Here is a volume that is as big and as varied as the nation it portrays. With over 1,400 entries written by some 900 historians and other scholars, it illuminates not only America's political, diplomatic, and military history, but also social, cultural, and intellectual trends; science, technology, and medicine; the arts; and religion.

Here are the familiar political heroes, from George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, to Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. But here, too, are scientists, writers, radicals, sports figures, and religious leaders, with incisive portraits of such varied individuals as Thomas Edison and Eli Whitney, Babe Ruth and Muhammed Ali, Black Elk and Crazy Horse, Margaret Fuller, Emma Goldman, and Marian Anderson, even Al Capone and Jesse James. The Companion illuminates events that have shaped the nation (the Great Awakening, Bunker Hill, Wounded Knee, the Vietnam War); major Supreme Court decisions (Marbury v. Madison, Roe v. Wade); landmark legislation (the Fugitive Slave Law, the Pure Food and Drug Act); social movements (Suffrage, Civil Rights); influential books (The Jungle, Uncle Tom's Cabin); ideologies (conservatism, liberalism, Social Darwinism); even natural disasters and iconic sites (the Chicago Fire, the Johnstown Flood, Niagara Falls, the Lincoln Memorial). Here too is the nation's social and cultural history, from Films, Football, and the 4-H Club, to Immigration, Courtship and Dating, Marriage and Divorce, and Death and Dying. Extensive multi-part entries cover such key topics as the Civil War, Indian History and Culture, Slavery, and the Federal Government.

A new volume for a new century, The Oxford Companion to United States History covers everything from Jamestown and the Puritans to the Human Genome Project and the Internet--from Columbus to Clinton. Written in clear, graceful prose for researchers, browsers, and general readers alike, this is the volume that addresses the totality of the American experience, its triumphs and heroes as well as its tragedies and darker moments.

Editor-in-Chief: Paul S. Boyer , Merle Curti Professor of History and Director, Institute for Research in the Humanities, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Paul S. Boyer is Merle Curti Professor of History and Director of the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin--Madison, and the author of Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft.

"An extraordinary single-volume compendium of 1400 entries on U.S. history with the assistance of more than 900 contributors, including many well-recognized scholars. This edition is not only a resource on history itself but a measure of how the discipline has changed over the past generation... With numerous cross references and an extensive index, the entries are highly readable, and most have a short bibliography.... An excellent selection for both public and academic libraries. Highly recommended."-- ibrary Journal " A must read,"--Today's Books " "Every library should have at least one up-to-date, single-volume reference companion to U.S. history. Considering its prestigious Oxford University Press parentage and its reasonalbe price, this one will be hard to beat...Highly recommended."--Booklist

"Marked by clear writing and thought-provoking, supported analysis...Recommended."--The Virginian-Pilot "An addictive collection of essays..."--Times Literary Supplement "The best single-volume reference work available on the subject."--American Reference Book Annual 2002