Advanced Placement^® Edition

United States History, Classic Edition

Make college level content accessible to all students without sacrificing the rigor required for success

100% aligned to the most current AP^® U.S. History College Board^® CED.
Concise and focused content.
Scaffolded skill development.
High-quality primary sources.
AP-style assessment practice with multiple-choice items, LEQs, and DBQs.

This classic, chronological approach to U.S. History is a College Board-approved alternative to topic-based instruction and has been updated to reflect the latest CED. The concise and accessible narrative is divided into 31 chapters and nine chronological periods.

Each chapter includes:

Key terms organized by theme.
A narrative aligned to the course framework.
A set of multiple-choice questions and short answer questions.

Extensive AP exam preparation includes hundreds of AP-style multiple-choice, short answer, long essay, and document-based questions throughout the chapters and unit review, and a full-length practice test.

All test items have been meticulously constructed to model the format and quality of those on the exam.
Each question is tied to a specific learning objective from the course framework, allowing teachers to quickly diagnose individual and class performance.

AP United States History Classic Edition cover

College Board Course Audit Approval Support

Perfection Learning is an OpenStax ally. We join OpenStax in the mission to improve access to affordable educational materials by providing additional resources for OpenStax books. OpenStax is committed to providing free, peer-reviewed textbook content and offering multiple options for instructors who need additional resources for their course.

List the College Board-approved OpenStax U.S. History resource with the AMSCO U.S. History AP coursebook on your course audit. The paired OpenStax text is:

Available at no additional charge.
Listed on the College Board example textbook list as “U.S. History, OpenStax.”
Pre-approved for course audit submission.

The OpenStax U.S. History text has been aligned with the AMSCO coursebook including:

A day-by-day pacing guide showing how the AMSCO and OpenStax resources work together for instruction.
Page references to the exact locations in the OpenStax text where you can find additional instructional content to enhance and deepen the AMSCO instruction.
Point-of-use links in the AMSCO eBook and interactive editions to the OpenStax aligned content.

OpenStax Ally logo

Advanced Placement United States History Classic Edition and OpenStax covers

Think as a Historian

Chapter activities focus on practicing historical thinking skills—historical developments and processes, sourcing and situation, claims and evidence, context, connections, and argument.

Write as a Historian

Guidance for building writing skills for the long essay and document-based questions.

Historical Perspectives

Chapter activities develop and practice three critical historical reasoning processes—comparison, causation, and continuity and change over time.

Making college-level content accessible to high school students is of the utmost importance in ensuring success. The APUSH Classic coursebook is carefully written and designed to ensure all students:

Comprehend key ideas.
Learn and use concept vocabulary.
Build their analytical and writing skills.

Advanced Placement United States History Classic Edition Readability sample page

The APUSH Classic coursebook is built to meet the specific thematic learning objectives as well as the Key Concepts and Historical Developments for each unit. As a result, the depth and breadth of content coverage aligns precisely with the APUSH framework and exam.

AMSCO curriculum builds capacity, without sacrificing rigor, and supports students to develop the content knowledge and skills they need to be successful.

Initial inquiry and essay tasks are designed to be narrow in scope, allowing students to master smaller skills first.
Instruction and tasks to develop disciplinary practices and reasoning skills move from simple to complex as students gain competence.

eBook editions with built-in Immersive Reader support enable students to use a wealth of personalized tools to comprehend course content.

Translate and listen to the text in over 120 languages.
Customize readability by changing font type, size, and background color.

Immersive Reader image

Help students move from skimming and scanning to extracting key concepts, identifying events and developments, and formulating questions for further study. All highlights and notes are captured automatically in a running notebook—perfect for study and exam preparation.

Advanced Placement United States History Classic Edition Streamlined Notetaking image

Develop College Readiness Skills

Students gain the critical “thinking” and “doing” skills required in rigorous college courses through extended practice in:

Evaluating authors’ perspectives.
Analyzing primary and secondary sources.
Citing textual evidence to support arguments.
Developing cohesive written arguments.

Engage students through collaboration.

Participate in dynamic, inclusive small group discussions.
Share ideas and perspectives based on meaningful, text-based questions.

Think as a Historian activities build students’ skills in reasoning processes. These skills, which are precisely aligned to the appropriate CED topic(s), are critical for success on longer writing tasks.

Advanced Placement United States History Classic Edition Reasoning Processes image

The Historical Perspectives feature introduces conflicting interpretations about significant historical issues addressing the College Board's emphasis on how historians have interpreted events in various ways.

Advanced Placement United States History Classic Edition Historical Perspectives image

Success on the AP exam requires strong writing skills. The APUSH Classic coursebook features Write as a Historian activities to help students identify and organize evidence, structure arguments, and achieve successful outcomes on the exam.

Advanced Placement United States History Classic Edition Write as a Historian image

“

I've used the "AMSCO" book in AP U.S. History for over a decade. It is consistently a student favorite for its ease of use and straightforward style. It is evident that the book is written by classroom teachers which makes it particularly practical and useful for relevant review.

”

Social Studies Department Chair
Lincoln, Nebraska

“

Because the content in the AMSCO books is more accessible, concise, and focused just on what they need to know, students are actually reading the text. As a result, I've seen test scores go up."

”

Social Studies Department Chair, AP U.S. History, AP World History: Modern, and AP Psychology Teacher
Bradenton, Florida

Advanced Placement^® Edition

United States History, Classic Edition

Make college level content accessible to all students without sacrificing the rigor required for success

College Board Course Audit Approval Support