Gems of American History - Encounter Books

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Gems of American History

The Lecturer's Art

$32.99
Available 04/29/2025
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Publication Details

Hardcover / 336 pages
ISBN: 9781641774338
Available: 04/29/2025


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Gems of American History
The Lecturer's Art

The American story is one of great physical, intellectual, and spiritual adventure. Gems of American History explores how this extraordinary republic came to be—and what is required to preserve its legacy of liberty.

In this collection of twelve essays, renowned historian Walter McDougall examines some of the most pivotal events and figures of the American saga to date. He revisits the “Machiavellian moment” that ignited the awakening of republican thought across the Atlantic. He reflects on the forging of America’s civic identity from its earliest seeds in the colonial era. His profiles of William Penn, Benjamin Franklin, and the philanthropist and tycoon Stephen Girard reveal the profound role Philadelphia played in shaping the nation. He recounts the story of the Wright brothers’ romance with flight and how it captures America’s indefatigable spirit.

McDougall also warns that, for more than a century, leaders following in the footsteps of Woodrow Wilson have ushered the United States down a path of foreign policy ruin that undermines our national interests and threatens the very heart of our national character.

Leavened with a lifelong scholar’s wisdom and insight, Gems of American History assembles the wide-ranging sources of American principles and traditions, many of which have been lost to ideological amnesia, in a way that helps explain who we are, and where we are going.


About the Author

Dr. Walter A. McDougall is the Alloy-Ansin Professor of International Relations and Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, where he has become legendary among students. His many honors include the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for history.

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