Description
By (author) Watson, Don
Short /annotation:
From revolution to civil rights, Old Hollywood to the Space Age—the extraordinary story of a nation that contains multitudes“A masterpiece of concision and analysis. Every American should read it.”—Judith Thurman, National Book Award–winning writer at The New Yorker
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When Britain’s thirteen American colonies declared their independence on July 4, 1776, the United States of America was born. It became a profoundly powerful nation that, for much of its history, has been the crucible of invention and creativity, a refuge for millions, and a beacon of hope, freedom, and multiculturalism. But from the start, it was hardly united. In this insightful, evenhanded account, Don Watson highlights the key figures who fought for the country’s inalienable rights and embodied its indomitable spirit—in politics and at home, on the frontiers and in its cities, in books and music and on screens. And he traces how the central conflicts of the United States—those over freedom, race, enterprise, religion, and violence—evolve through its history. As we witness a country at war with itself in the 1860s, leading the free world less than a hundred years later, and beset by wild division and turmoil in the twenty-first century, we see that this singular nation has never ceased changing—and that the American experiment continues to unfold.The Shortest History books deliver thousands of years of history in one riveting, fast-paced read.
Table of contents:
IntroductionBeginningsA Holy CommonwealthWar and ConsolidationManifest DestinyAwakening and Civil WarReconstruction and Gilded AgeProgressivesDepression and AfterWarPost-War USANew Frontier and Great SocietyDark Night, New MorningAmerica UnboundThe UnravellingAcknowledgmentsList of imagesIndex
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“A Barnes & Noble Best Paperback of the Month”Don Watson’s Shortest History of the United States is a masterpiece of concision and analysis that extracts the DNA from the body politic and locates both the resilience and the pathologies in its genes. Nothing else I have read explains the sources of our current dilemmas as a nation more astutely. Every American should read it; it should be on the curriculum of every high school.”
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“An insightful and clear account of the country, its founding ideas and the people who have tested ‘the truth of those ideas.'”
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“Lucid, informative, and thorough. . . . Warmly recommended for anyone with an interest in one of the most fascinating (for good and bad) nations in history. . . . Admirably balanced and nuanced.”
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“Praise for Don Watson”The best book by an outsider about America—forever.”
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“This is not travelogue, it is dazzlingly eloquent and perceptive; it is the Tocqueville of damaged but persistent and enduring dreams. Like Tocqueville, and unlike much writing by foreigners about the United States, it is affectionate and comes across the many Americas and their oddities with an uncondemning eye. It is entertaining and celebrates the not-often mentioned capacity of Americans to talk, narrate their lives and utter orations, a tendency which has always interested me as a foreigner. It is full of incident and consistently engaging. As a star of the epigram he”s right up there with Tocqueville, and as a story-teller he loses nothing to Theroux.”
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“A marvelous polemic.”
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“Watson wields the language like a bullwhip.”
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“There is a dictionary of clichés on my desktop in Beirut and I heartily recommend Watson”s Dictionary of Weasel Words by the Australian Don Watson.”
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“A truly magnificent achievement.”
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“The book’s brilli
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