Overview

We have a glut of text and trade books on American history. But what we don't have is a compact, inexpensive, and authoritative book that will offer to American citizens 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 skeptical or partial outlook of specialized professional academic historians, an outlook that leads to a fragmented and fractured view of modern American society and fails to convey the greater arc of history. A great nation needs and deserves a great and coherent narrative as an expression of its own self-understanding, and it needs to be able to convey that narrative 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 of the American past and an inspiring one. This account seeks to provide both.

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9781662000126

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Wilfred M. McClay is the G.T. and Libby Blankenship Chair in the History of Liberty at the University of Oklahoma and the director of the Center for the History of Liberty. A graduate of St. John's College in Annapolis, he received his Ph.D. in history from Johns Hopkins University. His book The Masterless was awarded the Merle Curti Award, and he has been appointed to the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, which is planning events for the nation's 250th anniversary in 2026. Pete Cross is an award-winning audiobook narrator and engineer who earned his MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. A multiple Earphones Awards winner and Audie finalist, he was nominated for a SOVAS award for his narration of Moby Dick and received the 2022 Audie Award for Ryan La Sala's Be Dazzled and the 2023 Odyssey Award for Ryan La Sala's The Honeys.

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