We have a glut of text and trade books on American history. But what we don’t have is a compact, inexpensive, authoritative, and accessible book that offers young Americans a clear, informative, and inspiring narrative account of their own country. Such an account can shape and deepen their sense of the land they inhabit and, by making them understand that land’s roots and share in its memories, equip them for the privileges and responsibilities of citizenship in American society. It will provide them with an enduring sense of membership in one of the greatest enterprises in human history: the exciting, perilous, and consequential story of their own country. The existing texts simply fail to tell that story with energy and conviction. They are more likely to reflect the partial outlooks of specialized academic historians, outlooks that lead to fragmented and fractured views of modern American society and have had an enormous, and largely negative, effect on the teaching of history in American schools. This state of affairs cannot continue for long without producing serious consequences. A great nation needs and deserves a great and coherent narrative that can be conveyed to its young effectively. It perhaps goes without saying that such a narrative cannot be a fairy tale or a whitewash of the past; it will not be convincing if it is not truthful. But there is no necessary contradiction between an honest account and an inspiring one. This book seeks to provide both.
