Introduction: The stories of American history and why they matter

The book opens in explaining that this very short introduction to American cultural history emphasizes culture as a driving force in American history. Cultural history is the history of stories, their origins, transmission, and significance in time. However, no work of cultural history can disentangle the cultural from political, economic, and social processes of change. The relationship between culture and identity needs to be understood along with the spatial context of cultural production and its physical location within distinct geographies. American culture has been the sum of diverse global influences, from almost every part of the world, but it has not contained itself within national boundaries.