Remembering America

“In this intriguing book, Lawrence R. Samuel illuminates how Americans have told and understood their history, and why it matters. He shows how that story has changed over time and why the telling of our past is so intensely debated in the present. A great read on a vitally important topic.”—Elaine Tyler May, author of America and the Pill: A History of Promise, Peril, and Liberation

“Lawrence Samuel has written an engaging and original cultural history of U.S. history itself in which he makes a compelling case for the continuing importance of American history in American life. Although Americans are a notoriously forward-looking people, Samuel demonstrates just how deeply invested we are in the past. . . . He shows us arguing, often passionately, about the past precisely because history is so central to our identity, both individually and collectively.”—M. Todd Bennett, author of One World, Big Screen: Hollywood, the Allies, and World War II

“Remembering America is a stimulating and revealing reference for the scholar, educator, and student of the American historical past. Excluding nothing from his purview, Lawrence R. Samuel enlivens and expands the boundaries of historiographical inquiry with a rare gift for wide-ranging cultural observation and analysis distinguished by a pop sensibility.”—William Bird, curator, Division of Political History, Smithsonian Institution