It is published by Cengage and is listed by the College Board among the textbooks that meet the curricular requirements of AP United States History.

All are divided into six parts, from "Founding the New Nation" (with an initial chapter on prehistory, natives, and European exploration) through "Making Modern America."

This edition adds twelve new "Thinking Globally" essays and many new box-quotes adding more international voices to the events chronicled in the book's historical narrative.

Each chapter has a new feature called “Contending Voices”, which offers paired quotes from original historical sources, accompanied by questions which prompt students to think about conflicting perspectives on controversial subjects.

[2] Historian Emil Pocock, evaluating the 10th edition of 1994, argues that the publisher has made a special effort to be more approachable for beginning students by using a more basic vocabulary, simpler concepts, and features designed to aid learning.

It gives a basic political narrative emphasizing great men and famous events, although it does include new topics regarding diversity of race and gender.

Pocock states: It is at heart a patriotic work that celebrates American progress and the free enterprise system, while largely ignoring dissenting political viewpoints outside the mainstream.

It is likely that Houghton Mifflin [then the publishers of the book] took pains to avoid the subject lest some southern state textbook adoption board take offense.

"[5] The same report states that anthropologist Naomi Reed, after reviewing the 12th (2007) and 15th (2015) editions, determined that the textbook "consistently takes a white redemptive narrative of American history.