"A richly crafted history of America's nation-building project told through the voices of its peoples, from the early settlers to its multicultural citizens of the twenty-first century"-- Provided by publisher.

"Born out of violence and the aspirations of its early settlers, the United States of America has become one of the world's most powerful nations, even as its past continues to inform its present and to mold its very identity as a nation. The search for nationhood and the ambiguities on which the nation was founded are at the root of this intelligent and forthright book. Taking a broadly chronological approach, it begins in colonial America as the first Europeans arrived, lured by the promise of financial profit, driven by religious piety, and accompanied by the diseases that would ravage and consume the native populations. It explores the tensions inherent in a country built on slave labor in the name of liberty, one forced to assert its unity and reassess its ideals in the face of secession and civil war, and one that struggled to establishmoral supremacy, military security, and economic stability during the financial crises and global conflicts of the twentieth century. Woven through this richly crafted study of America's shifting social and political landscapes are the multiple voices of the nation's history: slaves and slave owners, revolutionaries and reformers, soldiers and statesmen, immigrants and refugees. It is their voices, together with those of today's multicultural America, that define the United States at the dawn of a new century"-- Provided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: the making of a new world -- New found land: imagining America -- A city on a hill: the origins of a redeemer nation -- The cause of all mankind: from colonies to Common Sense -- Self-evident truths: founding the revolutionary republic -- The last, best hope of Earth: toward the second American revolution -- Westward the course of empire: from union to nation -- A promised land: gateway to the American century -- The soldier's faith: conflict and conformity -- Beyond the last frontier: a new deal for America -- A land in transition: America in the atomic age -- Armies of the night: counterculture and counterrevolution.

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