This is a course about the long “American Century” and the social, political, environmental, and cultural developments that made and defined it. We will spend the semester learning to employ the tools of the historian, not only to think critically about the past but also to bring curious and open minds to an old story we think we’ve heard before. We will read closely, research carefully, and listen attentively and openly to multiple voices and differing points of view. Our goal is not simply to know what happened between the Civil War and the 21^st century, but rather to explore that past through a series of themes and questions that might also prove useful for understanding something about the present.