Includes list of maps and index

List of maps. Introduction: Making history. Where the birds led; A continent in space and time; Out of one, many; A golden age and the age of golden; When worlds collide; How can I be saved?; Saints and strangers; Boom country; Equal and unequal; Enlightened and awakened; Be careful what you wish for; More than a quarrel; Equal and independent; More perfect union; Washington´s fear; Empire of liberty; Man of the people; Cotton kindoms; Burnerd over. Frontiers; Croassing the line; What was coming; How do you reconstruc?; The next big thing; The color of your cllar; A tale of two cities; The new west; Luck of pluck?; The progressives; Smashumps; The masses; A new deal; Global war; Superpower; The end of the world; You or you or you; The avalanche; A conservative turn; Connected; The past asks more. Acknowledgments.

How did a land and people of such immense diversity come together under a banner of freedom and equality to form one of the most remarkable nations in the world? Everyone from young adults to grandparents will be fascinated by the answers uncovered in James West Davidson´s vividly told A Little History of the United States. In three hundred fast-moving pages, Davidson guides listeners through five hundred years, from the first contact between the two halves of the world to the rise of America as a superpower in an era of atomic perils and diminishing resources.In short, vivid chapters the book brings to life hundreds of individuals whose stories are part of the larger American story. Pilgrim William Bradford stumbles into an Indian deer trap on his first day in America; Harriet Tubman lets loose a pair of chickens to divert attention from her escaping slaves; the toddler Andrew Carnegie, later an ambitious industrial magnate, gobbles his oatmeal with a spoon in each hand. Such stories are riveting in themselves, but they also spark larger questions to ponder about freedom, equality, and unity in the context of a nation that is, and always has been, remarkably divided and diverse.