This class functions as an introduction to U.S. history, beginning with the end of Reconstruction and concluding in the present moment. We will study the defining questions that Americans and others confronted in this era: What kind of a nation is the United States? Who “counts” as an American, and what rights, privileges, and obligations does that identity entail? How have ideas about “Freedom” and “Unfreedom” shaped the nation? What is the United States’ role in the world and as an empire? To examine these questions, we will cover a variety of topics, including the freedom struggles of African Americans, Latinx Americans, Indigenous people, Asian Americans, LGBTQ+ Americans, and others; the roles that ideas about race, gender, and sexuality have played in the making of the modern United States; the migration of people within, into, and out of the United States; major social and political movements including Progressivism, the New Left, and the New Right; and major conflicts including the First and Second World Wars, the Vietnam War, and the U.S. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.