Maintaining his challenging "inquiry approach," Pulitzer Prize winning author Irwin Unger organizes each chapter around a specific question designed to challenge students to consider the complexity of the past. The coverage has been updated and expanded to include coverage of the first months of the Clinton administration and several new sections focusing on "everyday life" in America. It also includes updated and expanded coverage of the natural environment and the environmental movement, expanded coverage of Native Americans, with several new historical portraits by Debi Unger.