In this social history, Edward Countryman shows how interactions among America's different ethnic groups have contributed to our sense of nationality. From the earliest settlements along the Atlantic seaboard to the battle over our nation's destiny in the aftermath of the Civil War, Countryman reveals Americans in all their diverse complexity and shows why the very identity of "American"-forged by the African, the Indian, and the European alike-is what matters.
"A useful contribution to you ever changing, ever more complex, understanding of who we are."
Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post
"With a marvelous and graceful command of detail, Countryman takes us forward through the shared experiences of all . . . Americans stands as the fairest, most sympathetic, most effectively compact synthesis of the nation's ethnic history that anyone has produced."
Carlin Romano, The Boston Globe
"The picture of Americans that emerges in this book is diverse in the best sense. In delineating the contours of the nation's ethnic makeup, Mr. Countryman avoids pat generalizations and political partisanship. he innovatively synthesizes relevant, often unfamiliar information and presents it with disarming directness . . . Americans admirably provides what we have long needed: a compact, illumina
