We have a glut of text and trade books on American history. But what we
don't have is a compact, inexpensive, authoritative, and compulsively
readable book that will offer to American readers 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, will 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 to American readers the greater arc of their own
history. Or they disproportionately reflect the outlook of radical
critics of American society, whose one-sided accounts lack the balance
of a larger perspective and have had an enormous, and largely negative,
effect upon the teaching of American history in American high schools
and colleges.
This state of affairs cannot continue for long without producing serious
consequences. 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.
