The American Future: A History

Historian Simon Schama looks to American history to explain the present-day motivations, expectations and crises of the nation. As the United States built to its 2008 Presidential elections, the country underwent an intense self-examination about the trajectory of its history; how it came to find itself in multiple crises - 9/11, Katrina, Enron, Baghdad - and how and America that began as 'the last best hope for mankind' came to be so suspected and vilified around much of the world. Historian and Columbia University professor Simon Schama, who has spent half his life in the United States, traces how the superpower has reached the point of questioning its own identity as a nation. Taking the long perspective, Schama looks at four of the critical issues facing the country: war, moral fervor, immigration and the increasingly difficult relationship between expectations of prosperity and the reality of economic and environmental limits. Turning to fascinating moments in American history to understand the present, connecting legendary presences such as Thomas Jefferson, Henry Ford, Mark Twain and General Lucius Clay with contemporary soldiers, businessmen, truckers, schoolteachers and (even) politicians, this series offers a timely and gripping vision of the United States - past and present - facing its moment of truth. (official distributor synopsis)