Includes bibliographical references and index.

Original sin--American slavery, American freedom -- Roots in religious zealotry -- Whose Empire? -- Patriots or insurgents? -- Independence and Civil War (part one) -- Whose revolution? (part two) -- Flowering or excess of democracy -- Counter-revolution of 1787?- New constitution, new nation -- George Washington's turbulent administration -- Liberty versus order -- The Jefferson enigma -- The forgotten and peculiar war of 1812 -- Birth of an era of revolutions -- Andrew Jackson's white male world and the start of modern politics -- The fraudulent Mexican-American War -- A broken Union -- The second American Civil War-the slow, perilous shift to emancipation -- Reconstruction, a failed experiment? -- Lies we tell ourselves about the old West -- Wealth and squalor in the Progressive Era -- The tragic dawn of overseas imperialism -- A savage war to end all wars, and a failed peace -- The decade the roared and wept -- FDR and his deal for a desperate time -- From isolationism to a Second World conflagration -- Just how good was the "Good War"? -- A cruel, costly, and anxious Cold War -- JFK's Cold War chains -- Vietnam, and American tragedy -- Civil rights, a dream deferred -- Nixon's dark legacy -- Carter's cage of crisis -- The Reagan revolution -- Bush the elder--struggling in Reagan's shadow -- Bill Clinton, the new Democrat -- Bush II and the birth of forever war -- The Obama disappointment -- Epilogue: A once, always, and future empire.