The preeminent historian of the American Revolution explains why it remains the most significant event in our history.
More than almost any other nation in the world, the United States began as an idea. For this reason, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Gordon S. Wood believes that the American Revolution is the most important event in our history, bar none. Since American identity is so fluid and not based on any universally shared heritage, we have had to continually return to our nation's founding to understand who we are. In The Idea of America, Wood reflects on the birth of American nationhood and explains why the revolution remains so essential.

What were the forces that thrust the British Empire to its extraordinary position of greatness and then just as powerfully drove it into decline? And why is nearly every nation on earth, in one way or another, the consequence of the British Empire?

Written in a style similar to that of Nigel Slater's multi-award-winning food memoir 'Toast', this is a celebration of the glory, humour, eccentricities and embarrassments that are The British at Table. The British have a relationship with their food that is unlike that of any other country. Once something that was never discussed in polite company, it is now something with which the nation is obsessed. But are we at last developing a food culture or are we just going through the motions?

Animals can tell us a lot about ourselves. The way we love them as pets, eat them for dinner, make them symbols of the nation or shun them as invaders and pests illuminates much about our society and culture. Animal Nation traces the complex relationships between animals and humans in Australia. It starts with the colonial period—when unfamiliar native animals were hunted almost to extinction and replaced with preferred species—and brings us full circle to the present when native species are protected above all others.

The Liberty Bell, which resides in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that s over 260 years old can be traced back to William Penn. Created to commemorate Penn s visionary work, it now stands as one of our nation s most valued symbols of peace, liberty, and freedom for all! Read all about William Penn and his visions for our great nation, and all the facts about this old, cracked bell that doesn t even ring anymore!