Fabric of a Nation: A Brief History with Skills and Sources, For the AP® Course

by Jason Stacy, Matthew J. Ellingon

In 2014, College Board rolled out a new AP® U.S. History course, which centered less on memorizing content and more on developing skills. Since then, the course has been modified here and there, but very little has changed in AP® textbooks—content is still king. Until now. Fabric of a Nation is the first book to truly embrace this dramatic shift in the AP® course and in how history is taught.


Built from the ground up by long-time AP® leaders Jason Stacy and Matthew Ellington, this book offers a new approach to AP® US History by seamlessly




A brief historical narrative

AP® skills practice

Primary source documents

Exact alignment to the AP® course

Now, that’s revolutionary!

1088 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 3, 2020

About the author

Jason Stacy is an associate professor of United States history at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. He is the author of Walt Whitman’s Multitudes: Labor Reform and Persona in Whitman’s Journalism and the First Leaves of Grass, 1840–1855 and editor of Leaves of Grass, 1860: the 150th Anniversary Facsimile Edition. He lives in Edwardsville, Illinois.

Reviews

[Kaeli · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.0 stars— Did I enjoy this book? No. Did I want to cry when Mr. Packer made us read 60 pages on the Gilded Age each night in January? Maybe. But did I read, highlight, and annotate every page of this thing while simultaneously averting my eyes when I saw a purple box, blue box, picture, or map? Yes. I read (or at least saw) all 855 pages, so it’s going on Goodreads. Rating subject to change depending on whether or not I get a 5 on the AP test, but I think I learned more from this than some of my other textbooks.

[Taya · Rating 2 out of 5]

time will tell, essentially july

[Odessa · Rating 1 out of 5]

didn't namedrop fortnite i want my money back

[NIKA]

reading this for history was the bane of my existence. i’m counting this towards my reading goal bc
1) i’m behind
2) i deserve something for reading all of this 1000 page textbook

[Darrell Keller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a bad textbook for the AP US History course. While it is definitely left-leaning, it is not nearly as left as most other high school history textbooks. There is work to do to balance it out, but it is tolerable, especially if you balance it out with fair perspectives from the right's point of view. The textbook is built with the AP exam in mind (though the 2nd Edition better conforms to the APUSH Course and Exam Description) and equips the students with multiple practice MCQs, LEQs, and DBQs.

Go with the 2nd Edition and I think you will find a textbook worth using here.