Examines how the educations of America's first four presidents, and in particular their scholarly devotion to ancient Greek and Roman classics, informed the beliefs and ideals that shaped the nation's constitution and government.

A troubled soldier, returning from the war, meets his talented five-year-old nephew, leaves an indelible impression, and then disappears for 23 years. Cut to 1970: The nephew, now drawing underground comic books in Oakland, California, reconnects with his uncle and, remembering the comic book he saw when he was five, draws a new version with his uncle as a World War II fighting hero. Cut to the present day: A commercially successful director discovers...

Jon Meacham helps us understand the present moment in American politics and life by looking back at critical times in our history when hope overcame division and fear. He explores contentious periods an dhow presidents and citizens came together to defeat the forces of anger, intolerance, and extremism.--

The New Deciders presents surprising numbers and the gripping real-life stories behind population change, demonstrating how demography becomes destiny for politics in the 2016 election and beyond. It looks at Black millennial voters in North Carolina, Cleveland Muslims organizing to fight Islamphobia through the ballot, a Florida Latino couple from Orlando redefining the political power of Christian evangelicals, and finally at Asian-American candidates...

From hand tools to holidays to weapons to washing machines, "An Uncommon History of Common Things" features hundreds of colorful illustrations, timelines, sidebars, and more as it explores just about every subject under the sun. Who knew that indoor plumbing has been around for 4,600 years, but punctuation, capital letters, and the handy spaces between written words only date back to the Dark Ages? Or that ancient soldiers baked a kind of pizza on...

When the pressures of early 1800s westward expansion and debt threaten to destroy everything he's built, a troubled Revolutionary War veteran embarks on an audacious plan involving setting one of his male slaves as his breeding sire.

[Introduction] -- Why is America called the "Land of the Free"? -- How was America going to be different than it was before the Revolution? -- Why did the founders start changing the Constitution right away? -- How does the Bill of Rights give us freedom to stand up for what we believe? -- With the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, America was a perfectly free country, right? -- Wait a minute- slavery is the opposite...

The residents of Union Grove, New York, struggle to get through early spring after a local tycoon halts the Hudson River trade route.

Offers examples of the qualities that make America a deserved leader of the Western world, as well as a target for criticism and terrorism, and refutes four major critiques.