History of US

Thousands of years ago - way before Christopher Columbus set sail - wandering tribes of hunters made their way from Asia across the Bering land bridge to North America. They didn't know it, but they had discovered a New World. The First Americans is a fascinating re-creation of pre-Columbian Native American life, and it's an adventure of a lifetime! Hunt seals with Inuit; harvest corn on a cliff-top mesa; hunt the mighty buffalo; and set sail with Leif Eriksson, Columbus, and all the early explorers - Cabot, Balboa, Ponce de Leon, Cortes, Henry the Navigator, and others - in this captivating history of America before it was America.

People are coming to America-all kinds of people. If you're European, you come in search of freedom or riches. If you're African, you come in chains. And what about the Indians, what is happening to them? Soon with the influx of so many people, thirteen unique colonies are born, each with its own story. Meet Pocahontas and John Smith in Jamestown. Join William Penn and the Quakers in Pennsylvania. Sit with the judges at the Salem witch trials. Hike over the mountains with Daniel Boone. And let Ben Franklin give you some salty advice in his Poor Richard's Almanac in this remarkable journey through the dynamic creation of what one day becomes the United States.

How did compliant colonials with strong ties to Europe get the notion to become an independent nations? Perhaps the seeds of liberty were planted in the 1735 historic courtroom battle for the freedom of the press. Or maybe the French and Indian War did it, when colonists were called "Americans" for the first time by the English, and the great English army proved itself no so formidable after all. But for sure when King George III started levying some heavy-handed taxes on the colonies, the break from the motherland was imminent. With such enthralling characters as George Washington, Sam Adams, Patrick Henry, Eliza Pinckney, and Alexander Hamilton, From Colonies to Country is an amazing story of a nation-making transformation. - from the audiobook cover

Beginning with George Washington's inauguration and continuing into the nineteenth century, The New Nation, tells the story of the remarkable challenges that the new country faced. Thomas Jefferson's purchase of the Louisiana Territory (bought from France at a mere four cents an acre!), Lewis and Clark's daring expedition through the wilderness, the War of 1812 a.k.a. "Revolutionary War, Part II", Tecumseh's effort to form an Indian confederacy, the growth of Southern plantations, the beginning of the abolitionist movement, and the disgraceful Trail of Tears are just a few of the setbacks, sidetracks, and formidable tasks put in the new nation's path. These dramatic events and more are woven into a seamless tale that's so exciting, how could it be true? But it is-it's A History of US.

Early nineteenth-century America could just about be summed up by Henry David Thoreau's words when he said, "Eastward I go only by force, but westward I go free." It was an exuberant time for the diverse citizens of the United States, who included a range of folks from mountain men and railroad builders to whalers and farmers, as they pushed forward into the open frontier, and all their hopes and fears are captured in Liberty for All? In addition to colorful accounts of the massive westward migration, the California Gold Rush, a war with Mexico, the Oregon boundary conflict, Texas and the Alamo, Liberty for All? takes a deep look at the issue that began to gnaw at the country's core: How, in the land where "all men are created equal," could there be slaves? - from the audiobook cover

Riveting and moving, War, Terrible War takes us into the heart of the Civil War, from the battle of Manassas to the battle of Gettysburg and on to the South's surrender at Appomattox Court House. Follow the common soldiers in blue and gray as they endure long marches, freezing winter camps, and the bloodiest battles ever fought on American soil. Off the ware fields, War, Terrible War captures the passion and commitment of abolitionists and slave owners alike in their fiery debates throughout the land. With profiles of Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, John Brown, Harriet Tubman, Jefferson Davis, soldiers on both sides, slave owners, abolitionists, average citizens, and others, War, Terrible War is the compelling story of a people affected by the horrors of war during this tragic and dramatic period in A History of US.

Covering a time of great hope and incredible change, Reconstructing America is a dramatic look at life after the Civil War in the newly re-United States. Railroad tycoons were roaming across the country. New cities sprang up across the plains, and a new and different American West came into being: a land of farmers, ranchers, miners, and city dwellers. Back east, large-scale immigration was also going on, but not all Americans wanted newcomers in the country. Technology moved forward: Thomas Edison lit up the world with his electric light. And social justice was on everyone's mind with Carry Nation wielding a hatchet in her battle against drunkenness and Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois counseling newly freed African Americans to behave in very different ways. Through it all, the reunited nation struggles to keep the promises of freedom in this exciting chapter of A History of US.

For the captains of industry-men like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan, and Henry Ford-the Gilded Age is a time of big money. Technology boomed with the invention of trains, telephones, electric lights, harvesters, vacuum cleaners, and more. But for millions of immigrant workers, it is a time of big struggles, with adults and children alike working 12 to 14 hour a day under extreme, dangerous conditions. The disparity between the rich and the poor was dismaying, which prompted some of the people to action. In An Age of Extremes, you will meet Mother Jones, Ida Tarbell, Big Bill Haywood, Sam Gompers, and other movers and shakers, and get swept up in the enthusiasm of Teddy Roosevelt. You'll also watch the United States tae its greatest role on the world stage since the Revolution, as it enters the bloody battlefields of Europe in World War I.

From woman's suffrage to Babe Ruth's home runs, from Louis Armstrong's jazz to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's presidential terms, from the finale of one world war to the dramatic close of the second, War, Peace, and All That Jazz presents the story of some of the most exciting years in U.S. history. With the end of World War I, many Americans decided to live it up, going to movies, driving cars, and cheering baseball games aplenty. But alongside this post-WWI spree was high unemployment, hard times for farmers, ever-present racism, and, finally, the Depression, the worst economic disaster in U.S. history, flip-flopping the nation from prosperity to scarcity. Along came one of our country's greatest leaders, F.D.R., who promised a New Deal, gave Americans hope, and then saw them through the horrors and victories of World War II. These three decades-full of optimism and despair, progress and Depression, and, of course, War, Peace, and All That Jazz-forever changed the United States.

People call it "post-war," but All the People covers a period in U.S. history that features battles of another kind-from Cold War combat overseas to struggles for equality at home to learning to live with the threat of terrorism on U.S. soil. During these years, the United States began to be a nation for all its people, outlawing school segregation, protesting war in Vietnam, and campaigning for equal rights for women. From Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall to seamstress Rosa Parks, extraordinary individuals led us back to the ideals espoused by the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. But mostly-as it always has been in the United States-it was ordinary citizens who marched and voted and hoped and dreamed and made things happen. All the People included the events of September 11, 2001, and a discussion of how many aspects of the terrorist attacks have brought to the forefront the qualities that keep America strong: representative democracy, freedom of speech and press, and, especially in the face of religious totalitarianism, the basic freedom of religious tolerance.