

The chapters are "America's Gilded Age, 1870–1890", "Freedom's Boundaries, at Home and Abroad, 1890–1900", "The Progressive Era, 1900–1916" and "Safe for Democracy: The United States and World War I, 1916–1920".

Part 5: Depression and Wars, 1920–1953 (Chapters 20–23)

This part covers "From Business Culture to Great Depression: The Twenties, 1920–1932", "The New Deal, 1932–1940", "Fighting for the Four Freedoms: World War II, 1941–1945" and "The United States and the Cold War: 1945–1953".

Part 6: What Kind of Nation? 1953–2024 (Chapters 24–28)

The final part has "An Affluent Society, 1953–1960", "The Sixties, 1960–1968", "The Conservative Turn, 1969–1988", "A New World Order, 1989–2004" and "A Divided Nation".

Key Concepts

Colonial Era to the Early Republic (Chapters 1–10)

• Freedom as the organizing theme: the publisher's description of what ties the chapters together.
• Native nations and Anglo-America: the pairing of Native nations and English colonies in the chapter titles.
• The Revolution Within: the title of Chapter 6, placing social change beside the political events of Chapter 5.
• Market Revolution: the economic transformation named in Chapter 9.

Slavery, Civil War and Reconstruction (Chapters 11–15)

• The Peculiar Institution: slavery, the subject of Chapter 11.
• "What Is Freedom?": the question that gives Chapter 15 its title.

Twentieth Century (Chapters 16–28)

• Progressive Era and New Deal: reform periods with chapters of their own.
• The Four Freedoms: the phrase used in the title of the World War II chapter.
• The Conservative Turn: the title of Chapter 26.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A single guiding theme. The publisher presents freedom, in its changing meanings and limits, as the thread connecting the chapters, and chapter titles such as Chapter 15 and Chapter 22 carry it.
• Clear chronological structure. Six parts with date ranges and twenty-eight chapters give a map of the survey, and the volume split at Chapter 15 allows a course to be divided at Reconstruction.
• Support for teaching and study. Norton lists an interactive ebook with author videos and primary-source, visual and map interactives, the InQuizitive adaptive tool, history-skills tutorials, and the Voices of Freedom companion reader organized by chapter.
• Currency. The final part runs to 2024 and the eighth edition adds recent scholarship on women's history.

Limitations

• Length. The combined volume is listed at 1,352 pages, more than a single term can cover, so teachers select chapters or choose a shorter version such as the Brief edition (described in the publisher's text for the sixth edition as 30% shorter than the full edition).
• Depends on edition and package. Chapter titles differ between editions (Chapter 3 is titled "The Rise of Anglo-America, 1660–1750" in the eighth edition and "Creating Anglo-America, 1660–1750" in the seventh-edition AP version), and the digital resources are offered as packages, so what a student receives depends on the version bought.
• A survey, not a monograph. The chapters cover a very long span in a single narrative; depth on a single period requires specialist books.

Where It Fits in the Course

In the American history course, this is the full-length survey textbook. Boyer's American History: A Very Short Introduction is a brief interpretive history that can be read first or used as a quick refresher, and The American Yawp is an openly licensed collaborative survey covering a similar span, suitable as a free alternative or a second voice. Foner and McGirr's American History Now is the companion for historiography: it is a collection of essays surveying recent scholarship, and it assumes the basic narrative of a survey such as this one.

For depth, McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom expands the material of Part 3 on the Civil War era into a one-volume history, and Georgakas's Detroit: I Do Mind Dying is a study of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers in Detroit that relates to the chapters of Part 6.

How to Use This Book

The book is written for students in a United States history survey, and no prior study is needed.

A practical plan:

• Choose the volume that fits the course: Volume 1 (Chapters 1–15) or Volume 2 (Chapters 15–28), or the combined volume for the full span.
• Read a part at a time, using the part titles and date ranges to keep the chronology in view, and ask in each chapter whose freedom is being discussed and how its meaning changes.
• Use the digital and primary-source materials, in particular the Voices of Freedom reader and the history-skills tutorials, to move from reading the narrative to analysing sources.
• Add depth where a course needs it: Battle Cry of Freedom for the Civil War, American History Now for debates among historians, and a short interpretive book such as Boyer's for a rapid overview.