The publication of new monographs situating the study of US history in the global arena presents an opportunity for faculty at the college and secondary levels to rethink the teaching of American history. New research on subjects as diverse as American missionaries in the nineteenth-century Middle East, Hollywood films in post-WWII occupied Japan, the role of Panama in the gold rush of California in the 1850s, and Puerto Rican migration to the United States in the context of US colonialism in the Caribbean, all pose challenges to traditional nation-centered accounts of American history that fail to look beyond US borders. Influenced by the La Pietra report published by the Organization of American Historians in 2000, this scholarship has grown in breadth and depth such that new US history textbooks are now being published. These new textbooks are designed to support faculty, first at the college level, and eventually at the secondary level, to re-conceptualize American history courses such as Twentieth Century US history, US in the World, the American history survey, and a variety of electives including the AP US history course.

This roundtable discussion features Christopher T. Fisher and Robert C. McGreevey, co-authors of Global America: The United States in the Twentieth Century (Oxford, 2017). The authors, together with Charles Cavaliere, executive editor for history at Oxford University Press, will discuss how the American history field is changing and how next textbooks such as Global America seek to both reflect and advance new thinking in US history. Chaired by Craig Perrier, specialist for Social Studies in the Fairfax County Schools, Fairfax, VA, this roundtable discussion will allow ample time for discussion with the audience on changes in the teaching of US history now underway at the college and secondary levels.