This history by the former director of the National Book Foundation identifies ten values that have inspired and defined the American consicousness. In addition, the leaders who presented each ideal are named with an explanation of how they shaped the nation's intellectual heritage.

H.W. Crocker analyzes the wars, military campaigns, and foreign and military policy of the United States from its inception to the present day, arguing that the problems confronting the U.S. in the war on terror are the result of political failures rather than military ones

1859: Harpers Ferry -- 1861: Fort Sumter, First Manassas -- 1862: Shiloh, Antietam -- 1863: Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Chattanooga -- 1864: The Wilderness, Spotsylvania, North Anna, Cold Harbor, & Petersburg -- 1865: Sherman's Carolinas Campaign, From Five Forks to Appomattox Court House -- Hardluck Ironclad Cairo.

The Amistad test of law and justice -- The ancient foundations of modern slavery -- The origins of antiblack racism in the New World -- How Africans became integral to New World history -- The Atlantic slave system : Brazil and the Caribbean -- Slavery in Colonial North America -- The problem of slavery in the American Revolution -- The impact of the French and Haitian revolutions -- Slavery in the nineteenth-century South I : from contradiction to defense -- Slavery in the nineteenth-century south II : from slaveholder treatment and the nature of labor to slave culture, sex and religion, and free Blacks -- Some nineteenth-century slave conspiracies and revolts -- Explanations of British abolitionism -- Abolitionism in America -- The politics of slavery in the United States -- The Civil War and slave emancipation.

Bender offers a provocative argument that demonstrates why American history must be placed in a global context, explaining that the obstacles being faced by the United States have been overcome in the past by other countries whose examples can impart powerful lessons.

Revised edition

An updated study of the Supreme Court from 1787 to the present day profiles every justice from John Jay to Samuel Alito, Jr., and examines the cases that have transformed American history and the court's controversial rulings on such issues as racial segregation, abortion, gay rights, and free speech.

Presidential historian Beschloss has brought us a saga about crucial times in America's history when a courageous president dramatically changed the future of the United States. Beschloss brings to life these flawed, complex men--and their wives, families, friends and foes, in an intimate, behind-the-scenes view of presidents coping with the supreme dilemmas of their lives.

Nathaniel Philbrick's history of the Pilgrim settlement of New England challenges popular misconceptions and discusses topics such as the diseases of European origin suffered by Native Americans, the fragile working relationship between the Pilgrims and their Native American neighbors, and the devastating impact of the King Philip's War. Unabridged on 11 sound discs

Updated and expanded ed., Unabridged on 20 sound discs