Framing America unites the many strands of North America's history and visual culture: the first contacts of the Spanish with the Aztecs and other Native Americans; the post-Revolutionary definition of nationhood; the visionary feeling for landscape and nature; the images of social and military conflict of the nineteenth century; and the tempering of the twentieth century's heady plunge into modernism by the Depression, World War II, the Cold War, and the culture wars.

The second edition features a thorough revision and reorganization, with substantially increased coverage of architecture and contemporary art, including the designs for the World Trade Center site and new assessments of the conceptual art of the 1960s and 1970s. In addition, illustrated timelines at the beginning of every chapter provide easy reference for events and major works discussed in the chapter.

Pohl's account is an adroitly inclusive fusion of many themes. Her discussion of the early definition of nationhood includes the traditional painters of the grand manner, West, Copley, Trumbell, and Stuart. But Stuart's portraits of George Washington, for instance, are also viewed in relation to portrayals of Washington in wood carvings, embroidery, and the vogue for "mourning pictures" after Washington's death, which create a domestic counterpoint to the more institutional portrayals.