The Shortest History of the United States

Discover the 250-year story of a nation often divided, and the people who have stood up for its citizens' inalienable rights
The United States was founded based on the monumental idea that everyone deserves the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Yet throughout our two hundred and fifty years as an independent country, we have faced many obstacles to these self-evident truths: slavery, wars, economic depressions. Still, the United States is one of the most powerful nations in the world and is a hub for global economics, innovation, and culture. How did a nation, which throughout its history has hardly been united, become one of the biggest global superpowers of the twenty-first century?
Don Watson dissects both the flaws and triumphs of our nation's history in The Shortest History of the United States. He traces moments of liberty and justice, inequity and oppression, to show how a country at war with itself in the 1860s, and the leader of the free world less than a hundred years later, became a nation beset by wild division and turmoil in the twenty-first century. Along the way he highlights the key figures who have fought for our inalienable truths—in politics and at home, on the frontiers and in our cities, in our books and music and on our screens. A sweeping history of a profoundly multicultural country, The Shortest History of the United States shows how our country continues to stand while fighting for unity and justice for all.

Don Watson is an author and screenwriter who formerly worked as a political adviser and speechwriter. He is the author of three Quarterly Essays and many acclaimed books, including Recollections of a Bleeding Heart, American Journeys, The Bush, Watsonia, and The Passion of Private White.