Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Introduction: what, then, is the American? / Christopher Bigsby -- 2. The American century / Godfrey Hodgson -- 3. The regions and regionalism / Richard H. King -- 4. Immigration to the United States in the twentieth century / Roger Daniels -- 5. Religion in the United States in the twentieth century: 1900-1960 / Peter W. Williams -- 6. Shifting boundaries: religion and the United States: 1960 to the present / Wade Clark Roof and Nathalie Caron -- 7. The Hispanic background of the United States / Nicolâas Kanellos -- 8. African Americans since 1900 / Werner Sollors -- 9. Asian Americans / James Kyung-Jin Lee -- 10. Women in the twentieth century / S.J. Kleinberg -- 11. Queer America / Robert McRuer -- 12. The United States, war, and the twentieth century / Kenneth P. O'Brien -- 13. The culture of the Cold War / Stephen J. Whitfield -- 14. Secret America: the CIA and American culture / Hugh Wilford -- 15. Vietnam and the 1960s / John Hellmann -- 16. New York City and the struggle of the modern / Eric Homberger -- 17. Music: sound: technology / William Brooks -- 18. African American music of the twentieth century / Paul Oliver -- 19. Hollywood cinema / Walter Metz -- 20. Popular culture / Paul Buhle -- 21. Theatre / Brenda Murphy -- 22. Society and the novel in twentieth-century America / Emory Elliott -- 23. "Preferring the wrong way": mapping the ethical diversity of US twentieth-century poetry / Tim Woods.