I am going to be moving to the US In a couple of years for work and want to learn more about it's history. I studied History to an honours level, but I focused on the South Pacific (I'm from NZ).
I would like to start with a high quality General History to give me some context. I guess the logical starting point is European arrival through to the end of the cold war. If there is a good general text on pre-european society I'll read that too. I'm used to studying oral history so if there are limited text records from the period I'm used to the ambiguity.
After that I would like to focus on early European settler society - I'm familiar with the "city upon a hill" concept and I would like to explore it's implications or counter examples more throughly.
Other areas I would like to focus on are the Civil rights movement (probably post WW2 civil rights) and the American Civil War.
Basically I'm looking for a reading list that will give me a good base knowledge. I can then use the sources contained in those texts to explore further.
Any suggestions about where I should begin? I haven't studied the US in depth before and I'm curious to learn.
I'd recommend looking at the books that are part of the Oxford History of the United States. The authors are some of the leaders in the fields they are writing on and the books are engaging, accessible, but also academically rigorous.
I would start with the French Revolution and the English bill of rights. After the French Revolution move to Napoleon Bonaparte and maybe even how the English bill of rights directly effects the US bill of rights or our first ten ammendment. Don't forget the Atlantic trade system too! For me, these topics helped me understand the birth of the US much more. Goodluck!
I am in a similar situation. I'm British and a couple of years ago I married an American - we've lived in England our entire relationship so far though we intend to move to the States to be close to her parents in 3 or 4 years time.
So I started reading up American history due to: A, my love for history, and B, a sudden realisation that I knew basically nothing of American History.
As yet I've only read four books but I recommend all of them, I feel I have a pretty decent grounding in US history now.
I started with One Summer by Bill Bryson. This is a brilliant and fun read which ostensibly covers the events of the summer of 1927 but in actual fact it covers a lot of early 20th century American pop history in a really fun manner. I found it extremely engaging as well as giving me a good base for modern American culture. The key theme that runs throughout the book is the first solo flight across the atlantic which happened - you guessed it - in the summer of 1927. The pilot was Charles Lindbergh. If you're anything like me that name will be familiar to you but you'll not know why.
From there I moved on to The American West by Dee Brown. This focusses on the western expansion in general, in the period following the US civil war (i.e. the second half of the 19th century). It divides the chapters into three distinct groups - Natives, Settlers and Ranchers (cowboys). Its a really terrific book, it was fascinating to learn about the western expansion and the effect of that - and time and technology on the groups involved as the decades went by. It gives a fantastic all round background on the foundations of much of modern America.
From there I decided to go back to the actual foundations. I read Alan Taylor's American Colonies. Again this is another outstanding read that covers North America from pre-history up until the decade or so before the declaration of independence. Given the breadth of history covered, I found this to be thoroughly enjoyable form start to finish. As a non-American I worried that it would be a bit too "God Bless America" but there's none of that. From what I could tell it was pretty balanced and unbiased narrative and easy to read.
Finally I wanted to cover the revolutionary period and I chose Joseph J Ellis's American Creation. This is a thematic book rather than an end to end narrative so I found myself getting frustrated with giant gaps in the overall story. Once Ellis finished with one theme - e.g. the make up of the continental army and George Washington's tactics in the war - he jumps forwards years in time (for example, skipping the whole war and beginning to talk about the shaping of the constitution).
With that criticism aside, what is there is very informative, very interesting and again an unputdownable book.
It ends before the Louisiana purchase so really just deals with the "Revolutionary Generation" and so for me the next period is to cover the Louisiana Purchase through to the end of the civil war but I don't have any recommendations for this yet! If anyone else has a recommendation or two for this time period I'd be grateful to hear about them.
Hope that helps.